Chris Haldeman Earns Season-Best Second in TCA Event in Portland

Chris Haldeman Earns Season-Best Second in TCA Event in Portland
• Haldeman comes up just short of season’s first victory in TCA
• Taylor Hagler earns pair of top-five results
• Cole Ciraulo places fourth in weekend’s opening TCA race

PORTLAND, Ore. – (July 15, 2019) – Chris Haldeman did about as much as you can do to win a race at this weekend’s Rose Cup Races at the Portland International Raceway, but had to settle for a season-best second-place finish in Sunday’s SRO Motorsports Group Touring Car America event as his hunt for his first TCA class victory of the year continues.

Honda Civic Si TCA
Haldeman led qualifying for Saturday’s opening race in his X-Factor Racing Honda Civic Si, earning his first pole position of the 2019 TCA season. The Texan rolled away at the green flag and led the first eight laps before yielding the top spot to eventual race winner Nick Wittmer, in a race where Haldeman would end up a lap down in 10th following a late-race mechanical issue.

But Saturday was just a tempting appetizer for a tasty Sunday’s second race during the doubleheader weekend, in which Haldeman was part of a four-car scramble over the final laps around Portland’s challenging 1.965-mile layout. This time it was Haldeman wresting the lead from the pole-sitting Wittmer after three laps, as he looked to secure his first win of the season.

Unfortunately, a mere five laps after having taken the lead, Haldeman’s charge was blunted by a lengthy red flag after Robert Crocker went into the tire wall between Turns 2 and 3, necessitating a long cleanup period. When the work was done, it left only five minutes on the race clock to settle the matter.

Haldeman took the green flag ahead of Wittmer, Tyler Maxson and Mark Pombo on the restart and paced the penultimate lap, but Maxson slipped by on the final trip around. The X-Factor Honda and Maxson’s Mazda went door-to-door through Turns 5, 6 and 7, but that battle slowed the lead duo and gave Pombo an opportunity to charge. The MINI Cooper pilot swept by both leaders in Turn 9 and outraced Haldeman to the finish line by just 0.484 seconds.

Meanwhile, the five-car X-Factor team recorded numerous other good finishes over the weekend. Taylor Hagler finished fifth in both races, stretching her streak to three straight fifth-place results in TCA, dating to the Sonoma event in June. Cole Ciraulo beat Hagler to the line by a scant 0.430 second in Saturday’s opener to place fourth, marking a season-best finish.

Honda Civic Type R TCR
In the TCR class, Sonoma race winner Victor Gonzalez took his Honda Civic Type R TCR to fourth place on Saturday and sixth on Sunday

Social media content and video links from this weekend’s Honda Racing activities from Portland are available on HPD’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD) and on Twitter at (https://twitter.com/HondaRacing_HPD).

Next
Both the TCR and TCA classes of the Touring Car America series will next complete at Watkins Glen International Raceway, in update New York, for rounds 11 and 12 of the 16-race season over the August 30-September 1 Labor Day weekend.