One of the largest GTS fields in a NASA Southeast event descended upon Road Atlanta for the Pot’o’Gold Rush March 15 and 16. The 25 GTS cars that took the green flag for Saturday’s Blitz race featured drivers from all over the East Coast as teams prepare for the NASA East Coast Championships, which will take place August 29 – 31 this year.
Drew Ewing in the No. 13 Fandango Racing Inc. BMW E46 M3 took the overall win in Saturday’s double-yellow-shortened Blitz race. He was followed closely by the McDonald’s sponsored E46 M3 driven by John Huebner, who was lightly involved in the incident that caused the caution, but still managed second overall along with Todd Hanson’s E46 330i rounding out the top three of an eight-car GTS3 troop.
GTS4 was a contest for the win between David Richardson’s Porsche C2, who was the eventual winner, and Brad Waite, whose Porsche 911 set the fastest lap of the race, but was forced to retire after an incident in Turn 5. Jon Gearhart driving a beautiful Porsche 951 and Jon Torgenson’s Porsche 944 turbo finished second and third in GTS4 to round out the top three.
GTS2 was the second largest field in GTS. Jeff Emanuelson ran away from the field to take the win in his E36 M3 by a large margin. Second place was hotly contested, but Robert Lutz took the spot away from the third-place finisher Jim Kessler and his Porsche Cayman.
GTS1 was a battle of two Porsche 944s and a 924. The driver of the 924, Tim Priutt, took the win over Gregg Mullin and 2012 National Champion John Mock, who rounded out the top three in a five-car field.
Due to attrition throughout the weekend and the pouring rain that saturated the track, the Blitz group was considerably smaller Sunday. The group of 26 cars consisted of Spec E30s, 944 Spec and GTS. Matthew Wasilewski ,who started at the rear of the field because he had just completed competition school on Friday, won the hard charger award of the weekend, running through all but one car in the entire field to finish second overall and second in GTS3 in the challenging conditions. Drew Ewing took the overall win again on Sunday to round out a perfect weekend of two starts and two GTS3 wins as well as two overall Blitz group wins. He set the fastest lap of the race and cruised to the win by 18 seconds. Todd Hanson finished third in GTS3 again, following up his impressive third place finish on Saturday. Tim Pruit took the win in GTS1 followed closely by John Mock and the always reliable Thomas Crookston.
