Riley Pegram delivered a strong performance at Sebring, climbing from 15th to ninth alongside her father Larry in their Pegram Racing Hyundai Elantra N TCR, securing their first top-10 finish of the season in a caution-free race second IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge round.
Riley Pegram scored her first top-10 finish of the season with a strong drive in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge at Sebring International Raceway. Racing alongside her father Larry in a Pegram Racing prepared Hyundai Elantra N TCR, the duo raced their way to ninth position from 15th on the TCR class grid. Riley’s opening stint was especially strong as she grew in confidence throughout the race and regularly lapped on pace with more experienced drivers.
The Pegram Racing duo took significant strides forward in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway. Despite an unfortunate retirement after a multi-car restart incident, the father-daughter squad were showing excellent performance in their new Hyundai Elantra N TCR machine.
Racing comfortably within the top-10 of the competitive TCR class, Riley Pegram contended for top-5 positions as her stint progressed and she was looking to take this momentum forward to Sebring International Raceway.
Although Pegram Racing did not compete at this circuit in their partial 2024 campaign, Riley Pegram had experience of the track following her stint in Porsche Sprint Challenge North America. Nonetheless, Sebring International Raceway is an extremely challenging circuit and therefore the practice sessions were vital for both drivers to get up to speed.
The first hour-long session was disrupted by a red flag, however good mileage was still accumulated by the Pegram Racing duo. Ending the session eighth in the TCR class, it was a promising start for the pair who were the fifth fastest Hyundai Elantra N TCR. Free practice two was held early on Thursday morning with Riley and Larry once again setting the eighth fastest time within class.
Qualifying was held on Thursday afternoon with Riley Pegram behind the wheel. Pegram enjoyed an extremely consistent session as she continued to improve at a challenging circuit. At the end of the session, her fastest lap of a 2:16.589 placed her 15th in the TCR class ahead of the two-hour race to follow.
The two hour-race took place on Friday afternoon with Riley starting the race in the Hyundai Elantra N TCR. It was a clean start from Pegram who held her position on the opening lap while bringing her tyres up to temperature. She quickly found her rhythm and on lap three, she was the fastest driver in class in the middle sector while setting a lap time quicker than the next six drivers ahead. Riley was within a quarter of a second of matching her best time from qualifying and she had now closed the gap to the drivers ahead.
Before Pegram could line up a move on her TCR class rivals, she had to clear the GS class machine of Christine Sloss. At first, Sloss was using the strengths of her Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 Evo to keep Riley at bay, however she found a way through on lap eight. Lance Bergstein also pitted with a puncture in his Victor Gonzalez Racing machine and this elevated Pegram to 14th in class.
Now in cleaner air, Riley was significantly faster than the group of TCR class cars battling ahead and she moved into 12th on lap 10. While Johnny Mauro slowed with a technical issue, Maddie Aust was spun around at turn one and therefore Pegram capitalised to close in on the top-10 in class. Preston Brown had made contact with Aust and after he served a drive through penalty for the incident, Riley was up to 11th.
On lap 14, a personal best time from Pegram saw her catch the drivers ahead by two seconds as he pace continued to improve as the stint progressed. With forty-five minutes of the race completed, Pegram was inside the top-10 for the first time as she overtook Eduardo Gou. Riley was now directly behind the Precision Racing LA machine of Megan Tomlinson and Pegram was showing intent to pass the Canadian racer.
Just prior to the first pit stops, Pegram made a good move on Tomlinson and finished her stint with a series of fast lap times. Riley ran as high as second overall in the TCR class as the Pegram Racing driver stretched the fuel mileage in her Hyundai Elantra N TCR. After pitting the car on lap 26 to hand over to her father Larry, the team rejoined the race in ninth place in class following the conclusion of the pit cycle.
As Pegram worked hard to warm his front tyres on the opening laps of his stint, he came under pressure from Ron Tomlinson. Tomlinson’s challenge ended following a mistake at turn seven and this gave Pegram some breathing space. Denis Dupont was now the nearest rival and the Belgian driver passed Pegram on lap 32.
Larry was determined to stay in touch with the fellow Hyundai Elantra N TCR driver and following a personal best time on lap 36, the gap remained under five seconds. As the race entered the closing stages, Pegram held tenth position and had opened up a comfortable gap to Tomlinson behind. With no full course yellow periods, fuel mileage became important and a number of the leading TCR teams pitted for a splash of fuel.
However, Pegram Racing remained on circuit and since they were the final team to make their first pit stop, this gave them an advantage. On the final lap of the race, several TCR class cars ran out of fuel approaching the checkered flag however Pegram was just too far back to capitalise and crossed the line in tenth position.
The team’s result was improved further following a post-race penalty for the winning duo of Bryson Morris and Mark Wilkins and therefore Pegram Racing were classified in ninth position.
It was a strong race at Sebring for both Riley and Larry as they banked vital championship points in a caution-free contest. Riley’s pace in the second half of her stint was excellent as she consistently lapped on-pace with those inside the top-10.
Larry’s consistency, coupled with a good strategy from the team, ensured they achieved their first top-10 result of the season. The next round of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge takes place at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on the weekend of May 9th/10th.
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