Watkins Glen pivotal for IMSA points battles

Some teams are heading to Upstate New York in search of championship salvation, while others, a precious few, view this weekend's Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen as the place to move the class titles out of reach.

Of IMSA's four WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes, only two remain wide open as the series accelerates past the halfway mark of the 2017 season.

In Prototype, it's been an all-Cadillac and all-Wayne Taylor Racing affair with five wins from five races in the 10-round championship. In PC, Performance Tech Motorsports has taken all four of the races so far in its eight-race season. GT Le Mans, which is playing catch-up, has only run four of its 11 races this year, but heads to Watkins Glen with Corvette Racing on a three-race win streak and a modest lead over Ford. And GT Daytona, with five races down in its busy 12-race calendar, has seen Mercedes-AMG go on a three-race victory run between an opening win for Porsche and the most recent win for Acura as multiple brands vie for the title.

Starting with IMSA's top class, WTR could effectively end the Prototype championship chase with another win. With its 30-point lead over its stablemates, the two-car Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R team, WTR has a large and comfortable cushion, thanks to IMSA's point payout system. Prototype's limited class size also factors into the equation.

With 10 cars showing up for most races, finishing last would deliver WTR 21 points for placing 10th. A win, worth 35 points, would help AXR's No. 5 Cadillac (-30 points) and the sister No. 31 (-34 points) to draw down WTR's lead, but with five races left, WTR would need to finish last at least twice and AXR would need to have one car do most of the winning to unseat the championship leader.

Without getting into the hundred different scenarios that could play out, WTR's five wins and a point structure that does not penalize teams for having a bad day is reason the team finds itself on Easy Street. The worst thing that could happen for WTR's title challengers is for the AXR duo or the JDC-Miller Motorsports team (-42 points) or the No. 22 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan (-48 points) to trade wins from Watkins Glen to the Road Atlanta finale.

To topple WTR, one car needs to get started on a multi-race winning streak and have the WTR Cadillac hit adversity on a regular basis. Anything other than that scenario hands WTR the Drivers' and Teams' titles. On the Manufacturers' front, go ahead and hand the crown to Cadillac.

Returning to the points, with a win paying 35 points, second offering 32, third giving 30, fourth providing 28 and fifth worth 26, the separation between victory and a decent run is minimal, and that's the problem every team other than WTR faces. If Ricky and Jordan Taylor do nothing more than live around the podium during the last five races, their 30-point advantage will survive intact.

Based on their performances so far in 2017, taking a sixth or seventh win isn't such a crazy proposition, and for defending Prototype champion Dane Cameron who pilots the No. 31 AXR Cadillac with Eric Curran, the mission to retain his title has become simplified. Seconds and thirds won't get the job done – not this year.

"All we can do is get a couple of wins on the board and see where we sit at the end of the year," he told RACER. "Anything can happen. Typically, you don't see that many races won on the trot by anybody; it's not normal, for sure. They won the first five and we need to get the last five."

For fans of the Prototype class who've grown bored by one team dominating the top step of the podium, Cameron intends to correct the problem. Whether the Nos. 5 or 31 AXR cars can derail the WTR title train is a different matter.

"We feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities so far, and the only place I feel like we got our butt kicked was COTA," he said. "But that's all in the past now. We're coming up to a lot of tracks that are good for our team, so I don't see any reason why we won't come out guns blazing and go on a rampage.

"It's the same kind of thing like last year. We didn't win until Watkins Glen last year and finished 1-2 in the points, and it's a bit of an uphill battle now, so we'll put everything on the line to correct it. [WTR] might be a bit on conservation mode and we'll be on full attack, so that could help us."

IMSA's PC class, and its tiny car count during the category's swan song, has embodied the tight points structure in place. By virtue of finishing third on three occasions and fourth another time, the No. 20 BAR1 Motorsports entry is only 26 points behind the leading No. 38 Performance Tech PC car. Despite its four straight wins, the No. 38 will need another win or two to safely secure the final PC title, but there's little doubt Pato O'Ward and James French will seal the deal. It's just a matter of time.

GT Le Mans is IMSA's hotbed for full-fledged manufacturer battle and, in 2017, its hottest class for championship competition. Corvette Racing's No. 3 C7.R holds a slim six-point lead over the No. 68 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GT, 14 points over the No. 911 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR, and 16 over the No. 25 BMW Team RLL M6.

With 16 points covering the top four in GTLM, the class dynamic is at a wholly different place than the prototypes; Corvette, Ford, Porsche and BMW are in the midst of a hard fight for manufacturer supremacy and a big win or bad loss could shuffle the championship order.

"There is still the matter of the GTLM championship for Antonio [Garcia] and I," said Jan Magnussen, who shares the leading No. 3 C7.R with the Spaniard. "Watkins Glen is the type of track I really enjoy – fast with great flow and quick corners. We have had success there in the past so hopefully we can have another strong result and earn maximum points."

As the ones being stalked by the rest of the GTLM contenders, Garcia says being smart is the key going forward.

"The strategy and mindset will be a little different," he added. "Let's see how we are compared to our competition and see if we can keep our momentum going in the U.S. The whole of Corvette Racing has been very strong this year. We need to carry on doing the same things we have so far – no mistakes, good strategy and good driving."

Among the four classes, GT Daytona is the only one that sits somewhere in the middle of Prototype and GTLM in terms of separation and closeness. Where WTR holds a big lead over AXR and the rest of the class, and Corvette Racing has three rivals ready to pounce, GTD has two title contenders atop the class and a deep divide from third on down.

The No. 33 Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Ben Keating has a little bit of breathing room – nine points over Scuderia Corsa's Alessandro Balzan and Christina Nielsen in the No. 63 Ferrari 488 GT3, and from there, the gap to third is worrisome.

Paul Miller Racing's No. 48 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 is 27 points behind the No. 33 and 18 shy of the No. 63, which puts drivers Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow in a position similar to what Cameron and Curran have in Prototype. Catching the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari over the next seven rounds is entirely possible, but it will take perfection by the Paul Miller team and mistakes or misfortune with the No. 63. Taking down the Riley Mercedes will involve more perfection and an even bigger dose of adversity for the No. 33 program.

"It's hard to make points up, but the reason we're third is we've given points away at a couple of races and it was by little mistakes that caught us out," Sellers said. "And that could happen to other teams as well. We saw that with the No. 33 team at Detroit with a broken wheel, and with one more of those, and points can swing back your way.

Known as a spirited fighter, Sellers relished the thought of overtaking the Ferrari and Mercedes teams that stand in his way.

"The only way to get back in is to win, and that's the best perspective for a driver," he said. "It's giving it everything you have, and hopefully that makes us more threatening than we'd be otherwise. It is an uphill battle; the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari has been very limited in the mistakes they make, so we have to be ready to pounce at any given time. But we're in a good place. We need to win and win and get back within reach by Road Atlanta."

Once the Six Hours gets under way at Watkins Glen on Sunday (10 a.m. ET, Fox Sports 1, FS2 and IMSA.com), we'll know if Prototype and PC are all but done, if GTLM has a new leader, and if GTD has more than two in contention for the title.

"When you look at the big picture, it's amazing how some have gotten so far out in the standings at this point in the season," Sellers said. "But just as they managed to get that far ahead, there's a lot of racing left in all the classes for teams like ours to do the same thing and get ourselves into position to take it all at Petit Le Mans. We have a lot of miles still to cover and who knows what will happen."