Alton, VIRGINIA – September 29, 2020 – New Hampshire’s Tom Sheehan was honored at Virginia International Raceway on Saturday when he became the first driver in the history of Trans Am TA2 class racing to notch his 100th race start. The most experienced man on the grid then went on to finish in a highly creditable P7 in Sunday’s Heacock Gold Cup where 42 cars started in an all class mega race that proved hugely popular with fans and viewers.
A top-ten finish in the unique all classes race staged Sunday at VIR was Tom’s reward for another weekend of Ironman effort by the Damon Racing LTK Insulation Technologies team in what was a real feast of action for the fans following the excellent coverage both on the App and on the YouTube stream. After Saturday’s disappointment when a broken driveshaft forced Tom to retire, the popular pilot was pleased to bring the car home with the full 31 laps completed and with a best lap of 1:54:742.
“I’m sure it didn’t disappoint anyone who got to watch that one,” he said after climbing out of the No. 97 Insulation Technologies Ford Mustang. “It was a melee out there. It was close racing pretty much from the get go. Our car got hit in Turn 3 of the first lap, but we had a pretty good car and it was racy on the restarts. There was a lot of contact and they can take a look at all that stuff but it is what it is and it was fun, we had a good time.”
On the unique format of Sunday’s race he added, “The full class racing is always pretty exciting out there. We brought it home 8th and finally finished a race. The car held together well but didn’t have much left in it at the end.” Tom’s ironman spirit was in evidence when he added, “8th place is not our best day but it was a lot of fun and it lifts up the team to see the thing finish. We’ll throw it back on the trailer and take it from there.”
8th place was upgraded to 7th in the provisional results and keeps Tom in the top ten for the highly competitive Drivers Championship in the TA2 Class.The backend of Hurricane Beta landed on Virginia Thursday night and proceeded to make conditions very difficult indeed for practice early in the weekend, something Tom alluded to when commenting on Saturday’s disappointment, “It was a pretty good weekend but we didn’t get a lot of time on the track. The guys were pretty fired up. We got back up to seventh in the race and we were working our way forward when the driveshaft broke on the downshift.” In the circumstances, it was a fantastic effort by the crew to get the car ready for the grid at 11:00 a.m. the following day.
It was also a smart move by Trans Am presented by Pirelli to stage Rounds 5 and 6 on the same weekend, and John Clagett and his team are to be congratulated on getting the go ahead for the event in this most difficult of years. COTA on November 4 to 6 is the next scheduled event where Round 7 of the 2020 Championship will be contested. We look forward to it immensely.
For live timing and scoring, event photos and post-race recaps visit GoTransAm.com. For live race updates follow @GoTransAm on Twitter.
Keep up with Trans Am driver Tom Sheehan on social media – Facebook page is Damon Racing; Instagram is TomSheehanTA97 and Twitter give us a follow @TomTA2_97.
For more information on LTK Insulation Technologies please visit the website online at https://ltkinsulationtechnologies.com/.
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