{"id":2478,"date":"2020-08-01T20:23:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T00:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2023-05-04T13:36:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T17:36:23","slug":"new-class-act-grabs-thunderhill-pole-for-trans-am-west-coast-season-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/01\/new-class-act-grabs-thunderhill-pole-for-trans-am-west-coast-season-start\/","title":{"rendered":"New Class Act Grabs Thunderhill Pole for Trans Am West Coast Season Start"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ILLOWS, Calif. (Aug. 1, 2020) — <\/strong>The 2020 Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli West Coast Championship is underway on the three-mile, 15-corner Thunderhill Raceway Park in Northern California. The new season just might have some new expectations now that the first qualifying session is over and pole position was earned by a storied Trans Am driver in a totally new class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Longtime racer Simon Gregg, driving the No. 59 Derhaag Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3 in the new XtremeGT (XTG) class, set a blistering lap time of 1:44.826-seconds with an average speed of 103.028 mph to grab pole position for Sunday\u2019s race at Thunderhill. Gregg\u2019s time was nearly a full second faster than the next closest competitor. And as a new class this year running for the first time at Thunderhill, Gregg\u2019s accomplishment becomes a new track record for XGT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early on in the 15-minute qualifying session, Gregg ended up on track bunched up with several other cars from multiple classes. One competitor even went off course right in front of Gregg. Soon after that near miss, something magical seemed to happen to Gregg\u2019s car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the very end of the session, the car was just hooked up,\u201d Gregg said. \u201cI\u2019m so happy about that. But that was all she had, and all I had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Gregg enjoyed tremendous success in the Trans Am West Coast Championship in the TA class. Driving a Corvette, he won three races and went on to win the TA West Coast championship. Gregg has made a switch this season, but has not missed a step as he moved to the growing XGT class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The driver to line up alongside Gregg on Sunday for the 99-mile race will be TA ace Greg Pickett in the No. 6 Pickett Racing Ford Mustang. Pickett set a flyer of 1:45.789-seconds to earn the TA pole, which also reset the class lap record at Thunderhill. This sets up an interesting battle Sunday between two seasoned Trans Am racers in two different, but very fast cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat Mercedes of Simon\u2019s is a nice piece,\u201d said Pickett. \u201cIt was really good in these hot conditions. It\u2019s a bit of a different car than ours, but I\u2019m looking forward to the race. I\u2019m glad that he\u2019s got some speed. Simon and I have had a lot of fun in the past and it looks like it\u2019s just going to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pickett, whose win last season at Thunderhill marked his 21st Trans Am career victory, will certainly be looking to duplicate that feat again this year. If he does, he\u2019ll achieve the rarest of feats — to collect professional race wins in six consecutive decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud to be here,\u201d Pickett said. \u201cAnd any time you go out, even on a real hot day, and break your own qualifying track record, you can\u2019t be all that unhappy about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind Gregg and Picket will be the TA2\u00ae powered by AEM class led by polesitter Ethan Wilson in the No. 49 Western Grinding Chevrolet Camaro with a qualifying time of 1:48.156-seconds, which is another new lap record for Thunderhill. He will be flanked by the No. 17 RoofOptionsRacing\/TFBPerform TA2 Ford Mustang of Tim Lynn who qualified only 0.605-second slower. In fact, most of the TA2\u00ae class is separated by not much more than two seconds. So, Sunday could see quite a battle in hot conditions, and Wilson is certainly pleased to be out in front to start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have a great practice before the qualifying session,\u201d Wilson confessed. \u201cBut I really just tried to drive a clean lap, stay within the limits of the tire and lay one down. I\u2019m really pleased to end up on pole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pole for the SuperGT (SGT) class went to Carl Rydquist in the No. 4 MyRaceShop.com\/Tel-Tac\/Mendeola Factory Five Racing GTM with a time of 1:51.733-seconds, which is a track record for SGT. And finally, the GT pole was earned by the No. 7 APEX Race Parts Ford Mustang of Beau Borders with a lap time of 2:00.390-seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mixed-class Trans Am West Coast field will take to the three-mile, 15-turn original Thunderhill East course for Sunday\u2019s race starting at 1:15 p.m. Pacific for the 99-mile feature race. Fans can follow live timing and scoring on GoTransAm.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ILLOWS, Calif. (Aug. 1, 2020) — The 2020 Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli West Coast Championship is underway on the three-mile, 15-corner Thunderhill Raceway Park in Northern [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2480,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions\/2480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}