Racing News

Trent Hindman and John Edwards in the #46 Fall-Line M3 finished second in a dramatic Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge season finale at Road Atlanta, securing the Grand Sport drivers’ title for Hindman, the GS team championship for Fall-Line Motorsports, and the GS manufacturers’ championship for BMW.

Hindman started seventeenth on the Grand Sport grid, as a red flag had come out in qualifying before he could get in a lap. His closest competitors for the championship, Stevenson Camaro racers Andrew Davis and Robin Liddell, took the pole.

Hindman moved up to third on his stint. After the race he said that he had been able to move up by taking advantage of the half wet-half dry conditions early in the race. Edwards stayed in the lead group after he took over, running in a five-car pack. Liddell, who had led for a time, was second late in the race with Edwards two positions behind him in fourth. With the two racers in those positions BMW had the title, but a one position move up from the Camaro or a one position move down from Edwards would have given the title to the Camaro racers. The duo was second and fourth going into the final five minutes, with Edwards just managing to hold off Matt Plumb in the Rum Bum Porsche and Liddell struggling to hold off Mark Wilkins in an Aston-Martin. Billy Johnson held the lead in the Mustang that he shared with Ian James.

Then Liddell and Wilkins came together; the Aston went off course. Liddell stayed on the track, but the Camaro was wounded, and he fell back, ceding the titles to the Fall-Line racers. Edwards held on to finish second behind Johnson, with Plumb finishing third.

Hindman, the newly-crowned 19-year old champion, said afterward, “I think that the last 55 minutes of this race were the longest of my life and the last 10 made me hate endurance racing with a passion. It was such an incredible race! The championship came down to two minutes to go in the season. But a big shout out to Stevenson for giving us an incredible race. The emotions, it was like our whole season was packed into one race.” He admitted that he liked endurance racing better after the checkered flag was thrown.

Edwards did not share the title because he had spent just six seconds under the limit needed to score points in a race at Kansas Speedway earlier in the season.

The Street Tuner class win went to Ryan Eversley and Kyle Gimple in a Honda Civic. Terry Borcheller and Mike LaMarra in the #23 Burton Racing 128i were the best BMW finishers. The drivers’ championship went to Eric Foss, who had begun the season in a BMW along with his Murillo Racing co-driver Jeff Mosing, but switched to a Porsche Cayman from the Indianapolis race onward.—Brian S. Morgan