The Regulator Racing No. 91 Burton Lumber Mercedes-AMG of Jeff Burton and Philip Ellis drove through the field on Sunday afternoon to earn overall victory in Race 2 of the GT World Challenge America powered by AWS weekend at Virginia International Raceway. The victory is the team’s and Burton’s first at the GT World Challenge level.
After changes to the GTWC America rulebook opened up driver order strategy, the No. 91 has utilized an alternate strategy all season by racing Burton against pro-rated drivers and Ellis against silver and bronze rated amateur drivers. After proving the viability of the tactic with a podium in Sebring, the team were left frustrated with how the races played out in Austin. The results of this weekend, though, set a new bar for the team as they stood on the podium following both races.
In Race 1, Ellis started from pole after a scintillating qualifying session, and attempted to create a solid gap to the field before handing off to Burton. The stop-start nature of the race prevented him from creating one, though, and Burton had to fight through traffic and accidents ahead, including an incident of his own with under ten minutes left, to maintain third and hold on for the final spot on the podium. The team also scored the fastest lap of the race, a feat they would repeat the next day.
The following afternoon, Burton started Race 2 near the tail end of the field, but, once the field got spread out and he got into his rhythm, did a great job of keeping the car in the window and keeping the strategy alive. As the team prepared to swap drivers, a full course yellow came out, bunching up the field for Ellis as he took over control of the car. With just 45 minutes remaining after the restart, though, Ellis had a tall task to pass the nine cars separating him from the overall lead. Ellis made quick work of the Pro-Am field, taking the lead from the No. 32 with 35 minutes to go. From there, he set his sights forward on the overall lead. With just over ten minutes remaining, Ellis caught and passed the No. 63 DXDT Corvette and built an insurmountable lead by the time the checkered flag fell.
“We’re so excited to get our first win under the Regulator Racing banner,” said Team Principal David Askew. “Jeff has been with us for a couple years now, and he’s a great guy to work with because all he’s concerned about is winning. I’m so pleased that we’ve been able to get him his first win in GT World Challenge America. Philip is consistently one of the fastest, if not the fastest, drivers every weekend, and he’s been an invaluable addition to the team. I’m just so happy for everyone involved, and we’re going to work hard in the time before Road America to make sure we can fight for victory there too.”
Regulator Racing will be back on track when GT World Challenge America travels to Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI. Action kicks off with practice on Friday, August 16, before concluding with Race 2 on August 18. Stay tuned to instagr.am/regulatorracing and tune in to YouTube.com/GTWorld to follow along!
From the Drivers
Jeff Burton
“We all questioned the weather coming into the weekend. We all wondered if we were going to have to set the cars up for a wet race, and we got a little lucky with that. We had speed throughout the weekend and were able to qualify well, and we made a lot of progress on the car. The car was in a really good window when we started, but we made a few small adjustments to put it over the top. Credit where credit is due; Philip, Markus [Rohrick, from Mercedes], and Stefan [Pfeiffer] seemed to make those small little corrections. The car was good and a little slippery, but that’s just the track. It was really hot today, and I think everybody noticed that and struggled with it. It was a really educational weekend for us.
“It feels great to get the monkey off my back with this race win. We’ve talked about it all year long, so to get it done is great. We’ve been close before, we knew what we had to do, and I especially knew the burden of the responsibility that I had to do my part of the deal. Last time at COTA, we were close but had some issues that we ran into, but this time we were successful, and it was so much fun.”
Philip Ellis
“To be honest, we started with a good base, so we never had to deviate far from it or try anything extraordinary this weekend, which was good. It allowed us to just focus on driver performance. We were wary of rain coming in on Saturday, and made some changes with that in mind that probably took us in the wrong direction, but we managed to score third in Pro-Am, which was a good result for us. A good start to the weekend.
"Then Sunday, we got what we finally needed from the start of the year: a well timed safety car. That put us right back into the field at the restart behind all the amateurs, and from there it was just about picking them off one by one in places where we didn’t have to risk too much. The hardest part of the race for me was figuring out where it was both safe to pass and where we had the car to get it done. We definitely weren’t passing on the straights or out of Oak Tree, so you had to time it quite well. Then we had to make sure to have enough tires at the end to make the passes on the Pro cars. The last three really made it difficult, which is totally fair, but it was fun to get it done and win overall.”