Acura Motorsports Race Report
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Pirelli World Challenge Canadian Grand Prix
2.458-mile road course – Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada
Weather: Cloudy, damp, 72 degrees F
RealTime Racing’s Ryan Eversley Earns Acura’s First Podium of 2016
• Eversley parlays season-best qualifying result into season-best finish
• Peter Cunningham claims two contingency awards in Saturday’s opener
• Acura TLX GT earns first podium finish since March 2015
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario, Canada – (May 22, 2016) – RealTime Racing’s Ryan Eversley turned his best qualifying performance into the first podium finish of the 2016 season for the Acura TLX GT Saturday afternoon at Round Eight of the Pirelli World Challenge at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.
Eversley turned a best lap of 1:15.682 around the 10-turn, 2.458-mile CTMP road course to claim the third spot on the grid, and fought off Adderly Fong’s Bentley through 39 laps of green-flag racing to claim his maiden podium of the 2016 campaign.
“It was very emotional to be back on the podium,” Eversley said. “It’s been over a year since we’ve been there and if you look at the history of RealTime, they are a very successful team, so to get us back up there was huge. It was a huge shot in the arm to see all the guys happy and high-fiving and laughing at the podium, because all the hard work they put in finally showed in the result.”
Team owner Peter Cunningham also had a strong Saturday event, gaining four positions from his starting spot to place 13th. The run earned the multiple series champion driver the Motortrendondemand.com Clean Pass of the Race and the VP Fuels Hard Charger of the Race Award.
“I wasn’t happy with the car in qualifying, but in the race, it felt a lot better,” reported Cunningham. “I was able to string some laps together and it worked out well. We made a couple tweaks to the chassis. It was a combination of that and getting to run more laps in succession— rather than just in- and out-laps like in practice and qualifying—that allowed me to get in a groove.”
Eversley started third again for Sunday’s ninth round of the PWC GT championship, but a pre-race rain shower took the grip out of the middle part of the course. Eversley fought off Fong at the start, but found himself sandwiched between Fong and J.D. Davison heading into Turn Four, and contact then put Eversley hard into the barriers.
“I had a decent start and I kept my line down the middle of the straight,” recalled Eversley. “Meanwhile, [Fong] was on my right rear and we were all racing into Turn Four and [Davison] came over on me. To avoid wrecking him, I moved over to the right and Fong had overlapped me by that point, so it put me into the wall.”
Cunningham again improved his standing in Sunday’s event, gaining a pair of spots to finish 12th after starting 14th, while Eversley ended up 23rd after his accident.
“This weekend certainly ended up a mixed bag,” said Acura program senior engineer Lee Niffenegger. “We experienced a high with our best qualifying effort and first podium of the season in Race One showing that things are heading in the right direction. Unfortunately, our weekend ended on a low with aggressive driving by a competitor ending Race Two early for the #43 Acura TLX GT. It ruined what would have been a shot at another podium. Unfortunately, the damage is pretty severe and the car won’t make the next round with just a couple days in between after the travel day to Lime Rock.”
The RealTime Racing squad will need to evaluate alternative plans for this weekend, as the series heads to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut for Rounds 10 and 11 on Friday and Saturday.
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 Acura TLX.