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MAR 16, 2018 | Ford Performance Staff

Ford Mustang GT4 Takes Home Win for KohR Motorsports

Nate Stacy and Kyle Marcelli stand in front of their winning red Ford Mustang GT4

SEBRING, Fla.– KohR Motorsports used a one-stop race strategy with its Mustang GT4 race car to drive away with the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Grand Sport race title at Sebring International Raceway on Friday.

KohR picked up its fourth team win and first for drivers Nate Stacy and Kyle Marcelli, who piloted the No. 60 Roush Performance/KohR Motorsports Ford Mustang GT4 to the top spot.

“If you look at it as a whole, we started strong at Daytona, qualifying third and running in the top five before a race incident took us out,” Marcelli said. “So we came here this weekend with a ‘win or don’t finish’ attitude.  We wanted to show what we are capable of, and what this Mustang is capable of.”

The shorter race distance – 2 hours, as compared to the 2-hour, 45-minute format series teams are used to – allowed for new strategies that KohR took advantage of.

“That was the key to victory,” Marcelli said. “I was nervous when all the leaders came in early but it worked out and I have to credit (team owner) Dean Martin, Roush Performance and KohR Motorsports for that call.  After that, it was just up to me to manage the tires and the car and the race. I asked my crew chief to just give me the second-place car’s times, so I just wanted to match or beat those times and it helped us open up a four to five second lead and won us the race.”

Six Ford Mustang GT4s started the race, including the No. 15 of Multimatic Motorsports driven by Scott Maxwell and Ford Performance Development Driver Chase Briscoe. Briscoe started the race and worked his way up to as high as fourth before a caution forced a last-minute change in strategy for the team. A race collision with just over 30 minutes left set them back permanently.

“That was fun,” Briscoe said. “Wish we would have had a better outcome, but I learned a ton and had fun doing it. I feel like if I came back here next weekend, I'd be even faster. It was nice to be competitive. I wasn't running fast enough to win the race, but we were running good enough to be top five. It was fun, and hopefully what I learn will transfer over to the NASCAR XFINITY Series, which is why we are doing this. In the beginning of the race, I thought I wasn't aggressive enough and was watching my mirrors too much. But we got that yellow about 20 minutes in and it let me catch my breath and got started focusing on what was in front of me.  That's when I felt I ran the best.”

“We kind of put ourselves in a tight spot because we waited a bit longer to make the pit stop so we would be good on fuel, and then we got caught by that yellow,” Maxwell said. “Because of that, we had to be aggressive because we were in the back. The car was great. Thought we had a chance to run it back toward the front.”

The series now heads to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Couse in Lexington, Ohio May 5.

“The car has been awesome every time I have driven it and the Ford Performance guys have really given us a great car to work with and the KohR guys have really wrapped their head around it,” Stacy said. “We planned a one-stop strategy, and that’s what we did. We didn’t need a splash because we had enough cautions. We really worked it all out. Dean Martin called it perfectly on the strategy. We were set up for longevity and didn’t need to have a giant flier lap there at the end. And Kyle did a great job bringing it home. That was the second-longest race I have ever been in, so the last 10 minutes today seemed long. I just know the Fords are awesome.”