Alex Denning stole the show in the amateurs once again this week as he drove home with two victories from Road Atlanta. Having already won in LeMans two weeks ago and being on the leaders pace in practice he was looking strong to perform well here but nobody imagined he would take both races in this highly skilled grid.

“GREAT JOB BY ALEX DENNING, YET ANOTHER WIN IN THE GT4. HE HAS NO ISSUE EXTRACTING THE MOST THAT HE CAN OUT OF THESE M4s”

In qualifying he robbed pole from David Maguire by a tenth, him holding off Harry McGovern and the super fresh duo of Brendan Stone and Chris McCann showing great pace hanging it to the leaders of the series. Further on, the always consistent Kevin Shine led the fan favourite Laurence Dusoswa. Special mention to Michael Maguiness who started mid pack despite only really having one active hand this week after an incident with a plate left him changing gears with random buttons he had to adapt to on the wheel.
The big thing here was how the M4s were going to deal with the quicker M8 class as they arrived to pass them after a number of laps. The M8s have frantic acceleration, much higher apex speed and much later braking points when compared with the field of M4s.

Alex Denning holds the grid back on the race start but David Maguire times the start to perfection and is past Denning from the very beginning but it doesn’t take long for Denning to reclaim his pole position once again. Mark Birney gets it loose over the start/finish on lap one and collects the pit wall as he tries to control the car.

David Maguire would get unlucky a few laps later getting a bit of a snap oversteer in the essesses and crashed out of second. By lap twelve it had settled down to Denning and McGovern sailing away, while surprisingly, to himself as much as us, Maguiness found himself on the podium before binning it on stream on the pit straight. This would promote VRA Racing’s Chris McCann into the podium for the first time, another man looking fast early in this series and in his sim racing rookie season!

Race 2 would see no reverse grid for the M4s, seeing the finish positions of race one dictate the starting order for race 2. A bit of a gap for Denning to the rest of the pack at the start brought on a stewards enquiry but this was closed by lap ten with no further action, something Alex would have been delighted to hear with McGovern breathing down his neck. It was a quieter race than that of race 1, some incidents did happen however, Maguire would make contact with the back of McCann’s M4 as he hunted a second in a row podium, neither driver had any luck in the recovery and the door was opened for youtuber Laurence Dusoswa to drive by both stricken cars and rob the final step on the podium. 

“IF THAT’S CHRIS MCCANN JACK, THEN THIS WILL BE THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED TO HIM IN TWO ROUNDS”

So what next? Many M8 drivers are looking on at the great racing that the M4s are providing and we’re jealous! The slightly slower car is keeping the racing close and action packed. Can Denning be caught even at this early stage, the points tables will be very heavily skewed in Denning’s favour.
Join us in Spa Francorchamps in two weeks where we go back to the endurance race setup of only one race and haul of points to be had. The whole grid will be out for Dennings blood! 

“IT WASN’T AS EASY AS IT MAY HAVE LOOKED AND I AM ABSOLUTELY THRILLED TO HAVE TAKEN THE TWO WINS TONIGHT”