Performance Tech raising the game in IMSA PC

The mano-a-mano lap time battle between Pato O'Ward and Bruno Junqueira made for a fascinating close to Saturday's Chevy Sports Car Classic.

Hidden in the subtext of Wayne Taylor Racing's improbable run to five straight wins and a hard-fought breakthrough victory for Acura's NSX GT3 program, the almost forgotten PC class offered an intriguing theme to follow.

With only three cars in the category, PC has been a shell of its former self; this part isn't a secret. Set to disappear after the season finale, most PC entrants have moved on to other classes or stepped back while plotting their next move.

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But for those who continue to show up to the dance, namely Performance Tech Motorsport and BAR1 Motorsports, a fun duel has broken out between their respective professional and amateur drivers. Detroit delivered another gem as Mexican teenager O'Ward took it upon himself to use Performance Tech's No. 38 PC car as his personal annihilation device against BAR1's Junqueira in the No. 26 machine.

Going up against the Brazilian – a former Indy car ace and Indy 500 polesitter – made for great theater as O'Ward threw his car around the Belle Isle street course and, like every PC race held this year, Junqueira and the rest of the PC opposition was powerless to stop the No. 38.

Four races in, O'Ward and teammate James French are perfect, with big wins at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Circuit of The Americas and Detroit. And beyond the win streak in a depleted PC class, Performance Tech is getting to Victory Lane in style, with emphatic drives that would stand out as remarkable in any of the recent IMSA seasons.

O'Ward's fastest lap on Saturday was almost a half-second better than Junqueira could manage, and at the end of the brief 1h40m race, a full lap separated the PC winners from second place. For good measure, the No. 38's fastest lap of 1m25.664s was precariously close to matching two of the LMP2-based Prototypes – a Riley/Multimatic Mk 30 and a Nissan Onroak DPi – that posted fastest laps in the 1m25.2s range.

Forget phoning it in or taking it easy with just two cars to beat; Performance Tech and its drivers are acting like they have a dozen cars on their heels, and the results have been stellar.

"Our program is pretty good this year," team owner Brent O'Neill told RACER. "Everywhere we've gone it's been poles and lap records and wins. Our whole team is focused on winning, and I'd say our entire program, in all the series we run in, has gotten pretty good."

O'Neill has heard the criticism regarding PC's diminished stature. It hasn't changed his outlook or lessened his aggressive approach to dealing with the opposition.

"I sat in the pre-race meeting at Detroit and told everyone that we're racing the walls today," he said. "Bruno [Junqueira] had a hard time getting within a second of Pato most of the time. And Pato and James feed off each other; I've never seen two young drivers that work that way. I've had a lot of young kids drive for me, and these are the only ones who make each other better."

Watching O'Ward thrive in a prototype has been one of the joys of the season to date, but his pace shouldn't come as a surprise. The race-winning Mazda Road to Indy driver should be in Indy Lights on a full-time basis and headed toward a career in IndyCar. Simply put, the 18-year-old's talent surpasses anything he'll find in the PC class. It's with his teammate French where the truly impressive rise has been found.

The 25-year-old Wisconsin native (pictured) has used the PC class as a development tool to learn alongside pro drivers, and while he was once considered among the best amateurs in the category, his performances in 2017 suggest he's operating at a much higher level.

"Pato is doing exactly what you'd hope for and James is reacting to what they're doing together with some really great driving," O'Neil added. "They complement each other and James is there every step of the way with Pato. That part of how our season has gone has been a true pleasure."

With PC speeding toward extinction, O'Neill isn't sure where Performance Tech will compete within IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next year. Keeping O'Ward and French together, along with developing some of the younger drivers the team fields in IMSA's LMP3 series, would be his first choice.

"We've got James and Pato, Kyle Masson won with them at Daytona and Sebring, Andres Gutierrez is a growing talent in P3, and I'd love to bring them all into Prototype if we can make that happen," he said. "We have something special going on here and keeping it going is what I'm after."