Experience to the fore in a day of drama

Nearly 12 months have passed since Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America racer Riley Dickinson won his first race in the championship – a win that appears to have opened the floodgates for the Texan.

Dickinson raised his win total to eight today at Road America with his second victory of the weekend for Kellymoss. After winning his first race last year at round fourteen in Indianapolis in 2022, Dickinson has triumphed in seven of the twelve races contested – seven from ten in 2023.

While the 21-year-old charged to his second win of the weekend, today’s race incident-filled race again jumbled the order. The experience of Thomas Merrill and Michael Cooper, however, sent the two championship-winning drivers to the podium.

The second and third-place finishes are the best results for the Carrera Cup “rookies.” Both have championship wins to their credit in other categories – Merrill in Trans Am and the Asian Le Mans Series and Cooper in World Challenge.

While yesterday’s race was disrupted by a long red flag period, today had a pair of disruptions that only resulted in yellow flag segments. The drama started before the green flag, with front-row sitter Alex Sedgwick and Dickinson making contact.

Other racers to strike trouble – and sometimes each other – during the 40-minute battle included Sabre Cook, Marco Cirone, Stefan Rzandzinski, Michael McCarthy, Tom Sargent, Ryan Yardley, Will Martin, and Dan Clarke.

“Overall, it was a great weekend for Kellymoss,” Dickinson said.

“We put a lot into this to make sure we would be able to hit on all cylinders. So, to have Efrin and I win both races this weekend is pretty special. A huge thank you to all of Kellymoss, and I am very happy we could do that for all of them.

“It was a really good points weekend for us, and I am really happy with how everyone performed.”

The Rafa Racing Club Pro-am and Am classes also featured repeat winners on both days at Road America.

2021 Pro-am champion Efrin Castro (Kellymoss) earned his second back-to-back win of the season – repeating the same result, he earned earlier this season in Miami

He was joined on the podium by Moisey Uretsky (Accelerating Performance) and Chris Bellomo (MDK Motorsports), who earned his first series podium.

The inter-team battle between team driver and owner continued at MDK in the Am class, with Scott Noble (driver) again triumphing over championship leader Mark Kvamme (owner).

They were again joined on the podium today by Wright Motorsports’ John Goetz.

Teams from the Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America championship will now have more than a month to prepare for rounds 11 and 12 of the championship at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Carrera Cup will be part of the “Battle on the Bricks” IMSA weekend on September 15-17.

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