The RealTime Racing Team showed late-race power Sunday morning in Long Beach to bounce back from incidents and put both of their Acura TLX GTs in the top 12 of the Cadillac Grand Prix of Long Beach
Ryan Eversley found himself deep in the Pirelli World Challenge GT field early after a collision at the start forced the team to repair the hood of the #43, and he was unable to do much about it as the first half of the race was run under caution. But the second half was a different story as Eversley picked his way through the field over the last 10 minutes to finish seventh.
“After some contact at the start of the race our RealTime crew made the right call to come to pit lane and fix some damage which put us at the back of the field,” Eversley recalled. “On the restart I was able to slowly pick guys off and use some others misfortune to get up to 7th. I’m happy that our TLX finished in one piece and we can head to Barber Motorsports Park in good shape.”
Peter Cunningham was close to the top 10 for most of the day after climbing from his 16th-place starting spot, but was spun by an over-optimistic competitor in Turn 6 with less than 10 minutes to run. Undaunted, the seven-time series champion stormed back late and finished a season-best 12th.
“My #42 TLX worked today and we learned something positive after a Mercedes AMG turned me at the apex of Turn 6,” Cunningham said about getting spun. “Our Acuras are in one piece which is a good thing because we are on-track 2,100 miles away at Barber in four days.”
Eversley’s finish allowed him to climb into the top 10 in the championship standings for the first time this year and marks his fourth top-10 finish in the year’s five PWC events.
“Great fight back after both cars getting rear ended,” said Senior Program Engineer Lee Niffenegger. “Ryan was pushed in to the car in front and it broke a hood pin. It was a tough choice to bring him in because he was well into the Top 10 at the time, but we had to think about next weekend and the season. A failure of the other latch at 165mph would have been catastrophic. Peter was also spun around by another car but recovered to finish 12th. So now we head to Barber for a doubleheader next weekend looking for more points.
The continued improvement shown by the RealTime Racing Acuras will be on display again in six short days as the Pirelli World Challenge series heads to Barber Motorsports Park for Rounds 6-7 next weekend.
Developed from the production Acura TLX by HPD and RealTime Racing, the Acura TLX GT features HPD chassis and aerodynamic performance parts approved for Pirelli World Challenge competition. It is powered by a direct-injected, twin-turbocharged V6 engine, developed by HPD from the production Acura TLX.
