Bret Spaude (above) along with Andrew Aquilante, each won their respective class in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge event in New Jersey.
The pole-winning teams in both Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge classes completed clean sweeps in the B+ Heroes 200 presented by BCKSTGR at New Jersey Motorsports Park by going on to take their class victories.
Bret Spaude and Andrew Aquilante overcame two significant pit-road penalties to score their first Grand Sport (GS) victory in the No. 35 Subaru Road Racing Team Subaru WRX-STI, while Corey Fergus and Owen Trinkler converted Fergus' Street Tuner (ST) pole into a class victory in the No. 197 Cruise America/Thor Motorcoach Honda Civic Si.
Despite Spaude's pole-winning performance earlier in the day, the No. 35 did not lead the race until just nine laps to go. Aquilante battled all the way back from a stop-and-go penalty for contact in the pit lane right of way and a stop-and-go-plus-30-second penalty for hitting pit equipment to take the lead from Charles Espenlaub on Lap 75 of the 83-lap race. Aquilante then kept the field at bay on a restart with four laps remaining to win by 2.224 seconds over Espenlaub.
“This has been quite the three-year project to get here,” said Spaude of what was also Subaru's first Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge GS class victory. “We've had a lot of trouble and making a Subaru work against the bigger V8 cars has been a challenge, but we've finally gotten there.”
Espenlaub and co-driver Charles Putman took second in the No. 48 Safecraft/OMP/Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3, and the result moved the 2010 GS co-champions into the points lead by eight points, 115-107, over Al Carter and Hugh Plumb, who finished fifth. Third place in GS went to Eric Curran and Lawson Aschenbach in the No. 01 CKS Autosport Chevrolet Camaro GS.R.
It was a comparatively easier race in ST for Fergus and Trinkler. Fergus led the first five laps during his opening stint from the class pole and Trinkler took the lead for good from Ryan Eversley when Eversley encountered a terminal mechanical problem on the front straight with 30 laps to go.
It was Trinkler's third consecutive ST win at New Jersey Motorsports Park and came with his third different co-driver. Trinker won two years ago alongside Randy Smalley and took the ST win last year with Sarah Cattaneo as his co-driver.
“At this track, something clicks with us,” Trinkler said. “You've got to have a car that really turns well in the center of the corner here. We really work hard here on trying to get the car turn in the center of the corner. We did an awesome job today.”
Second in ST went to Daniel Rogers and Seth Thomas in the No. 82 CRC Brakleen/Johnstone Supply/unitedBMWonline/Escort BMW 328i, followed by Terry Borcheller and Mike LaMarra in the No. 23 WeatherTech/Tech Care BMW 128i.
With a 15th place finish, No. 10 Infinity Audio/Kia Motors America/Rocky Tools Kia Forte Koup co-drivers Andy Lally and Nic Jonsson lead the ST driver standings by just two points over Pierre Kleinubing, who came home fifth with co-driver Glenn Bocchino in the No. 5 EMI/Mazda Mazdaspeed 3.
The B+ Heroes presented by BCKSTGR 200 will be televised on Speed at 2:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 26.