Acura Motorsports Race Report
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Grand Prix of Sonoma
Circuit: Sonoma Raceway (2.385-mile road course) Sonoma, California
Weather: Sunny, warm, 82 degrees F
Late Pass Earns Saturday Top-10 For Acura’s Ryan Eversley in Sonoma
• Eversley moves to seventh in series points with one race remaining
• RealTime Racing Acura TLX GT has scored top-10 results in 15 of 19 races.
• Eversley wins Saturday’s “Pass of the Race” Award on Saturday
SONOMA, Calif.- (August 30, 2015) – RealTime Racing showed its mettle during a tough weekend at Sonoma Raceway, overcoming a number of challenges that included having both of its Acura TLX GTs caught up in a first-lap incident during Sunday’s Pirelli World Challenge event, the second of the weekend’s two races.
Ryan Eversley used a late-race pass of Michael Lewis to claim a 10th-place finish during Saturday’s event, earning the Invisible Glass “Pass of the Race Award” for his effort. Eversley then battled back after the early incident in Sunday’s race to post a hard-fought 17th-place finish, which boosted Eversley into seventh place in the GT standings with one event left in the 20-race season.
“This RealTime Acura team doesn’t give up,” said Eversley. “After the contact in Sunday’s race we swapped a tire, fixed the body damage and got back out to get some good points for the team. I think that’s something to be really excited about because we expected Sonoma to be our worst track. I’m now honestly looking forward to Laguna Seca and hoping for a top-five finish to end the season!”
It only took two turns for Sunday’s race to turn into chaos for the RealTime Racing Acuras. Mike Skeen’s Audi R8 spun at the right-hand Turn 2 on the opening lap, collecting the Acura TLX of team owner/driver Peter Cunningham and ending his day. Eversley fell back to 26th after pitting to repair the damage to his own car, but he put his head down and powered through the field, gaining nine spots and setting the second-fastest lap of the race in the process.
For the series’ most successful driver, it was a rough end to a rough weekend. Cunningham’s #42 Acura had drivetrain trouble during Saturday race that scuttled his day after only four laps, while Sunday’s race ended courtesy of the Skeen spin after just 1 circuit of the 2.385-mile Sonoma track. The race misfortune was made more painful by the fact that Cunningham had qualified a strong 10th for Saturday’s race before the trouble hit.
“Bad luck for the good guys this weekend,” Cunningham lamented. “My Acura was quick here in Sonoma but I wasn’t able to capitalize. I had a freak mechanical problem on Saturday and got caught up in someone else’s wreck on Sunday. The only thing we can do now is let these RealTime pros do their magic and we’ll come back strong in Monterey in two weeks!”
The team will complete its first full season in the all-wheel drive Acura TLX GT cars in two weeks as the season finale takes place at Laguna Seca Racecway in Monterey, California. Eversley goes into the weekend needing to make up just eight points on Skeen to move into sixth place in the championship, while Cunningham will look improve his 14th-place standing.
Developed from the production Acura TLX by HPD and RealTime Racing, the Acura TLX GT features HPD chassis and aerodynamic performance parts approved for Pirelli World Challenge competition. It is powered by a direct-injected, twin-turbocharged V6 engine, developed by HPD from the production TLX, and will utilize all-wheel drive, as found in Acura’s SH-AWD system.