| POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (October 8, 2023) – A podium finish Saturday at Virginia International Raceway in his #16 GYM WEED Ford Mustang secured Chris Dyson’s third consecutive Trans Am by Pirelli National Series Championship. One race remains on the 2023 schedule, but Dyson now has an unassailable lead in the points standings. Simply scoring a 9th-place finish would have ensured the title, but while the race was dominated by 17-year-old guest driver Connor Zilisch, Dyson raced both hard and smart all the way through the 100-mile sprint, engaged in what the broadcast’s winner’s circle commentator called “the race to watch” for the other two podium positions with Austrian guest driver Ragginger and Justin Marks, the driver who has provided Dyson’s strongest head-to-head competition over the course of the season. After a back-and-forth battle with the pair Dyson passed Marks for third place with two laps remaining. His pursuit of Ragginger for second place came up less than three-tenths of a second short. “Those guys sure didn’t make it easy for me,” Dyson said after climbing from his car. “It was a hell of a fight! These cars are so amazing to race and especially at a fast and flowing track like VIR. Today was fantastic out there with Justin and Martin. I am pretty sure we had a P2 car but traffic was the wild card and no one was giving an inch. But it was clean and fair racing. A lot of trust and respect between the three of us. This third championship, it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. But I am so proud of the team’s efforts. We worked very hard for this one and to clinch the Drivers and Team Championships this way, with such a memorable race, it’s very meaningful to me.” Dyson’s three-peat of National Trans Am Series titles puts him in elite company. Prior to Dyson, only Tommy Kendall (1995-1997) and Ernie Francis, Jr. (2017-2020) had ever achieved that milestone in the series’ over half-century history. Next Up: Circuit of the Americas The Trans Am Series’ next event is November 5-8 at Circuit of the Americas in Autin, Texas. COTA is the final round of the 2023 Trans Am by Pirelli season. “It will be great to be at COTA with championship decided,” Dyson said. “We will be totally focused on winning the race.” Dyson noted that the team will bring both the five-year-old GYM WEED Mustang that has carried him to his three championships as well as the new car the CD Racing team has been developing over the course of the season. “We have never paused our R&D on all fronts, and while we will most definitely celebrate today, pretty soon the attention turns to the future. You can never stand still in racing. COTA should give us a sense of where we stand looking ahead to 2024.”VIR Rebroadcast Schedule A 60-minute feature on the VIR race will be broadcast this Thursday at 9:00 p.m. ET to MAVTV’s 22 million North American linear households and 175 million connected devices. For more on Chris Dyson Racing, visit chrisdysonracing.com |
