TPC Racing Dominates Race One at Sebring

Jessup, MD (March 14, 2013) Today marked an amazing start to the race season for TPC Racing. Over the offseason, both Michael Levitas and David Williams worked very hard to prepare for Sebring and to be championship contenders, and today proved that. The practice sessions on Wednesday were tough for the 36 TPC Racing / Merkle GT3 Cup of team principle Michael Levitas, but the team worked hard and sorted out the car.

Levitas started off the week in P4 turning laps in the 2:14 range while teammate David Williams was turning 2:13’s in his 37 TPC Racing / Merkle GT3 Cup. The team worked hard Wednesday night to prepare for the qualifying session this morning. Right away, the changes that were made to both cars Wednesday night proved to be successful.

Right away, Michael Levitas turned fast laps in his 36 TPC Racing / Merkle Porsche and grabbed the pole position turning a 2:10.5. This was the fastest lap that Michael has turned at Sebring in his GT3 Cup. Shortly after Levitas clocked in at a 2:10.5, David Williams turned a 2:11.4 in his 37 TPC Racing / Merkle GT3 Cup to take P2. From there, the positions stayed and TPC Racing would start the first race of the season P1 and P2.

When the race went green later that afternoon, Levitas kept his nose clean and turned consistent times holding a nice lead. David did the same and held his position in P2. Late on in the race, David starting running very fast lap times giving Michael a good run for his money. It was going to be a great team battle, but a caution late in the race would have race one of the weekend finishing under caution. When the check flag flew, TPC Racing would take its first ever 1-2 finish in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge. It was a fantastic race, and the team did an amazing job preparing the cars to be race winning machines.

“It was a great run, I had a great time, I mean TPC really pulled it off in the final hours,” said the class-winning Levitas. “Even from the practice day we had a great car but for some reason we couldn’t find it and the guys worked hard and pulled it off in the final hours last night. We weren’t too sure what we had going into the qualifying but once we got to qualifying I knew I had a great car, it was a great feeling going into the race.”

This was a great run by David Williams finishing P2 in his 37 TPC Racing / Merkle Porsche GT3 Cup. David took delivery of his GT3 Cup in December after taking a few years off from racing and right away after a few test days was running in the front of the field racing for the race win.

“It was all about redemption this weekend,” Williams said. “We did well in qualifying as well as the race, so overall this was a great weekend in my first race. If it wasn’t for the hard work and determination of our team and sponsors, we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off.”

TPC Racing is hoping for another 1-2 sweep for race two Friday afternoon. The team has worked hard, and Michael Levitas will be starting from pole position again in his 36 TPC Racing / Merkle Porsche. David Williams will be starting P4, but David has a great car under him and is ready for a great race.