Acura NSX GT3s Wrap 2017 Season With Pair of Top-10s in Sonoma

• Peter Kox finishes seventh and ninth in season-ending doubleheader
• Ryan Eversley suffers severed brake line and unavoidable contact in his two races
• RealTime Racing Acura NSX GT3s finish sixth in season's team championship

The RealTime Racing Acura NSX GT3 team had a mixed end to the season finale Pirelli World Challenge GT doubleheader weekend at Sonoma Raceway, capping the year with a pair of top-10 runs from Peter Kox.

Kox finished ninth and seventh respectively in the final two races of the 2017 PWC championship, concluding a campaign that saw the Dutchman carry his Acura NSX GT3 to its first PWC victory, along with co-driver Mark Wilkins at the Utah Motorsports Campus Sprint-X round.

Kox's RealTime Racing stablemate, Ryan Eversley, had a much tougher weekend, getting sidelined in both races due to troubles not of his own making. Eversley suffered a severed brake line in Saturday's race, and then failed to finish a lap in the finale after a competitor spun in his path and the pair made hard contact, fortunately without injury to either driver.

Saturday's event started promisingly enough, as Eversley and Kox both gained positions when two competitors crashed on the opening lap. Unfortunately, debris from that contact got into the wheel well of Eversley's car, cutting a brake line and leading to an early retirement. Kox moved into ninth when Eversley retired, and held station for the 32-lap distance for his 10th top-10 finish of the season.

Kox improved on Sunday, using a spectacular start to vault from 12th on the grid to seventh. He chased Jon Fogarty throughout the closing laps, in a valiant effort to snare sixth from the Californian, but settled for a seventh-place result that tied his best since his Utah win.

"I had my best start of the season," Kox said. "I was up to seventh. The car was quite different from Saturday. We were very competitive and I was really happy with the performance."

Eversley was likely also better Sunday, but he never got the chance to find out. Coming through the blind right-hand second turn on the opening lap, he had nowhere to go when he found Alvaro Parente's damaged car blocking the track. Eversley made heavy contact with the stricken McLaren, ending his race.

"I was nose-to-tail with a couple cars and we moved out in Turn Two like you normally do and when the seas parted, there was a McLaren parked in the road," Eversley recalled. "I was coming with a full head of steam. I tried as hard as I could to stop and turn right, but I hit at a high rate of speed and that caused a large amount of damage, so we weren't able to continue."

The Sonoma weekend wrapped up the PWC GT championship season for RealTime Racing, marking the close of the first full sprint racing season for the new Acura NSX GT3. Eversley and Kox finished eighth and ninth respectively in the final standings, combining to post 23 top-10 finishes and six top-five results.

"I really enjoyed the opportunity to drive for RealTime and to race in the U.S.," Kox said. "I'd like nothing more than to come back. For sure, I think everybody wanted better results, but overall we got a win and strong results with the package that was available to us."

"It's been a tough year," Eversley concluded. "We've been developing a car that has no predecessor against cars that are all based off of previous generation GT3 cars. It was great to see the team doing such an awesome job this year with the workload that's required. I wanted to get them a better result to close out the World Challenge schedule, but it didn't happen."

The Acura NSX GT3 racecar utilizes the production NSX's lightweight multi-material body with aluminum-intensive space frame, and is powered by a 3.5-liter, 75-degree, twin-turbocharged DOHC V-6 engine. The engine uses the same design specifications as the production 2017 Acura NSX, including the block, heads, valve train, crankshaft, pistons and dry-sump lubrication system. The engine is paired with a 6-speed, sequential-shift racing gearbox, delivering power to the rear wheels. The NSX is produced at the Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio.

Video recaps from this weekend's Acura Pirelli World Challenge racing activities at Sonoma are being posted on the "Honda Racing/HPD" YouTube channel.  Produced by the Carolinas Production Group, the video packages can be found in the 2017 HPD Trackside Video Playlist at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV.

 

Pirelli World Challenge Circuit:      Sonoma Raceway (2,385-mile road course), Sonoma, Calif. Weather:  Sunny, warm, 79 degrees F

Saturday Results:
Pos	Drivers	Team	Car	Status
1	Michael Cooper	Cadillac Racing	Cadillac ATS V-R	32 laps
2	Alvaro Parente	K-PAX Racing	McLaren 650S GT3	+2.785 seconds
3	Patrick Long	Wright Motorsports	Porsche 911 GT3R	+4.490
9	Peter Kox	RealTime Racing	Acura NSX GT3	+28.381
NC	Ryan Eversley	RealTime Racing	Acura NSX GT3	+25 Laps
Sunday Results:
Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Status
1	Michael Cooper	Cadillac Racing	Cadillac ATS V-R	29 laps
2	Patrick Long	Wright Motorsports	Porsche 911 GT3R	+0.882 seconds
3	Pierre Kaffer	Magnus Racing	Audi RS8 LMS	+1.090
7	Peter Kox	RealTime Racing	Acura NSX GT3	+16.369
NC	Ryan Eversley	RealTime Racing	Acura NSX GT3	+29 Laps

 

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