Lombardi Wins Thrilling Race at The Glen

Currently, results and points are under review from series officials as multiple teams have lodged protests concerning passing that occurred under yellow flag conditions.

"That was a challenging race," explained Lombardi. "I was slow a bit on the restarts but I had a good car and once I was in the lead, McDonough was so busy trying to hold off Chris Miller that I was able to escape for a bit. Al Guibord Jr had a run on me but I wasn’t going to brake until he backed off. We went into those corners as deep as we could go."

"The top cars were so comparable in speed that any one of us could have won that," Guibord Jr said. "As far as trying to get past Lombardi, I didn’t want to take an unnecessary risk and take us both out, the car was amazing, it was basically on rails the entire race."

The race saw one green flag lap to begin with, with 32 cars making it through turn one cleanly , followed by a debris caution for parts scattered in the busstop. Coming to the restart an incident between Tom Fatur, Jonathan Scarallo and Phil Lombardi put Scarallo into the pit-side wall bringing out another caution.

"We were three wide on the restart and Lombardi came down on me. To avoid hitting him I managed to make contact with Tom Fatur, putting me into the wall at the same time," Scarallo said. "At the same time, coming to that restart it looked like Chris Miller was playing all sorts of games accelerating and then slowing down."

Tom Fatur shared his view of the crash: "It looked like Lombardi didn’t get a good start and he came down on Jonathan (Scarallo), who clipped me, bending my steering. I just drove a few more corners with the steering wheel the wrong way and then just parked it."

Caitlin Johnston survived Scarallo’s incident to come home in 14th position, and had an upfront view of the incident. "That was totally chaotic," said Johnston post-race. "Scarallo’s wing flew off, hit mine, damaging it and then bounced into the cockpit, I had to put my arm up to keep it from hitting my helmet."

At the same time Matt McDonough made what many are calling a bonzai move down the inside, going from fifth to first. McDonough’s move is in question currently as the track may have been yellow.

When the race went green again Lombardi got past McDonough, in the Piper chassis, who had his hands full with Friday’s winner Chris Miller and his JDC MotorSports Van Diemen. The two eventually touched, putting McDonough into the tires and slicing the left-rear tire on Miller’s car.

A full course caution came thrown moments later for Mark Defer, who put his race car into the tire barrier coming onto the front straight, sustaining heavy damage.

Defer commented: "I went over the rumbled strips a bit too much and the front nose came off, I had the shock cover in my face and the front nose wedged itself under the car, sending me into the tire barrier."

JDC was able to change tires for Miller under yellow and when the green dropped with two laps to go, Miller went from 24th to 12th. Results pending, Miller leads the points by a single point over Remy Audette, with another 13 back to Matthew Inge.

While Miller was dicing through the field pole-sitter Matthew Inge was able to outbrake Guibord Jr going into turn one for second place.

Rob Nicholas for K-Fast Autosport came home Masters Class victor, fifth overall. Benjamin Searcy, Fabio Orsolon, Chris Gumprect, Craig Clawson and Charles Finelli rounded out the top ten.

Fabio Orsolon was perhaps one of the biggest stories of the day, wheeling his Alegra Motorsports #26 home seventh after starting 31st. "That race was a total all out fight, " Orsolon said. "We had really good luck with all the yellows as they bunched up the field."

Unofficial Results:

PosNo.NameClassLapsTotal TmDiffGap13Phil LombardiF21437:51.654--202Matthew IngeF21437:52.199+0.545+0.545395Al Guibord, Jr.F21437:52.709+1.055+0.510421Remy AudetteF21437:53.220+1.566+0.511589Rob Nicholas/MF21437:53.918+2.264+0.698610Benjamin SearcyF21437:55.440+3.786+1.522726Fabio OrsolonF21437:57.849+6.195+2.409897Chris GumprechtF21437:58.095+6.441+0.246927Craig Clawson/MF21438:00.641+8.987+2.5461083Charles Finelli/MF21438:00.697+9.043+0.0561125Jeff McCusker/MF21438:02.538+10.884+1.8411285Chris MillerF21438:02.712+11.058+0.1741360Dwight Rider/MF21438:02.909+11.255+0.1971420Caitlin JohnstonF21438:03.446+11.792+0.5371547Scott GesfordF21438:04.041+12.387+0.5951628Ardie Greenamyer/MF21438:04.057+12.403+0.0161712Colin AlexanderF21438:05.080+13.426+1.0231817Tyler HunterF21438:06.248+14.594+1.168197Brent Gilkes/MF21438:06.463+14.809+0.2152015Mark FelsenF21438:09.106+17.452+2.6432151Dan Denison/MF21438:09.580+17.926+0.474225Keith McCrone/MF21438:16.342+24.688+6.7622380Bobby CaldwellF21438:31.315+39.661+14.9732494Blake TeeterF21336:01.8411 Lap1 Lap2511Matt McDonoughF2923:36.1095 Laps4 Laps2656Mike Mazziotti/MF2923:43.131+7.022+7.0222790Robert Wright/MF2923:43.936+7.827+0.805288Mark Defer/MF2821:42.9916 Laps1 LapDNF22Jonathon ScaralloF237:53.71111 Laps5 LapsDNF70Tom Fatur/MF237:54.516+0.805+0.805DNF96Alejandro MunozF205.91514 Laps3 LapsDNF4Chris Camadella/MF206.069+0.154+0.154DNS08John Dole/MF20-.-----