Sean Rayhall has taken a first win in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship for 8Star in the Prototype Challenge class in the first 45 minute sprint race at Virginia International Raceway.
Starting from pole, the 8Star man never looked troubled throughout the race, shared with the IMSA Prototype Lites, with closest challenger Frankie Montecalvo spinning the PR1/Mathieson car on the second lap.
That meant that the RSR Racing Oreca FLM09 of Duncan Ende moved into the runners up spot but didn’t have the pace to keep up with Rayhall on the Virginia track.
However, close to the end of the race a Lites car brought out a full course caution and set up a seven minute sprint to the end with Ende smelling blood and hoping to make a move on the 8Star car.
It wasn’t to be however and the eventual winning margin was 5.5 seconds with the Performance Tech entry of James French scoring the final podium place.
In the Lites class of the sprint, it was yet more joy for Enzo Potolicchio as he won the masters class in a Elan DP02 but it was Mikhail Goikhberg that took overall honours in the class.
For today’s race, Sean Rayhall will swap with Luis Diaz who will be hoping he can continue the good form for the orange liveried machine.
