Shift Up Now Athlete Erin Vogel kicked off the SRO America season with a fifth-place finish on Saturday, March 7th and a fourth-place finish on Sunday, March 8th at Sonoma Raceway.
Driving for DXDT Racing’s newly-expanded team in the No. 19 Mercedes AMG GT3, Vogel made her debut in 14th place with teammate Michael Cooper. She was able to advance into the top ten within the opening laps of the season opener, and was running in eighth place when she was forced to stop because of a belt issue. Cooper took over and continued the solid run, driving to a fifth place finish at the checkered flag.
On Sunday, Vogel and Cooper started in seventh. The duo demonstrated their ability to stay focused and race hard, earning a fourth-place finish in the GT3 class.
“It was a weekend of highs and lows,” said Vogel. “After an incident in my qualifying run that prevented me from getting a qualifying lap for our first race, I was able to gain six positions in the beginning laps of Saturday's race. Michael brought the car home for us P5 in class, which was an especially good result considering that we'd started at the back of the field and had a mechanical error with our safety belts during my stint.
“On Sunday, we were briefly in podium contention during my stint, and although that didn't materialize, I did have an epic battle for overall position that ended in a near photo finish, improving on our previous day's results with a P4 in class and P6 overall. I'm proud of our GT3 debut as a team, and want to say a huge thank you to my crew and to DXDT Racing for providing excellent support to our program from day one.”
Rounds three and four of the SRO America season continues at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on April 30th through May 2nd.
