ALTON, Va. – Jacob Ruud came out on top of a shortened TC America main event Saturday afternoon at Virginia Int’l Raceway.
Ruud brought the TC America field to the green flag under sunny and hot Virginia skies. Ruud was quickly able to pull out to a two second gap ahead of Steve Streimer’s No. 30 Hard Motorsports BMW M2 CS Cup machine after lap one during the 40 minute contest and never looked back, taking his fifth victory of the season overall and in the TCX class in a red-flag shortened event.
Austen Smith would keep his No. 51 Auto Technic BMW M240iR in the lead of the TC field as the green flag waved, but in TCA it was Caleb Bacon who would jump from third to first to grab the class lead in the No. 18 Forbush Performance Hyundai Veloster Turbo.
At the halfway point of the race the first full course caution would be called as the No. 88 Genracer Hyundai of Kurt Walsheim would slow with a flat tire through the esses and come to a stop near Oak Tree, bunching the field together for a final sprint to the finish.
The race would get back to green with 10 minutes remaining, but would instantly go back to yellow, then red, for a major incident involving the No. 60 MINI JCW Team Mini Cooper of Mark Pombo at the start-finish line.
The race would be called with Ruud taking the win in TCX, Steve Streimer second and the No 104 AOA Racing BMW of Chris Walsh third. Olivia Askew and the No. 3 BMW would finish fourth with Samantha Tan and the No. 438 BMW fifth.
The TC win would go to Austen Smith in the No. 51 Auto Technic Racing BMW followed by teammate Tom Capizzi in the No. 52 and Eric Powell in the No. 92 Honda. The No. 21 TechSport Racing Nissan of Rob Hines would come home fourth with the No. 23 Nissan of Joseph Federl fifth.
Caleb Bacon would be named the TCA-class winner with Michael Carter in the No. 22 TechSport Racing Toyota coming home second and Luke Rumberg and the No. 33 Forbush Performance Hyundai rounding out the top three. P.J. Groenke and the No. 25 TechSport Toyota would finish fourth and the No. 16 Honda of Carter Fartuch fifth.