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ALTON, VA (15 August 2007) In only its second race, Don Knowles took the iRacing.com Pontiac Solstice GXP to victory in the Sports Car Club of America's Oak Tree Nationals at Virginia International Raceway. Following a strong second-place finish in the Solstice GXP's competition debut at Connecticut's Lime Rock Park last month, Knowles, the defending national champion in the SSB class in an iRacing.com Solstice Club Sport, is well on his way to qualifying in the T2 class for the SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Heartland Park Topeka in October.
It was a hard-fought race in hot, humid weather and the result was not decided until the last lap of the sprint event, when Knowles took advantage of a missed gearshift by race leader Marty Grand to scoot past Grand's Mitsubishi Evo and fly first under the checkered flag. Knowles's teammate and car owner, Joe Aquilante, finished third in another Phoenix Performance prepared iRacing.com Solstice GXP.
"It was a really tough race because of the heat," said Knowles. "It was 92 degrees during the race, but we'd practiced on Friday when it was 105 and while the Solstice ran a little hotter that day than we would have liked, it was well within the safety range. So I was pretty confident it would be okay Sunday."
More than the weather the challenge was the speed of Grand's Mitsubishi. "I had to push, push," Knowles continued. "The Evo has a lot of horsepower and the whole race I had to run just as hard as I could without hurting my car. The Solstice GXP has great handling and excellent brakes, and I had to use my car's strengths to keep the pressure on the Evo. Sure enough, late in the race he started having some sort of mechanical malfunction and on the last lap Marty had trouble selecting a gear and lost his momentum. That was the break I needed."
It wasn't quite as simple as that. Grand moved over to defend his position and the Solstice and Mitsubishi traded paint as Knowles made the pass. "If he hadn't had that problem at the end, it would have been very tough to beat Marty."
Knowles and Aquilante take their iRacing.com Solstice GXPs to Pennsylvania this weekend for a double national event at Pocono International Raceway.
"Given that the iRacing.com Solstice GXP didn't run its first race until the season was more than half over, qualifying for the Runoffs is really down to the wire," said Scott McKee, vice president of marketing at iRacing.com. "All of us at iRacing are thrilled by the success so far, but this coming weekend is going to be a mix of anxiety and anticipation. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed for Don, Joe and the whole Phoenix Performance team."
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