MONTEREY, California (May 2, 2022) – TPC Racing scored its first IMSA Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America championship race win Saturday at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca where debuting team drivers Wesley Slimp and Tyler Hoffman co-drove the No. 9 HNTB Companies Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2 to the LB Cup class win in the opening race of the year.
The victory came after an around-the-clock effort by the TPC Racing crew heading into the Laguna Seca opener preparing this year’s debuting Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2 that will be used in all three series classes in 2022. Hoffman paced the LB Cup field in his race-opening stint while closing driver Slimp continued the winning charge straight to the checkered flag for the biggest victory to date in his emerging driving career.
TPC Racing fields a trio of the new EVO2s this season. In addition to Slimp and Hoffman in the No. 9, Billy Johnson competes in the top-tier Pro category in the No. 71 DSC Sport/Erin Levitas Foundation Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2.
Scott Schmidt and Trevor Andrusko also return in 2022 for a second full season in the Am class in the No. 38 DSC Sport/Erin Levitas Foundation Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2.
Johnson secured a Pro class top-five finish in Saturday’s race in the No. 71 while Schmidt and Andrusko left Laguna Seca pleased with some next-step progress in the weekend’s pair of 50 minute races.
TPC Racing debuted in Super Trofeo in August of 2020 at VIRginia International Raceway. Schmidt and Andrusko joined the team a month later at none other than WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and completed their first full season in the series last year.
After great opening stints in both weekend races by Schmidt, Andrusko was in a position late in Sunday’s race to improve on the previous day’s top-10 finish. With only 12 minutes of green flag racing time in the car, Andrusko was advancing through the field only to be pushed wide while making a pass on a competitor in Turn 11. Andrusko spun to avoid the contact but quickly gathered the No. 38 up and made it to the finish.
Johnson was third in Pro just before pits stops in Sunday’s race only to be forced to retire the No. 71 with a broken axle. His charge to a likely podium finish came after he was forced to start Sunday’s race last after a battery issue delayed the car in the pits as the field rolled away for pace laps.
With a successful Super Trofeo opener in the books, TPC now quickly shifts focus to its Porsche Sprint Challenge by Yokohama program which is a featured support series at this weekend’s Inaugural Formula One Grand Prix of Miami. Rob Lorndale (No. 6 TPC Racing Porsche 991 GT3 Cup), David Williams (No. 37 TPC Racing Porsche 992 GT3 Cup) and Mike Levitas (No. 36 TPC Racing Porsche 991 GT3 Cup) will all be in action on the Miami Grand Prix circuit. The event’s only practice is this Friday evening with the weekend’s doubleheader scheduled featuring morning 40 minute races both Saturday and Sunday.
Harris Levitas, TPC Racing Director of Race Operations: “It’s a really great accomplishment to have our first win in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo series. It’s been a long time coming. Congratulations to Tyler and Wesley. That was a huge thing for them to do in their very first outing and having very, very little practice time. They drove a great race. They were smart, we had a great pit stop and they did fantastic. They were moved up to the Am class for Race 2, which is not a bad thing. It’s kind of a good thing in terms of the drivers. I’m really happy with how their weekend turned out for them. It was really great. Between Scott, Trevor, Wesley and Tyler, we really have a shot in the Am category with two cars being podium and race-winning contenders. The TPC racing team did an absolutely amazing job all week, knocking down the setup and giving us three really competitive cars that we can really go for wins with as we saw in Race 1. I’m really excited for Scott and Trevor. For Scott, this is the best he’s ever done in any racing scenario. He never went a lap down in either of his stints. He kept the car clean and did what he needed to do. Unfortunately, on Sunday there was such a long yellow that Trevor only had 12 minutes to drive the car. That wasn’t enough time to make up the positions we needed, but the car was great. Billy is absolutely amazing. His attitude going into it is fantastic and they way he can relay setup information back to the team is phenomenal. We’re going to really have a shot in the Pro category as the year goes on. So, I’m very happy with how the weekend went overall. The development work we’re doing with Billy to get these cars to where they need to be going forward is going to place us in a good spot.
“Straight from Laguna Seca, we flew right to Miami to meet our second hauler for the Porsche North America Spring Challenge Series. We’re really excited to be there. We’re going to have three cars we have a really good shot with and I’m really excited for David, Michael and Rob to be getting out to do it. It’s a very tight weekend when it comes to the schedule. We only have one practice session and nobody knows the circuit. There’s no data from that circuit ever and we’re just going to make the best of it. The drivers are training on a simulator as we speak and we’re going to do the best we can. David and my Dad did the Baltimore Grand Prix in the Porsche GTC series about a decade ago so they both bring some good experience. And David was actually faster than my dad, so it will be interesting!”
Wesley Slimp, Driver No. 9 HNTB Companies Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2: “The win on Saturday was just awesome. It was good for building confidence and it was a validation of ‘yeah, we can do this,’ especially with such limited time in the car beforehand. I was feeling nervous before the race, but once it turned out that way, I didn’t even realize that we had won when I came across the line because it was under full-course yellow. Then it was ‘oh, wow, we just won the thing!’ It’s such a powerful car. It’s not very straightforward to drive, especially finding that last little bit, but now that we’ve moved up a class we’ve just got to keep chipping away.”
Tyler Hoffman, Driver No. 9 HNTB Companies Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2: “It’s a great pleasure to be here with TPC and to get our first win with them and for them in IMSA Lamborghini Super Trofeo is really, really exciting. It’s a huge honor to be a part of the team, and to be able to check that box on that first race is pretty incredible, so we’re looking forward to doing some more of that. Harris has a great show here at TPC Racing. Harris and I go back all the way to college, and we have a really tight group here. Being here racing with Wesley is great, and having my brother Trevor on the team too is awesome. I couldn’t imagine anything better.”
Scott Schmidt, Driver No. 38 DSC Sport/Erin Levitas Foundation Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2: “We were scheduled for two test sessions and never got there with the introduction of the new car, so this was actually a test weekend and race combined. We’re happy with the results. We were able to share information and setup with Billy as the pro and he trickled it down to us. I’m looking forward to the next weekend in New Orleans and the rest of the season. I’ll happily take this start at Laguna.”
Trevor Andrusko, Driver No. 38 DSC Sport/Erin Levitas Foundation Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2: “We’ve got good momentum going into the next race in New Orleans. Coming into Laguna, Scott’s been putting the work in the offseason and he’s found a lot of pace. He’s four seconds faster this year than he was last year when we were here and that showed in the race. We had a couple of inconsistencies and inefficiencies during our pit stop, which has been resolved, and we’ve been chasing cars a little bit. But with the new EVO package and some of the changes that come with it, the car is different to drive and is a completely different animal now. We’re both getting a lot more comfortable with the car. Going into NOLA, it’s a real curve ball, but we’re looking forward it and Bourbon Street!”
Billy Johnson, Driver No. 71 DSC Sport/Erin Levitas Foundation Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2: “I’m very fortunate to be working with TPC. They are just an awesome group of guys. It’s an honor to be a part of this program and to be a part of the learning and development process of the platform and working with all four other drivers and the two other cars. Unfortunately, we were on our back foot with the supply issues and not getting our cars until super late. This was an assembly weekend. A lot of the other teams have been racing this car and winning for years and they had the fortune of doing some testing with this new package but for us, practice one was our first shakedown. It’s a new platform for me, so every session, including qualifying sessions and the race, we were chasing a bunch and learning a bunch. But now that we have the cars, we’ll go through them and prep them as the TPC team does and we’ll be in a much better position to keep on learning and keep moving the competitiveness of the whole effort forward.”
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 http://www.TPCRacing.com.