MILLVILLE, N.J. – Michael DiMeo, of Toronto, and Shea Holbrook, of Groveland, Fla., repeated their Round 5 wins in the Touring Car and Touring Car A classes in Round 6 for the Pirelli World Challenge at New Jersey Motorsports Park. A third young gun, Tyler Palmer of San Diego, Calf., has now taken his first Touring Car B-Spec win of the season after a dramatic late-race pass.
For DiMeo, driving in the No. 71 Grand Alarms Honda Civic Si, it was another perfect race to complete a six-pack of victories to open the season. From the Motul pole position, which he earned after setting the fastest race lap in Round 5, DiMeo launched well from the start at the 2.25-mile Thunderbolt road course and led all 27 laps for his second straight flag-to-flag win. DiMeo won by 3.012 seconds.
“We had a great day today and an even better weekend here at NJMP,” DiMeo said. “The Children’s Tumor Foundation had NF families here yesterday, and I was proud to get a win for them on the last day of NF Awareness Month. Today’s race was all about managing TCB traffic, trying to get by them clean and without hurting the gap I had to second place,” he added. “I was pushing until the end, and wanted to give C360R a well-deserved win; the guys work extremely hard to give me a solid car.”
Second in TC for the second consecutive race was Kevin Anderson, of Huntington Station, N.Y., in the No. 23 TechSportRacing.com Mazda RX-8. Anderson started second but lost the position to a fast-starting Emilee Tominovich, of Laurel, Md., in the No. 19 Emich Racing Volkswagen Jetta GLI. Contact between the two on Lap 4 knocked Tominovich out of the position; Anderson was penalized 20 points for the incident. Still, for Anderson, this was a very good debut weekend within Pirelli World Challenge. Third for the third consecutive race was DiMeo’s teammate, Karl Thomson, of Toronto, in the No. 72 CTF.org/Touge Tuning/Racing4Research Honda Civic Si. Jeff Riccia, of Milford, Conn. in the No. 77 GenRacer.com/Stance USA Hyundai Genesis Coupe and Randy Hale, of Haddam, Conn. in the No. 83 TransAero Mazda MX-5 finished fourth and fifth.