Winners crowned at inaugural HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour

The first race winners in the inaugural running of the HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour presented by Mission Foods were crowned Sunday afternoon after four days of outstanding HSR competition at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta (MRRA) this past weekend. The highlight of the full event – which also included the HSR Fall Historics – was the debut HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour that took its place alongside the HSR Classic races at Daytona International Speedway, Sebring International Raceway and Watkins Glen International as part of the first-year HSR Classic Endurance Cup presented by Mission Foods series.

The HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour presented by Mission Foods was the third round of the inaugural HSR Classic Endurance Championship season that features the four ‘tribute events’ celebrating the biggest and longest-running sports car endurance races in the United States. The Classic Road Atlanta 10 Hour honors the legendary ALMS and now IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 10-hour race that ends each year’s contemporary sports car racing season at MRRA. The HSR Classic 10 Hour featured four different Run Groups each taking to the 2.54-mile Georgia road course for three different segments over the course of Saturday and Sunday.

Not to be outdone, the debut HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour delivered the same stout competition and thrilling finishes of its more established sister events with a fast mix of close battles to the end and convincing and controlled winning performances.

The closest race emerged in the always competitive GT Modern (GTM) battleground of Group C that became an all-Porsche 911 GT3 contest from the drop of the green flag. The driving duo of Ed Wheatley and winning Porsche GT3 and Carrera Cup pro driver Jimmy Llibre led overnight after a pair of strong opening races on Saturday, but holding on for the victory Sunday took a focused fight to the finish.

Riding a 22.398s lead into Sunday’s final, Wheatley and Llibre in the ACI Motorsports 2019 No. 2 Fortress Stabilization Porsche 991.2 GT3 R tucked in behind their closest challenger and tracked them to the finish. The Hudson Historics 2018 No. 78 Porsche 991.2 GT3 Cup of Zach Ehrlich and John Reisman kept Wheatley and Llibre honest the entire race, but a leading charge to the checkered flag Sunday came up just short. 

Ehrlich, the nephew of veteran HSR race winner Reisman, drove the majority of the weekend’s races, turning some of his fastest laps trying to build a margin on the ACI No. 2 Fortress entry in Sunday’s final. Ehrlich won the round but Wheatley and Llibre secured their second HSR Classic Run Group win in less than a year with a 16.348s margin of victory that was the closest of the Classic 10 Hour. Wheatley and Llibre were also victorious in their Run Group in last December’s HSR Sebring Classic 12 Hour presented by Mission Foods at Sebring International Raceway. 

Neapole took the final of Group D’s three checkered flags on the weekend in first place but settled for runner-up honors with Cosmo and his teammates in the overall battle, finishing just over 28 seconds behind the winning Cadillac.

The victory in the first HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour gave Marshall, Foss and Matador Motorsports the distinction of quickly becoming the first team and drivers to win all four HSR Classic races at least once with the same team, driver and car combination.

The No. 02 Cadillac team’s most recent HSR Classic victory came in March’s HSR Sebring Classic 12 Hour, and an equally accomplished and hard-to-beat competitor duplicated that record in the combined Group A and Group B race at MRRA.

Todd Treffert has been one of if not the most victorious driver in HSR for nearly a decade, but a race win in an HSR Classic had been elusive until his breakthrough victory in the HSR Sebring Classic 12 Hour in March. He took the Group B victory in his great looking 901 Shop-prepared 1975 No. 41 Porsche 911 Carrera Cup RSR “Baby” Turbo at Sebring and replicated the feat this weekend at MRRA with his second Group B win in the first three rounds of this year’s HSR Classic Endurance Cup presented by Mission Foods.

A similar ‘keep them close’ strategy was a winning won in Group D where the powerhouse team of Pierce Marshall and Eric Foss, in the Matador Motorsports 2017 No. 02 Cadillac DPi, won their fourth HSR Classic in their last six starts. The Classic 10 Hour triumph once again came down to a race-long battle with friendly rivals Bob Neapole and Guy Cosmo in the RBN Motorsports with Cosmo-Sport 2020 No. 60 Acura ARX-05 prepared by Hudson Historics.

Marshall, Foss and the No. 02 Matador Motorsports team swept both of Saturday’s opening rounds to build a 40.511 second advantage over the No. 60 Acura squad heading into Sunday’s final. Rather than try to further gap on the Acura, however, closing No. 02 Cadillac driver Marshall was content to trail the No. 60 to the finish on Sunday.

Treffert finished a close second in his division and overall in Saturday’s opening Group A/B race, which was won outright and in Group B by Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley and his legendary co-driver Jan Magnussen. Unfortunately, Farley’s beautiful Wolf Motorsports 1978 No. 98 Ford-Lola T298 retired with a suspension issue early in the second A/B round, and Treffert was quick to pounce. He kept his No. 41 Carrera RSR in front and out of trouble for the remainder of round two, and in Sunday’s final segment, to sweep overall and Group B honors. Treffert’s one-lap win over the pristine 1976 No. 84 Chevrolet DeKon Monza of brothers Theo Bean and Patrick Bean was the biggest margin of victory in the inaugural HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour.

The Group A winner made a mark of its own in the Classic 10 Hour as the only one of the weekend’s four winners to sweep all three of its group race segments. The Downforce Motorsports 1966 No. 98a Superformance GT40 prepared by Olthoff Racing led the race from start to finish after rebounding from a contact incident early in the weekend and an unplanned solo drive by Olthoff racing owner and driver Dennis Olthoff. The Superformance GT40 was slated to be co-driven by owner Dan Long and Olthoff, but Long left the track early in the weekend to prepare his home for potential flooding due to the tropical storm and hurricane forming in the Atlantic ocean off the Southeastern U.S. coast.

An experienced and top driver in his own right, Olthoff capably soloed to the convincing victory, maintaining the Group A lead throughout and finishing fifth overall behind the top-four Group B finishers. The win was the first of Olthoff and his team in HSR Classic competition in five years when he joined the late Jim Cullen and Frank Beck for a pair of HSR Daytona Classic 24 Hour presented by Mission Foods Group A wins in 2020 and 2018 in Cullen’s Olthoff Racing 1970 No. 01 Lola T70.

Classic Sebring 12 Hour Group A winner David Agretelis finished second behind the GT40 and a respectable sixth overall in his 901 Shop 1972 No. 166 Porsche 911 S/T. Third in Group A went to Robert Spence in his similar 1972 No. 63 Porsche 911 S/T. 

Other third-place podium players in the HSR Road Atlanta Classic 10 Hour included Colin Dougherty in Group C in the DAS Sport 2016 No. 16 Porsche 991.2 GT3 R, Jim Hamblin in Group B in the 901 Shop 1971 No. 18 Porsche 911 RSR and the returning duo of Keith Freiser and multiple HSR Classic 24 winner Aaron Scott in a 2009 No. 20 Zytek LMP1 .

Next up on the 2025 HSR schedule is the 11th HSR Daytona Classic 24 Hour presented by Mission Foods, and the HSR Daytona Historics, at Daytona International Speedway November 5 – 9.