Watkins Glen, NY (Sunday, June 23, 2024) — A day with significant pace and promise ended in disappointment for the Paul Miller Racing team, as they saw a potential victory fall away with a pair of penalties in the closing stanzas of the race.
The No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 started in the sixth position in the hands of Madison Snow and ran in the top five until the first pitstop, when a wheel gun issue necessitated another pit stop to ensure all the wheels were sufficiently tight.
The extra pit stop dropped Bryan Sellers to the rear of the GTD Pro and GTD field, requiring him to pass more than a dozen cars to catch back up to the frontrunners.
From there, the story of the day was weather. Sellers, Snow and Neil Verhagen battled changing conditions and pop-up rainstorms while the engineering team fought to make the correct tire decisions in the hard-to-predict weather.
The team fought through the field and through the weather and were running second on dry-weather tires when a heavy rainstorm caused a yellow and subsequently red flag. It was during the confusion of the safety car trying to find the race leader that Madison Snow inadvertently passed the No. 64 ahead. Despite giving the position back, the team was issued a drive-through penalty that they would have to serve when the race went back to green with under an hour to go.
A fuel flow rate issue on the team’s final stop garnered an additional drive-through penalty for the No. 1, dropping them to eighth at the checkered flag.
“It’s just so unfortunate to have the pace we had today and the execution by the drivers and the crew for so many hours and have it all unravel at the very end because of some mistakes that truly were no fault of the drivers and the crew,” Paul Miller Racing team manager, Mitchell Simmons, said.
“The pass under yellow was just an unfortunate mistake. These things happen in racing, and we certainly paid dearly for it. The fuel flow issue was just an uncharacteristic miscalibration on the part of us, the engineering staff, here at PMR.
“The result just doesn’t show how good we were this weekend. We were fast, the car handled well, and I’m just so proud of how everyone else on this team executed all race and all weekend long. If that wasn’t ours to win, it was certainly a race we could have, and should have, walked away with a better result.”
The Paul Miller Racing team is back in action across the border at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park July 12th to 14th.
Bryan Sellers
“Super rough day for us. One of the things we pride ourselves on as a program is execution and executing in races where we have speed to win. Today we showed we had speed to win, we had a car to win, and we had everything we needed to win, and we just didn’t execute—on a lot of levels. To win in races like this, we have to be better. So, we’re going to go back, and we’re going to get better.”
Madison Snow
“The team did a really good job this weekend. There was a lot of hard work put in between the sessions to change the setup. By the time the race started, the guys at Paul Miller Racing did what they did best and delivered us a really great race car. We were fortunate to have that today. The race had a lot of highs and lows, we were in a good position for quite a while there, but unfortunately, the result just wasn’t there.”
Neil Verhagen
“Obviously, days like today aren’t how you want to end a race after showing so much promise. I think throughout the day, we showed that we were in contention for the win. The car had pace, the team was able to put an amazing race car on the track today and I think that’s something we can be proud of and take forward. There were obviously some things that didn’t go correct today that we need to look back and figure out why. I think there will be a lot of analysis done, and we’ll come back stronger. Just looking forward.”
