LEXINGTON, Ohio (July 2, 2023) – TPC Racing and its pair of Porsche GT3 Cup series teams and drivers put together a podium and top-five weekend in a pair of contrasting USAC Porsche Sprint Challenge North America races Saturday and Sunday at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. David Williams secured the team’s best weekend result with a third-place 992 Am-class finish in his TPC Racing No. 237 Mission BBQ Porsche 911 GT3 Cup in Saturday’s opening sprint. Shaun McKaigue in turn capped his return to Sprint Challenge GT3 Cup competition with a pair of career-best Porsche 991 class top-five finishes in both Saturday’s opener and Sunday’s rain-soaked finale.
Williams secured his seventh-straight podium finish of the season in Saturday’s race with a third-place 992 Am finish that was the best of TPC’s four top-five showings at Mid-Ohio.
McKaigue broke through for his first top-five finish in Saturday’s sprint in a strong performance that also saw him capture the Yokohama “Apex’n Award” Award for passing the most cars on track in the race.
While Saturday’s early afternoon race was run in clear and dry conditions, Sunday dawned after a rainy night with ongoing showers that produced wet conditions for the 8 a.m. EDT start. The field circulated for more than the first half of the race behind the safety car before the race went green for what turned out to basically be a three-lap dash to the finish.
Williams advanced to third overall and first in the 992 Am class only to spin exiting Mid-Ohio’s Keyhole turn. He quickly recovered but a charge back to the front was cut short by a race-ending yellow flag that ended the event two laps later. Williams still managed to race back to fifth before the early end of the race, just one spot behind his closest championship contender who crossed the finish line in fourth.
McKaigue staged a late run in the rain of his own Sunday in the limited green-flag time but the early end to the race took away a shot at a possible top-three finish. He still left Mid-Ohio with a pair of top-five results that are his best to date in the series and looks forward to his remaining schedule of 2023 races at Road America and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS).
Next up for the 2023 USAC Porsche Sprint Challenge North America and TPC Racing is the Road America event, August 11 – 13, that will see the Cayman GT4 Club Sport series return to compete alongside the Porsche GT3 Cup series in a full weekend of all-Porsche competition.
Harris Levitas, TPC Racing Director of Race Operations: “The weekend was a bit tough but the TPC Racing team never gave up. This is a team that just never says quit, for which I can’t thank everybody enough. Every crew member, the engineering staff, everybody just did a phenomenal job all weekend. They delivered great cars to the drivers. Shaun had his best finishes in the 991 category and David Williams came home with two second-place qualifying efforts and a podium finish in race one. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go David’s way in race two, but Shaun did an incredible job on Sunday in wet track conditions. He picked up several spots right at the start, but for the majority or race two more than 50% was run under yellow. We had about three green laps and that really hurt things for both Shaun and David. Shaun definitely had the pace under green to move up to a podium position, and David could have used more green flag time to work his way back up the field, but that is the nature of the beast. We will see what we can capitalize on for the remainder of the year to stay in that points championship.”
David Williams, Driver – No. 237 Mission BBQ Porsche 992 GT3 Cup: “It wasn’t the best weekend! The reality is this was probably my worst event last year and I made a ton of progress. Just in my overall speed and ability to get around this circuit was super productive. So, on Saturday I wasn’t materially unhappy with the third-place result, but Sunday, honestly, to be running third overall and first in class and making a mistake in the rain with just two laps left, it’s a hard one to swallow. It was a total strategic error on my part. I just lost it coming out of the Keyhole. Mentally it’s a tough one for me but I honestly feel good about the season ahead. I like Indy, I am generally OK and pretty good there, and I like Road America. I don’t know if I love Circuit of The Americas, but I am ready to compete. I am making progress and I feel good about that.”
Shaun McKaigue, Driver – No. 134 TPC Racing Porsche 991 GT3 Cup: “Race one was a lot of fun and we were able to do it in the dry. We were able to tune the car, and the TPC Racing guys gave me a great car to work with. The temperature went up during the race, which caused the tires to balloon up a little bit, I worked hard, had a good start and managed to make up a few positions. To be frank, fifth was the position that I deserved, and the group ahead of me was just a little bit quicker, so I need to work a little harder to catch them. I was fortunate to win the ‘hard charger’ award, which was very fun, and it is always nice to bring more hardware home. That always makes for a really nice race. In race two, we started in the wet and Mid-Ohio is a notoriously slick track. We had a lot of issues with just trying to get the race started, a lot of competitors were sliding off the track, so it took a while to get the race going. I had a good start, was able to make up some positions, and I honestly believe that a third place would have been possible with a few more laps. But, it wasn’t to be, and we ended up with another caution finishing the race. But a lot of fun, a great weekend and USAC again put together a great presentation.”
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.