O’Gorman-Koch take maiden win at Virginia Int. Raceway

Tom O’ Gorman and Kenton Koch claimed the first victory for the eEuroparts.com Racing team in the TCR class of the IMSA Continental Tire Challenge at Virginia International Raceway.
O’Gorman won his second consecutive pole in TCR class on Friday, and on Saturday, he and co-driver Koch converted that pole to victory. It was anything but a lights-to-flag win, however, as O’Gorman made a trip into the tyre barrier during the early race rainstorm. Undeterred, O’Gorman eventually got the #12 Audi RS3 LMS back on course and he and Koch methodically worked their way back to the front as many of their competitors encountered their own issues.
It took just seven laps for the #12 to get back to the head of the TCR field after the early incident, and Koch claimed the lead from Tom Long in the #77 Compass Racing Audi for the final time with 15 laps remaining. Koch and O’Gorman went on to win by a lap over the #74 Compass Racing Audi pairing of Kuno Wittmer and Rodrigo Sales.

“It’s a joy to finally break through that glass ceiling and to get that first win,” O’Gorman said. “It’s a lot of tension building up to the first win and once you get it it’s a sigh of a relief and you can really focus on getting more. We’re hoping to finish off the rest of the season with this momentum. Huge props to my co-driver Kenton to bring home the car. We had some struggles in my stint, but I think we had the least struggles in the field. It was a really, really challenging race so it’s even more rewarding to win this one.”

The runner-up result for Wittmer and Sales bolstered their TCR points lead to four, 257-253, over co-drivers Long and Britt Casey Jr. with two races remaining this season. Long and Casey came home third in the #77.
Virginia-based Rumcastle LLC team shone out on its home racetrack. Luke and Tanner Rumburg’s Volkswagen Golf GTI claimed fifth place on the last lap overtaking the #10 eEuroparts.com Racing Audi of Carpentier-O’Rourke, while the sister car of DJ Fitzpatrick and Rob Ferriol ran fourth overall and led the class halfway through the race, but then dropped down after paying a drive-through for a grid infringement.