Wednesday, May 24, 2017 – Highlands, NJ – After an eventful, and wet weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, Always Evolving/AIM Autosport driver Frankie Montecalvo is looking forward to the next rounds of the SprintX Series at Lime Rock Park on May 26 and 27.
Last weekend, Montecalvo put the No. 75 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 on pole in the SprintX GTA class for the third round of the SprintX Series at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. He also set a new GTA track record for fastest lap in class. Montecalvo had actually set the record two years prior, but was able to lower his time in the Always Evolving Nissan GT-R.
Montecalvo had a clean start for Saturday’s race and remained first in class when he came into the pits to hand the car over to teammate Ricardo Sanchez. However, the team missed the minimum pit stop requirement by four tenths of a second, which resulted in Sanchez having to serve a drive through penalty.
There was also a glitch in timing and scoring which scored Montecalvo and Sanchez P9 at the end of the 60-minute battle. However, once the glitch was caught, they were awarded the fourth place points they earned.
“All and all the weekend was a success. We were able to get the pole on Friday, and I found out I set a new lap record in GTA which was really great,” said Montecalvo.
“AIM Autosport and Always Evolving is such a superb team to be linked up with. The car was really good all weekend. The race on Saturday was pretty uneventful for my stint. We had a good race running fifth overall, and I was able to hand the car off to Ricardo with no dents or scratches, so that’s always good.”
“Ricardo and I had a great driver change, but we were four tenths under the minimum pit stop time, so we had to serve a drive through penalty which set us back a few positions. There was also a glitch in the timing loop that scored us a lap behind at the end of the race. We were fourth place in class, but were being scored as ninth in class. They found the issue after the race and moved us back up to fourth place points. We were happy with a top five finish in class, but definitely think we had the car to battle for a top five overall finish on Sunday.”
Sunday saw torrential downpours, and the Pirelli World Challenge officials eventually called the race and will reschedule the fourth round at a later date.
“I was really looking forward to Round 4 on Sunday. After seeing the river of rain that was streaming down pit lane and having driven Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in the wet before, the officials definitely made the right call by calling the race.”
Montecalvo had a quick 24 hours at home before heading back to the track at Lime Rock Park where testing began on Tuesday.
“Lime Rock is a track that’s very close to home for me. It’s such a different track than CTMP, so we’ll have to have an entirely new approach for the weekend. It’s a super short lap for us. With as many entries as we have for SprintX, it’s definitely going to be an exciting race for the fans, but definitely a lot of work for us behind the wheel.”
“Lime Rock is a very tight track and can be difficult to get around with all of the traffic. The team, as well as Ricardo and I will have to be at the top of our game this weekend. With a team like Always Evolving and AIM Autosport, I think we’re going to do just fine. Our goal is to go for another pole so that on Friday afternoon we can start from the front and stay there.”
On track action begins Friday, May 26 with practice starting at 11:40 AM EST, immediately followed by qualifying at 12:35 PM EST. You can watch Frankie race Live on Friday, May 26 at 3:55 PM EST and again on Saturday at 1:20 PM EST by tuning in to www.world-challenge.com/streamvideo. Also, don’t forget to follow Frankie on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date with all of his racing news!