vApex off to MAJOR Start

Andy Banfield, Team Manager
Feb 7, 2018
2 min read

The Majors season kicked off its inaugural worldwide season with a Classic Daytona 2.4 Hour event using the Nissan GTP (Made famous by Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson) and the Audi 90 GTO (Made famous by Hans Stuck) for some classic IMSA action under the lights in Daytona Beach. The Majors is the next evolution from the wildly successful and highly respected Pacific Majors league that Mike Ouellette has been running for quite some time.

Running in the International Division due to the scheduling of the Super Bowl, Brian Barney piloted his Nissan to 13th place in a very demanding split that saw some pretty aggressive driving and an overabundance of headlight flashing. (Just because we have the button people, doesn't mean we need to use it....) This was Brian's first true multi-class race and to do it on the Majors stage was quite impressive.

In the Atlantic Division, four drivers qualified into the Pro split with German Afanador leading the way in his Nissan qualifying 2nd overall. Erich Smith qualified right behind German in 3rd with his vApex / Pittsburgh Curling Club Nissan. In the Audi GTO class, Russell Klaesson qualified on Class Pole with Andy Banfield following up in 6th position in his Blue vApex / Verizon Audi.

Both German and Erich spent time in the lead during the 2.4 hours of the race slashing in and out of traffic as the speed difference between the Nissan's and Audi's were quite pronounced on the Daytona Roval. Unfortunately, German was taken out in a questionable incident and ended up 20th overall. Erich finished on the podium in 3rd place in an excellent effort for the Team.

In Audi GTO, Russell DOMINATED the Audi class and even decided to have a couple of wrecks to try and make it a little more interesting for the TV audience watching on the World Wide Web. He took the Win going away. Andy made it up to 2nd in the first stint but blew the Bus Stop on cold tires after the first stop and then could never get the rhythm back and made it home 6th in class.

The vApex Atlantic Team's efforts resulted in a 1st Place Overall in the Team Standings. The Top 3 Teams in each Region after the Indianapolis 500 event will be invited to race an LMP1 at The Majors 24 Hours of Daytona with a chance to win $500.

Andy also is now in 2nd Place in the Legends Division for those drivers who are at least 50 years old. All the results, and more information on the league can be found here: https://www.pacificmajors.com/

The next Majors race is February 25th for the Daytona 500 using the Monster Energy Class A Cup Cars.