{"id":588,"date":"2017-04-22T18:42:06","date_gmt":"2017-04-22T18:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=588"},"modified":"2017-10-24T18:43:49","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T18:43:49","slug":"patrick-gallagher-sweeps-barber-weekend-with-race-2-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/22\/patrick-gallagher-sweeps-barber-weekend-with-race-2-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Gallagher Sweeps Barber Weekend With Race 2 Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birmingham, Ala. (22 April 2017)<\/strong> \u2013 Having come up just a few points shy of a Mazda MX-5 Cup championship earlier in his career, Patrick Gallagher knows that every point matters.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That mindset was fully on display\u00a0Saturday\u00a0at Barber Motorsports Park as the Ohio native converted an ambitious last-lap pass into his second victory of the day in the No. 29 McCumbee McAleer Racing entry as the 2017 Battery Tender Global MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich Tires season opened with two very competitive races.<\/p>\n

Mark Drennan (No. 5 Winding Road Racing)\u00a0 led a race-high 16 laps, but fell to second in the closing moments of the race as a three-way battle for the lead between he and Gallagher and Nathanial \u201cSparky\u201d Sparks saw the podium finishers separated by just .4-seconds at the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like those last three laps of the race, those were the three best laps of my life that I\u2019ve ever driven,\u201d said Gallagher. \u201cIt (the pass for the lead) was a risky move, but I wanted to win the race. I wasn\u2019t going to do that move every lap, but I was able to beat him over the hill and I got by him. I\u2019ve lost a championship by a point before, so I know how important every point is. A huge thank you to Battery Tender, Mazda, ModSpace, Howard Concrete Pumping, Spartan Cargo Trailers, BFGoodrich Tires and McCumbee McAleer Racing, I couldn\u2019t do it without any of those folks, so thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty tight,\u201d said\u00a0 Drennan of the final two laps. \u201cI saw that Patrick (Gallagher) got by Sparky and I knew he\u2019d be fast and I would need to defend against him in turn five.\u00a0 Shame on me for leaving too much room on the last lap. I\u2019m happy with a second place finish, but a little disappointed it wasn\u2019t first place because I led the most laps. It was a great points weekend and I\u2019m thankful for the support from Winding Road Team TFB.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rookie class was in a battle of its own with Bryan Ortiz, Robert Stout, and Matt Cresci all swapping positions up through the final lap. In another last lap move, Ortiz got around Stout to take top rookie honors at the finish with his run to fifth place behind Robby Foley.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am extremely happy,\u201d said Ortiz. \u201cThis is my first weekend in the Global MX-5 Cup series, finishing the second race fifth\u00a0and being the highest rookie. It was a very interesting race. There was a lot of battling with all the guys. I didn\u2019t know what to expect in this race because I didn\u2019t finish the first race but I fought hard. I\u2019m very happy and the Copeland Motorsports team did an amazing job. We will keep working and keep pushing to the front.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the 31-car field came to the green flag, Tim Probert (No. 26 ALARA Racing)\u00a0 who lined up 29th<\/sup>\u00a0in the order made contact with the rear of Luis Gavigano\u2019s No. 31 McDonalds MX-5 entry and the angle of impact was enough for Probert\u2019s No. 26 machine to roll over onto its top.The incident produced a lengthy full course caution period but demonstrated the integrity of the Global MX-5 Cup, which was built to international FIA safety specifications. Probert waved to the crowd as he emerged unscathed with the assistance of the Holmatro Safety crew.<\/p>\n

When the race went back to green, less than 30 minutes remained as Sparky led the field from the pole position.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in second place for most of the race and I was glad to be there,\u201d said Sparky. \u201cI really just wanted to stick where I was. The competition was stiff and it was really exciting racing. I was just glad to bring it home in third for Sick Sideways. I had a great race and I had two of the best decisions I could have and places to defend.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top-nine cars ran nose-to-tail as positions swapped with every lap, with the INDYCAR scoring system tallying 157 on-track passes.<\/p>\n

The Battery Tender Hard Charger Award went to to Glenn McGee (No. 33 Slipstream Performance) who started 31st<\/sup>\u00a0and improved 14 positions to finish 17th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I won the Battery Tender Hard Charger award, so I passed the most cars and probably had the most fun out there against some tough drivers,\u201d said McGee. \u201cThis was a phenomenal weekend for me. I was a last-minute entry. I got a call\u00a0on Tuesday\u00a0and they asked me to show up to the track because they might have a ride for me. I have some really good people behind me. I would like to thank my sponsors and Mazda, Battery Tender, iRacing and BFGoodrich Tires who put on a really great series who make it affordable for guys like me. I was Mazda\u2019s first virtual to reality driver so I just got stuck on the SIM and the only real time I had was in Race 2, so I had to go from a simulator, directly into a race. I can\u2019t believe we came away with this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Battery Tender Global MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires will return to race action on\u00a0June 16-18\u00a0for Rounds 3 & 4 at the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Birmingham, Ala. (22 April 2017) \u2013 Having come up just a few points shy of a Mazda MX-5 Cup championship earlier in his career, Patrick Gallagher [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-mazda-mx-5-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588","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=588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":590,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions\/590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}