May 17, 2015 – BOWMANVILLE , Ontario, Canada
Circuit:
Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (2.458-mile road course) Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada
Weather:
Sunny, mild, 70 degrees F
RealTime Racing Acuras Salvage Weekend with Top-10 Sunday Run
- Last-lap pass gives Ryan Eversley a 10th-place finish in Sunday’s race
- Peter Cunningham runs 11th in both ends of the doubleheader
- Both cars finish higher than they started on Saturday and Sunday
- RealTime Racing Acura TLX GT has finished in top 10 in seven of year’s nine races.
RealTime Racing’s Acura TLX GTs made their first trip outside the United States this weekend as the Pirelli World Challenge visited the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario. On the whole, the team found the Canadian exchange rate to be a little tighter on championship points than it is stateside.
Acura drivers Peter Cunningham and Ryan Eversley both finished closer to the front than they started in both Saturday’s and Sunday’s races at the 2.458-mile CMTP road course in Ontario. Eversley led the way by making up six spots in Sunday’s nightcap to run a weekend-best 10th.
Team owner and seven-time PWC champion Cunningham finished 11th in both races at the venerable track formerly known at Mosport. He made up three spots in Saturday’s opener and gained a position after starting 12th in Sunday’s event.
Saturday’s event saw the RealTime duo make up for a rough qualifying session, using the Acura TLX GT’s all-wheel drive to gain ground on a pair of restarts. The last of these was a tense green-white-checker restart, during which the cars ran two green-flag laps to determine the result after a late-race caution that required track workers to repair a tire barrier, but the Acuras were equal to the task.
Sunday’s race wasn’t as tight, as a Lap 5 caution was the only one during the 50-minute event, allowing the field to string out over 36 racing laps. Eversley and Cunningham made a last-lap advance without the benefit of a yellow flag, though, as both of them got around Michael Lewis on the final trip around the 10-turn circuit to move up to 10th and 11th, respectively.
The results allowed Eversley to stay in the top five in the season standings after nine of 20 races, although he yielded the fourth position in the standings to Johnny O’Connell, who dominated the weekend and won both races from the pole.
The team will have a free week to return from Canada before hitting the season’s halfway point with two events at Detroit’s Belle Isle Park, May 30-31, where they will run on the bill with the Verizon IndyCar Series and the TUDOR United Sportscar Series.
Developed from the production Acura TLX by HPD and RealTime Racing, the Acura TLX GT features HPD chassis and aerodynamic performance parts approved for Pirelli World Challenge competition. It is powered by a direct-injected, twin-turbocharged V6 engine, developed by HPD from the production TLX , and will utilize all-wheel drive, as found in Acura’s SH-AWD system.
Race Results Saturday:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Status | |
1 | Johnny O’Connell | Cadillac Racing | Cadillac ATS-VR | 25 Laps | |
2 | Kevin Estre | K-PAX Racing | McLaren 650S | - 0.392 sec | |
3 | Butch Leitzinger | Bentley Racing | Bentley Continental | – 1.039 | |
11 | Peter Cunningham | RealTime Racing | Acura TLX GT | – 5.428 | |
15 | Ryan Eversley | RealTime Racing | Acura TLX GT | – 6.744 |
Race Results Sunday:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Status | |
1 | Johnny O’Connell | Cadillac Racing | Cadillac ATS-VR | 36 Laps | |
2 | Butch Leitzinger | Bentley Racing | Bentley Continental | - 0.539 | |
3 | Chris Dyson | Bentley Racing | Bentley Continental | - 4.294 | |
11 | Ryan Eversley | RealTime Racing | Acura TLX GT | - 35.460 | |
15 | Peter Cunningham | RealTime Racing | Acura TLX GT | - 36.721 |
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