Taylor-Miller grab IMSA TCR title at the start of the last race
Chris Miller and Mikey Taylor were crowned champions of the IMSA TCR class. After an impressive course that saw them scoring four race wins in their JDC-Miller MotorSports Audi RS 3 LMS, all they needed to do in the season finale at Road Atlanta was to score the points for the 11th place. Which meant just to start the race, because the withdrawal of the Racer Edge Motorsports Honda after the practice for mechanical problems had reduced the field to eleven cars. Therefore, the team secured the title when Miller took the green flag at the start of the two-hour race in which the Audi was never fighting for the top positions and finished sixth.
“We had an ‘off’ in qualifying, so the team worked until midnight repairing the damage,” Taylor explained. “Of course, it was in our minds that we had won the championship, but we wanted to finish the season on a high note. Although the crew did a fantastic job fixing the car, it was not exactly right. The Hyundai cars had more speed and a couple of them went the distance on one pit stop, where we had to stop twice.”
The victory went to Mark Wilkins and Mason Filippi in one of the Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai Elantra N cars, that secured the Manufacturers title to the team for the fifth year running, with the sister car of Denis Dupont and Preston Brown finishing second.
Another Hyundai car, the #99 run by the Victor González Racing Team and driven by Tyler Gonzalez and Morgan Burkhard had dominated the race from the start, but as the white flag waved to signal the final lap, Gonzalez entered the pit lane for a splash of fuel, handing the win to Wilkins and Filippi.
“We were all in the same boat trying to get to the end,” Wilkins said after he and Filippi won their second straight race of the season and second straight at Road Atlanta. “It was a battle of who did a better job of getting there and I guess they were waiting for a yellow that never came.”
Road Atlanta – Race
- M. Filippi/M. Wilkins (Bryan Herta Autosport, Hyundai Elantra N), 74 laps
- D. Dupont/P. Brown (Bryan Herta Autosport, Hyundai Elantra N), 1.151
- D. Yoshihara/K. Wittmer (Montreal Motorsport, Honda Civic Type R FL5), 4.158
Championship points
- C. Miller/M. Taylor, 3000 pts; 2. M. Filippi/M. Wilkins, 2890; 3. R. Wickens/H. Gottsacker, 2880
Picture: IMSA/LAT Images
