Alec Udell Turns Focus Back to GT Championship with Euroworld Motorsports Porsche
June 20, 2017 | Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin | Alec Udell will return his focus back to the familiar seat of the No. 17 Euroworld Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R prepared by GMG this weekend at Road America. With the resumption of the Pirelli World Challenge (PWC) Sprint Championship on June 24-25 at the Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin-area track, the resident of The Woodlands, Texas will be back in the Clemson University blue and orange Porsche entered by GMG. With the two-driver PWC SprintX Championship placing him in another Porsche for the last several months, Rounds 4 and 5 of the GT class series with the single driver format means the Clemson rising senior will be back at the wheel of his own destiny.
The Pirelli World Challenge, North America’s premier sprint GT road racing series, has broken its 2017 season into two championships with Sprint – single driver format for 50-minute races – and SprintX – 60-minute races with two drivers. Individual and a combined champion will be crowned at the season’s end. Udell is currently in sixth-place in the Sprint Championship for GT Pro drivers. He did so on the shoulders of two GT-Am race victories to open his first year in the international GT3-spec cars when he scored back-to-back wins in the GTA class at St. Petersburg, Florida. Since moving to the full “Pro” category, the 21 year-old has remained competitive among the factory and pro championship drivers of the GT division holding his own in the top-ten of the season-long standings through the first three rounds. A total of ten races will be run in the Sprint Championship and another ten in the SprintX. Udell has been sharing the No. 77 Calvert Dynamics Porsche 911 GT3 R with Preston Calvert (Potomac, Maryland) for SprintX. That Championship resumes in August at Utah Motorsports Campus.
This weekend, Udell returns not only to the Euroworld Motorsports’ entry representing the university at which he is studying mechanical engineering, but also to the classic 4-mile Road America circuit at which he is the defending race winner in the PWC GT Cup class. The Porsche Young Driver Academy graduate won both GT Cup races at this track in 2016 racing the Euroworld Motorsports GMG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car on his way to that class title.
Udell will have his first laps back in the No. 17 Euroworld machine on Thursday, June 22 with an 8:00 – 9:00 a.m. Central Time (CT) test session for GT cars. Another one-hour session will take place at 10:50 a.m. The first official PWC practice session for GT gets underway at 3:15 p.m. the same day and will last 30-minutes. On Friday, Practice 2 will be a 30-minute session beginning at 5:10 p.m. On Saturday, June 24, 30-minutes of qualifying will start at 8:35 a.m. setting the grid for Race 1 which takes the green flag at 4:30 p.m. the same day. Race 2 – whose grid is set based on lap times from Race 1 – will start the 50-minute clock running as the cars speed up the hill across the Road America start-finish line at 9:55 a.m. on Sunday morning, June 25.
The races can be watched live at www.world-challenge.com and on tape delayed broadcast on the CBS Sports Network, Sunday, June 25 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET).
Alec Udell |
about being back in the Euroworld Motorsports Porsche| “Although the black and yellow of the Calvert Dynamics Porsche is very menacing, I'm excited to be back in my Blue and Orange Euroworld Porsche! We've had good runs at the first few Sprint rounds and I've gotten more comfortable in the 911 GT3 R. I think Road America will be a good event for us.”
about Alec Udell |
Alec Udell is a junior studying engineering at Clemson University. The 21 year-old from The Woodlands, Texas began his racing career in karting at age five. He went on to win the Rotax National Points Championship in 2008 and represented his country as part of Team USA in Egypt in the World Championships in 2009. By 2011, he made history by becoming, at the time, the Pirelli World Challenge’s youngest ever competitor at age 15. He has 15 career Pirelli World Challenge GT Cup class wins entering the season and is the 2016 PWC GT Cup Champion.
about Euroworld Motorsports |
2017 is the third season Udell partners with Euroworld Motorsports (www.euroworldmotorsports.com). Euroworld is the country’s only certified automotive carbon fiber repair facility. Based in Houston, they are one of Texas’s leading European auto repair and performance facility.
More information on the 2017 Pirelli World Challenge can be found at www.world-challenge.com .
06202017