SEBRING, Fla. — The season-ending HSR Sebring Historics and Mission Foods HSR Sebring Classic 12 Hour, Pistons & Props, Presented by the Alan Jay Automotive Network, moved off to a competitive start Thursday at Sebring Int’l Raceway.
In the day’s featured one-hour B.R.M. Endurance Challenge race, Bob Neapole and Guy Cosmo broke through for their first Historic Prototype and overall race win in the series in the RBN Motorsports with Cosmo-Sport 2020 No. 60 Acura ARX-05.
Neapole and Cosmo narrowly came out on top in a race-long battle with their friends and on-track rivals Pierce Marshall and Eric Foss in the 2017 No. 02 Matador Motorsports Cadillac DPi.
The Acura squad’s victory came after a great opening and race-leading stint by Neapole and a perfectly timed pit stop at mid-race when Cosmo took over for the run to the finish.
Cosmo and Foss ran in a close one-two formation in the race’s closing stages with the No. 60 taking the team’s maiden Historic Prototype class checkered flag for the win just 4.264 seconds ahead of the No. 02.
The top two shared the overall and top-three Historic Prototype podium with the ageless Travis Engen in his nearly 20-year-old 2005 No. 2 Audi R8 LMP prepared by GMT Racing.
The race win in the GT Modern (GTM) class went to Vincent Barletta in the always-quick 2016 No. 95 BMW M6 GTD Prepared by Turner Motorsport. In addition to taking GTM division honors, Barletta was the also the first non-Prototype in the 31-car field to take the checkered flag a solid fourth overall behind only the top-three Prototypes.
Second in GTM went to Conor Flynn and his father Mike Flynn in the Irish Mike’s Racing 2020 No. 195 Porsche 991.2 GT3. The senior Flynn started the race but came to the pits during a yellow flag period in the opening laps to selflessly pass the Porsche over to his son who completed the balance of the race’s 60 minutes for the competitive runner-up result.
Third in GTM in the B.R.M. race was secured by frequent HSR podium finisher Colin Dougherty in his 2008 No. 92 Porsche 997 Grand-Am Cup prepared by DAS Sport.
