{"id":274,"date":"2017-05-05T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T15:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manifestclients.com\/sundaygroup\/?p=274"},"modified":"2022-08-09T17:36:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T17:36:26","slug":"winning-start-for-change-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2017\/05\/05\/winning-start-for-change-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning Start for Change Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antinucci takes the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America season opener as the GTD team secures fourth position for\u00a0tomorrow\u2019s\u00a0Advance Auto Parts SportsCar Showdown<\/em><\/p>\n

Austin, Texas (5 May 2017) \u2013 It was a familiar start to the season for two-time Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Champions Change<\/span> Racing<\/span>, taking victory in the North American series opener on Friday. The triumph by Richard Antinucci in the No. 16 Change<\/span> Racing<\/span> Lamborghini entry marks the fifth consecutive season with a victory for the team. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Change<\/span> Racing<\/span>\u2019s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona squad put the\u00a0No. 16 XBOX \/ Monster Energy \/ Orion Lighting Lamborghini Hurac\u00e1n GT3 driven by Corey Lewis, fourth on the starting grid for\u00a0Saturday\u2019s\u00a0Advance Auto Parts SportsCar Showdown.<\/p>\n

Open-wheel and sports car veteran Richard Antinucci, driving the No. 16 Hurac\u00e1n Super Trofeo class entry, started the race<\/span> in second position, staying side-by-side with pole sitter (and former teammate) Edoardo Piscopo through the iconic first turn at Circuit of the Americas. He took advantage of the hard left-hander at Turn 2 to take the lead and never looked back, taking the checkered flag with a two second advantage over the field for the overall and Pro category victory.<\/p>\n

Teammate D. Bryce Miller joined the team following a successful crowd funding campaign led by online web series GNARPM, where Miller, deemed \u201cPro Bro,\u201d serves as a driving instructor. Out of a race<\/span> car as a competitive driver for four years after winning a national championship, Miller stayed in a podium position for nearly all of the 50-minute race<\/span>. After a last lap pass, he would settle for fourth position in the ProAm class.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great battle at the start with Edoardo,\u201d said Antinucci. \u201cI\u2019m so stoked to be back with Change<\/span> Racing<\/span> so a big thanks to the team, it\u2019s a perfect start. I have a lot of experience but not a lot of practice this year so I\u2019m happy with the result. The hardest part was that I pushed pretty hard at the start and probably got more out of the tires than some of my competitors. I\u2019ll start on pole\u00a0tomorrow\u00a0but we\u2019ve seen what can happen at the start so we\u2019ll have to have a good one, and then take the fight to them for all 50 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really felt good, at least for the first stint!\u201d smiled Miller. \u201cBut the heat started to get to me in the second half of the race<\/span>. I haven\u2019t been in a car for a while and though I\u2019ve been training hard, it\u2019s not the same as driving. I\u2019ve gotten comfortable being around a group of cars again. I drove a clean race<\/span>and brought the car home in one piece, so I\u2019m happy. It\u2019s great being with Change<\/span> Racing<\/span>, they are the most professional outfit out there. They\u2019ve done a great job coaching me back into this so big thanks to them, and to the\u00a0GNARPM.com\u00a0guys. It\u2019s been an incredible ride so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were fortunate enough to win the opening round last year as well, and that\u2019s always a good way to start a new season,\u201d said Change<\/span> Racing<\/span> team principal Robby Benton. \u201cIt\u2019s great for our heritage that we\u2019ve won and earned a pole position in each of the five seasons that the series has been in North America. We do this because we enjoy it, and to support Lamborghini, but our main reason is to bring up young drivers, like Corey (Lewis) and Jeroen (Mul) who are in our GTD car now. We knew we had a good hand today with our starting position and Richard’s experience in this car. It\u2019s heartbreaking to see Bryce (Miller) fall out of a podium spot on the final lap \u2013 to earn a podium in his first race<\/span>\u00a0in four years<\/span><\/span>\u00a0would have been a good shot in the arm for him. But, we know he\u2019ll come back strong\u00a0tomorrow, as will Ritchie (Antinucci). It\u2019s a lot of fun for us and a good place to give drivers and mechanics experience for the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the run-up to qualifying for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship\u2019s Round 4, drivers Jeroen Mul and Monster Energy Athlete Corey Lewis made steady progress through three practice sessions \u2013 which varied from hot and humid to cool, dry and windy \u2013 to find a balanced setup that would translate to a competitive race<\/span> car. With Lewis\u2019 quick lap of 2:07.757-seconds a mere three-hundredths of a second behind a fellow Lamborghini, the team knows they have what it takes to find that breakthrough victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great effort all around from the Change<\/span> Racing<\/span> guys,\u201d said Lewis. \u201cObviously, we\u2019re balancing the positives and negatives around this track. It will be interesting to see what guys around us will be able to maintain over a full stint. But we have a very good race<\/span> car: the car is very consistent and balanced, so it\u2019s easy to replicate each lap, even on this wide-open Formula One track. Times are extremely tight in the GTD class, with only three-hundredths of a second between us and our fellow Lamborghini ahead of us so it\u2019s going to be difficult\u00a0tomorrow\u00a0\u2013 managing the heat and the tires and keeping the car underneath us will be key.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were satisfied with qualifying, even though I don\u2019t think this is necessarily the best suited track for our car, especially with the current BoP \u201d said Benton. \u201cBut we were pleased with qualifying, being only three-hundredths out of third. We feel we\u2019ve exhausted everything we could do to find pace, but we\u2019ve qualified in the top four in the past three races<\/span> so we\u2019ve made improvements from last year. As racers, we want to be the best. But there are many other teams that would gladly swap places with us right now I think. We\u2019re a lot closer but we have a bit more work to do to bring it home. First and foremost, we have to execute perfectly\u00a0tomorrow, as this is the kind of track that can bite you. It\u2019s a very long pit lane so a penalty likely takes you out of contention. We might not have the raw pace but we might sneak up on it through strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Advance Auto Parts SportsCar Showdown at Circuit of the Americas\u00a0will take the green flag at\u00a02:35 p.m. ET<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Saturday, with live coverage on IMSA.tv and broadcast coverage on FS1 at\u00a07:00 p.m. ET<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

About:\u00a0<\/strong>Founded in 2013 by successful real estate developer and Lamborghini Carolinas CEO Eddie Littlefield and RAB Racing<\/span> NASCAR team owner Robby Benton,\u00a0Change<\/span> Racing<\/span>\u00a0quickly\u00a0established itself as a\u00a0championship caliber team in IMSA Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo competition.<\/p>\n

After earning Team and Driver Championships in 2013, 2014, and 2015, the team grew in 2016 to also campaign in the IMSA WeatherTech\u00a0Championship with the Lamborghini Hurac\u00e0n GT3 in GT Daytona (\u201cGTD\u201d) Class competition. The team enters 2017 with a promising young driver line up with Corey Lewis and Jerome Mul sharing the driving duties on the No. 16\u00a0Monster Energy \/ XBOX \/ Forza \/ Windows 10\/ Pertamina\u00a0Lamborghini Hurac\u00e0n GT3. Change<\/span>Racing<\/span> will also make its 5th\u00a0consecutive \u00a0Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo\u00a0campaign as the team looks to extend its record of achievement in the\u00a0category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Antinucci takes the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America season opener as the GTD team secures fourth position for\u00a0tomorrow\u2019s\u00a0Advance Auto Parts SportsCar Showdown Austin, Texas (5 May [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized","tag-change-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","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=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}