- Season-High Five TPC Racing Entries Leave Wet and Wild Porsche Sports Car Together Fest Weekend at “The Brickyard” Unscathed and with Solid Results
- David Williams (992) and Michael Levitas (991) Advance in the Porsche Sprint Challenge North America Championship Top-Three Heading into the Season Finale in Two Weeks at Circuit of The Americas (COTA)
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (September 5, 2022) – TPC Racing and its season-high five entries in the Porsche Sprint Challenge North America by Yokohama powered through a wet-and-wild Labor Day Weekend at the Porsche Sports Car Together Fest at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), leaving the “Racing Capital of the World” unscathed and with a string of solid race results across three different series championships.
The second-annual all-Porsche festival and doubleheader race weekend on the 2.439-mile IMS road course within the famous “Brickyard” oval were the next-to-last rounds on the 2022 schedule prior to the season-ending races at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) in two weeks. Two of TPC’s three full-season entries came into the holiday race weekend in top-three title contention in their respective championships and left in even better points positions after securing top finishes in both weekend races.
David Williams scored TPC Racing’s best results at Indy with a pair of fourth-place finishes on Saturday and Sunday in the top-tier Porsche 992 class. Williams put together typically consistent and competitive showings in his No. 37 Mission BBQ Porsche 911 GT3 Cup and has provisionally moved up to second from third in the 992 championship standings.
Williams, returning to competition with TPC Racing this year for the first time since 2015, was making his debut at Indianapolis where he nearly reached a third-place podium finish in Saturday’s race. The COTA weekend marks his competition debut on the Austin, Texas Formula 1 circuit.
Williams has moved to second in the 992 championship rankings with 511 points, 53 points out of first place and 47 points ahead of the third-place competitor.
Another TPC Racing championship contender provisionally jumped from third to second in the Porsche Sprint Challenge 991 class for slightly older GT3 Cup models. Michael Levitas ran in the lead pack in both weekend races at Indy, backing up a top-five finish in Saturday’s first race with a sixth-place run in Sunday’s final round in his No. 36 Erin Levitas Foundation/TPC Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.
Fifth in the 991 point standings prior to Road America just two races ago, Levitas heads into the season finale at COTA second in the championship just 43 points shy of the leader and 16 points ahead of the third-place competitor.
The third full-season TPC Racing entry competing at Indy was Rob Lorndale in his No. 6 TPC Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup in the 991 class. Lorndale was the only TPC competitor that participated in last year’s inaugural Porsche Sports Car Together event at IMS and put that experience to good use as he continues developing his race craft in the competitive Porsche Sprint Challenge arena.
Improving three spots from his qualifying session in each sprint, Lorndale cracked the top-15 in the stacked 991 field in both races. His Saturday race finish of 14th was backed up by a 15th place run in Sunday’s finale.
Canadian driver Shaun McKaigue overcame on-track issues to record some decent 991 results of his own in his first race at Indianapolis in the No. 34 TPC Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. His weekend-best run was 12th on Saturday but he also shook off a contact incident in Sunday’s final race for a top-20 finish. McKaigue returns to TPC in the No. 34 for the season-ending race at COTA.
TPC made its return to the Porsche Sprint Challenge Cayman class at Indy with debuting team driver Rhamses Carazo in the No. 711 TPC Racing Porsche Cayman. After surviving a rain-drenched first race Saturday, Carazo went on a tear in Sunday’s finale, improving nine positions for a 15th place finish in his first full race weekend in five years. Carazo returns to the TPC No. 711 Cayman for the COTA finale.
A three-day weekend event, the Porsche Sprint Challenge season-finale at COTA begins with practice on Friday, September 16. Qualifying Saturday morning sets the stage for the first of two weekend races for both the GT3 and Cayman divisions later that day. Sunday’s final rounds – all races are 35 minutes plus one additional lap – close out the weekend.
Harris Levitas, TPC Racing Director of Race Operations: “It was a real clean weekend. The TPC Racing team did an incredible job all week long. The Porsche Sports Car Together Fest event was really cool, and it was awesome to be out here at Indy for strictly a Porsche-centered event. Everything from GT3 cars to pretty much all of the race cars, it was an amazing sight. All of the TPC Racing cars performed flawlessly. David Williams had his best showing of the year with two solid fourth-place finishes, and his closest ever finish to almost having a podium. He is there, a win is in sight, and he earned solid points to stay well within the top three in the 992 championship. Michael Levitas nearly pulled off a pair of top-five finishes and that was enough for him to advance in the 991 championship. We need to work on his focus on restarts, but he still finished ahead of the car he needed to stay in front of to gain title points. Good for him on that. Rob Lorndale had two solid finishes and just nice clean races, and Shaun McKaigue did the same thing. Unfortunately, in race two Shaun had side-by-side contact and had to pit to inspect the front suspension, but we sent him back out and he still had a pretty solid finish. In the Cayman category, Rhamses Carazo did an amazing job. He hadn’t been racing in five years and was just fantastic behind the wheel. In race one in the pouring rain, he made up some positions at the start, but the race ended under yellow. On Sunday, we had more yellows, but on every start and restart, Rhamses was on it and in total he passed nine cars. Super proud of him, super proud of the entire team and we are just going to take this solid momentum into the season finale at COTA.”
