RealTime Racing Acuras Dominate Road America

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ELKHART LAKE, Wis., June 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Acura's Ryan Eversley completed a sweep of the Pirelli World Challenge doubleheader race weekend at Road America, adding a second flag-to-flag victory in Sunday's 50-minute race to his equally dominant winning performance on Saturday.

In Saturday's opener, Eversley swept into the lead in the run to the first turn, and never looked back, heading a 1-2 finish for Acura Motorsports and RealTime Racing.  Teammate Peter Cunningham completed the sweep, bringing his Acura TLX GT home second in the first of this weekend's two races at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. 

Starting on the outside of front row, second, Eversley outran the Bentley of pole qualifier Adderly Fong on the long Road America front straight, taking his Acura TLX GT into a lead he would hold throughout the 50-minute contest.  Eversley completed a dominating performance by setting fastest race lap, gaining the pole position for Sunday's follow-up race.

On Sunday, Eversley briefly lost the lead to rival Bryan Heitkotter in the run from the green flag to Turn One, but had regained the advantage by Turn Three and, once again, was never headed, taking the checkers by 2.623 seconds over Fong for his second victory of the weekend. 

"Our results this weekend reinforce the image of Acura as a performance brand, against the likes of Audi, Ferrari, and Mercedes," said Art St. Cyr, president of Honda Performance Development.  "Congratulations to Ryan, Peter, everyone at RealTime Racing and HPD for a dominating performance.  Ryan's victory sweep this weekend and Peter's second and fourth-place finishes, at their home track, was a definite 'feel good' story.  We look forward to our own 'home track' appearance next month at Mid-Ohio, where we hope to build on these results."

The wins were the first of the season for Eversley, and the second and third GT class victories of his Pirelli Word Challenge career.

"I can't say 'thanks' enough to everyone at Acura, RealTime Racing and Honda Performance Development," Eversley said at the end of Sunday's race.  "This has been an unbelievable weekend, unreal.  Brian [Heitkotter] had a great start and beat me into Turn One.  Fortunately, I was able to get a run on him going into [Turn] Three and pass him back.  He had another good run at me going into Turn Five, but I was able to out-brake him there, and eventually he dropped back.  This track really suits the TLX GT, but we've had to work hard.  We found some setup things in a test here a couple of weeks ago that I think made the difference for us this weekend.  I race for the best team, and the best company, in the world."

Starting third on Sunday in his RealTime Racing Acura TLX GT, Cunningham fell to fifth on the opening lap after minor contact with Fong, but recovered to finish fourth.

"To finish fourth today is a good effort. Obviously, would have preferred to be on the podium, but we didn't have quite as good a run as yesterday," Cunningham recounted.  "At the start, I had to lift to make room for [Adderly] Fong going into Turn One, and we still made some light contact.  After that, the car was a little nervous entering Turn One and the [Turn 9-10] Carousel, and we just didn't have quite enough to run at the front.  Still, it's a great day for Acura, HPD and RealTime, and to cheer on Ryan [Eversley] for his win."

Developed from the production Acura TLX by HPD and RealTime Racing, the Acura TLX GT features HPD chassis and aerodynamic performance parts approved for Pirelli World Challenge competition.  It is powered by a direct-injected, twin-turbocharged V6 engine, developed by HPD from the production Acura TLX.

Video recaps from this weekend's Acura Pirelli World Challenge and Honda Verizon IndyCar Series racing activities at Road America are being posted on the "Honda Racing/HPD" YouTube channel.  Produced by the Carolinas Production Group, the video packages can be found in the 2016 HPD Trackside Video Playlist at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV.

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SOURCE Acura Motorsports