PWC: WeatherTech Porsche to enter final two races - MotorSportsTalk

The WeatherTech-backed Alex Job Racing Porsches will take up residence in Pirelli World Challenge for that series’ final two races of the year, at Sonoma Raceway Sept. 16-18 and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Oct. 7-9.

This decision follows the move to withdraw from the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for that series’ final three weekends at VIR, Circuit of The Americas and Road Atlanta, citing a Balance of Performance (BoP) disagreement. WeatherTech remains committed as that series’ entitlement sponsor.

The full release is below:

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Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.) and Gunnar Jeannette (Salt Lake City, Utah) will drive WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R’s in the final two rounds of the Pirelli World Challenge Series (PWC) to run at Sonoma Raceway, September 16-18 and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, October 7-9.

MacNeil will drive the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche in the PWC GTA Class. Jeannette will drive the No. 97 WeatherTech Racing Porsche in the GT category. In addition to running the three remaining 50-minute sprint races, two at Sonoma and one at Laguna Seca, the duo will share a seat for the PWC SprintX race at Laguna Seca as well.

“I’m excited to run PWC for the last two races at Sonoma and Laguna Seca,” MacNeil said. “I have done a lot of races with SCCA, but never on the SCCA Pro Racing side. It will be a different format with the race being a sprint format instead of the endurance length I am used to doing. I have only been to Sonoma once before, back in 2011 running Ferrari Challenge, but I was on the podium both races. We are going to try hard to get back up there this time with a Porsche! The GTA class has been close all year. Some of my main competition will be an old teammate Mike Schein. We used to race Porsche Cup back in 2011 and we had some close races together. It should be fun to get back out there with him and see how we fair.”

Jeannette is ready to go sprint racing.

“I’m excited to be doing the next PWC round at Sonoma,” Jeannette said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done a proper single driver Pro race. I did the duel sprint race event that IMSA did back in 2014, but this is a different story. My only World Challenge start was in an Audi at Sebring in 2004, so it’s been a little bit! The sprint format will obviously be quite different than sharing the car with Cooper. It will be good to still work together to get both of our cars set-up as best as possible for the races. We’ll be playing catch up to all the other teams that have been running all year, so having two cars will be very helpful. The Porsches have shown to be competitive throughout the year and Sonoma should be a decent track for us.”

Jeannette is returning to Sonoma after 12 years. “I think the last time I raced at Sonoma was all the way back in 2004 in the ALMS (American Le Mans Series) days,” he continued. “I remember doing the morning warmup and coming around off the drag strip to see Dale Jr’s Corvette fully ablaze and him scrambling out of the car while it was still rolling. For a split second I thought of stopping to help, but since he was almost out already I continued on. Had I stopped to help I probably would’ve made the national news! Hopefully this year no one will have a repeat of that kind of incident.”

Team owner, Alex Job, is in preparation.

“We have two cars that are race ready and we wanted to get in a couple of more races before the leaves turn colors,” team owner, Alex Job said. “Cooper was considering running the Laguna Seca event for a while and it just made sense for us to add the Sonoma race and get Gunnar involved as well. The SprintX event at Laguna Seca will be something a little different, but a format we are used to doing with a pit stop and two drivers. We will get the cars out on Pirelli tires before we make the trip across the country next week.”

The Pirelli World Challenge Series Cadillac Grand Prix at Sonoma Raceway will run September 16-18.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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