Rhamses Carazo, Driver – No. 711 TPC Racing Porsche Cayman: “The first race was pretty fun. I got stuck in traffic behind two slower cars, so when I finally passed them, I was already behind the pace of the other guys. I pushed my car the most I could, but the race ended with a yellow flag and that was it. I only gained a few positions, but it was a good race. We did very good Sunday from the green flag and gained three or four positions right at the start of the race. I am getting more comfortable in the car. I feel much better in the car now after five years out of it. My pace was pretty good and as planned we finished in the middle of the pack. I think at COTA we can do something a little bit better. I have been there before in another car when I raced in FARA.”
David Williams, Driver – No. 37 Mission BBQ Porsche 911 GT3 Cup: “It was my first time at Indy and it is just a fantastic place. I actually really like the race track. It is a beautiful blend of kind of some high-speed hairy sections and then some low-speed rhythm stuff. On Saturday I had a fantastic car, we just nailed the setup, and I had a really, really good car. I had third-place for a while and lost it there on the next to last lap, but it was still a good day. We had to start on rain tires, and I don’t have a lot of time on wets, so it was good experience for me. On Sunday it was not quite as fulfilling. Still finished fourth in class, but not quite the race I wanted. I just need to keep working on my race craft, but certainly the team did an awesome job supporting me through the whole weekend. I have only been to COTA once, I think it was roughly around 2014 in GT3 Cup with TPC. I am excited to get back to COTA. It’s a big, interesting place and I recall it having its difficult spots. We have a couple of test days going on, which I will value, and Billy Johnson has been doing a great job supporting me and coaching me, so I am looking forward to working with him down there and trying to get up to speed.”
Shaun McKaigue, Driver – No. 34 TPC Racing Porsche 911 GT3: “Great weekend. TPC Racing put a good car on the road for me, the crew did a great job giving me support, and I can’t thank everybody there enough. They all did a great job of helping me out and coaching me, so that was a real bonus, and we really brought our times down in practice and qualified well. Was really happy with that part of it, but race one was a bit of an unusual race, and I had an unfortunate incident – a bit of a spin – but I managed to still place decently. In race two, I had an unfortunate incident again, but great racing and everyone at TPC was wonderful. We recovered and I just kept running my own race. That was the best I could do with that, but it was a little unusual Saturday running rain tires on a drying track. It made it very interesting but just a great experience. I learned a lot and I am really looking forward to COTA with all of the experience now that I have gained. I have to say, the Indianapolis facility itself is so spectacular, it’s pristine, so clean and run so well. The track itself is a lot of fun, quite challenging, but especially for an infield track, it’s a lot of fun.”
Rob Lorndale, Driver – No. 6 TPC Racing Porsche 911 GT3: “I am feeling very good about the races at Indy, especially the second race. I was in the thick of it and put together my best laps of the weekend in the race. I was able to pull off some nice passes which is something our coach Billy Johnson and I have been talking through, being able to pass more effectively and more efficiently during races. It was a positive from that standpoint. It certainly helped that I had been at Indy before. It was not as difficult to pick up the track as it might have been if it were new to me. What I found is that from practice session one the track felt familiar, and I was able to build from there. Comparing how I felt last year at Indy to this year, there was vast improvement. I was much faster, and that is always a good feeling.”
About TPC Racing: TPC Racing is the Mid-Atlantic’s premier maintenance, service, tuning and modification center dedicated solely to Porsche sportscars. TPC Racing specializes in R&D and sales of high-performance modifications for Porsche sports cars and race cars, offering a wide range of vehicle upgrades. Best known for a line of forced induction solutions for the Porsche 911, Cayman and Boxster, a long-time focus on only one make, Porsche, has enabled TPC Racing to become experts in Porsche service, tuning, and racing. In 2000, TPC Racing began entering races under its own banner, scoring an SGS-class Championship in 2004 in the Grand-American Rolex Series and was a class winner in the 2006 Rolex 24 At Daytona, and captured the 2013 and 2016 IMSA Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA Gold Cup Championships. More information can be found at www.TPCRacing.com.
