“That’s been the name of this championship: avoid the No. 31 car,” said newly-crowned 2017 Pirelli World Challenge SprintX champion and Cadillac ATS-V.R driver Michael Cooper. Unfortunately, Turn 2 of today’s SprintX championship decider told him what happens when you don’t avoid No. 31.
SprintX is PWC’s longer race format, so the absolute last thing you want to do is eat it on the first lap.
The yellow No. 31 TR3 Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 of Niccolo Schiro hopped the inside curb of the very second turn of today’s race at Circuit of the Americas, unsettling the car and heading into a spin. Unfortunately for Jordan Taylor in the the No. 8 Cadillac Racing, he got caught up in the on-track Ferrari-nado and were forced to limp their way back in to the pits.
The No. 31 won last night’s SprintX race, putting it only 13 points behind the leading No. 8 in the championship standings. So, yes, today’s crash took out both the number one and number two cars in the PWC SprintX championship. Ouch!
The No. 31's race today was completely over, taking it out of contention for the title once and for all. The No. 8 had to be limped back into the pits with a giant hole in the side. The crew kept working diligently to try and get the car back out, but they didn’t get it back out in time to complete more than their single lap.
Fortunately for the No. 8 Cadillac duo of Jordan Taylor and Michael Cooper, they still had enough points to clinch the SprintX championship.