ALTON, Va. – HPD Honda Civic Si and Type R racers kept themselves in the thick of the hunt for 2021 Touring Car America championships as the season hit the halfway point with this weekend’s races at Virginia International Raceway.
In the TC class, Eric Powell used a third-place run on Saturday and a fourth-place effort on Saturday to wrest the championship lead from fellow HPD Honda Civic Type R pilot Kevin Boehm, besting the DXDT Racing driver in a pair of races that both ended early due to red-flag incidents involving non-Honda competitors.
Boehm shook off a seventh-place run to open the weekend to come back for a fifth-place result in Sunday’s race and is just 2.5 points behind Powell for the TC class championship lead, and is the only driver in the class to have multiple victories through the first six races of the year.
Lindsay Brewer carded a pair of top-10 runs, allowing the Skip Barber Racing School HPD Honda Civic Type R driver to extend a season-long streak of points-paying finishes. In addition, Frank Szczesnick matched a season-best with an 11th-place run on Sunday in his second race weekend of the year in his Honda.
TCA
In the TCA category where the HPD Honda Civic Si is featured, Carter Fartuch moved into second in the season championship on the strength of two top-five results this year, including a second-place run on Sunday. Fartuch had a spirited battle with Luke Rumberg as the race passed the halfway mark, but was denied a chance to battle for the win when a hard crash with 23 minutes to go caused damage to the guardrail and ended the race prematurely.
Sally McNulty had her best weekend of the season in her HPD Honda Civic Si, running seventh in the opener before finishing a season-best fifth in the Sunday event. Mario Biundo also carded a season-high result on Sunday, taking his LA Honda World Racing Honda Civic Si to sixth, just ahead of Chris Harrison. Jose Blanco also earned a pair of top-10 runs over the weekend and is fifth in the TCA point standings.
HPD has two ready-to-race Civic models for touring car competition. The line starts with the affordable and reliable Civic Si TCA race car, then leads to the Civic Type R TC racer that puts legendary Type R performance on track, Our unparalleled trackside support at every level from HPD engineers is a unique benefit that no other manufacturer can offer. Find out more about these cars and our touring programs at: https://hpd.honda.com/Motorsports/Touring.
Next:
After the first six rounds of the 2021 season, the SRO Touring Car America series now takes an extended break before resuming with rounds 7 and 8, July 27-29 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.