HappyKojot takes Bridgehampton and the Championship by 0.107s
SDH-M ~ HappyKojot's Shelby Cobra 289 Hardtop held Adam Celárek's TVR Griffith Series 200 by a bare 0.107s at Bridgehampton Race Circuit - RJ mod, sealing the title by two points over Nat Stevenson after the sixth and final race.
A race measured in inches
The US GTC Tour came to its last afternoon with the three principal men separated by little enough that every place carried its own consequence. It was SDH-M ~ HappyKojot who emerged with both the race and the Championship, but only after 36 laps in which Adam Celárek's Griffith remained an immediate and persistent presence.
Celárek had the faster lap, a 1:40.474, and he was the early leader. HappyKojot moved his Cobra ahead by the end of the second lap, however, and established an authority that was remarkable only because it was never quite sufficient to bring ease. He led on 35 of the 36 recorded laps, yet the Czech driver's TVR stayed close through the closing phase. At the chequered flag there were just 0.107s between them, a slender reward for a race governed by precision rather than spectacle.
Five cars in the argument
The opening portion had the compressed, restless character of a proper GT contest. From laps two to 11, HappyKojot and Celárek ran in a group with Nat Stevenson, Florian Masse and Hayley Smith that covered less than five seconds. The various strengths of Cobra, Griffith and Ferrari made for changing patterns without allowing any man much room to settle.
Masse's Ferrari 250 GTO Series II and Hayley Smith's Griffith exchanged the advantage more than once in those early laps, while Stevenson was seldom far from Celárek. Their private contest became a significant strand of the race behind the leading Cobra, each taking and retaking the place as the first half developed. There was no single break which divided the front of the field; instead the order was repeatedly re-made by small gains and losses.
Stevenson loses ground
Stevenson had begun the day at the head of the Championship, four points clear of HappyKojot and eight ahead of Celárek. His Cobra was deeply involved throughout, and his battle with Celárek continued into the second half. On lap 11, incidents involving Stevenson and Celárek at Turn 12 and Arents Turn dropped the British driver from second to third. Celárek had the position at the end of that lap, though Stevenson reclaimed it a lap later.
The contest did not end there. Celárek again moved ahead before half-distance, Stevenson replied, and the TVR won third place back in the later running. It was a hard contest conducted under the larger shadow of the title, and it left Stevenson third in the race, behind Celárek and the victorious HappyKojot. Masse completed the 36 laps in fifth, ahead of FMG's Ferrari 250 GTO.
The final reckoning
For HappyKojot, the decisive fact was not merely that the Cobra reached the flag first, but that Celárek could not find the fraction required in the last reckoning. The Polish driver thus took the Championship with 181 points. Stevenson, whose third place had kept the question open to the final afternoon, was second on 179, while Celárek's fine runner-up drive carried him to third in the table on 170.
The result gave the season its appropriate finish: a championship settled not by a distant calculation but by a race in which the new champion had to defend every advantage. Celárek's quickest lap and near-success made the margin all the more telling.
Bridgehampton Race Circuit - RJ mod supplied a final race of close quarters and changing claims, but the last distinction belonged to HappyKojot: a controlled Cobra drive, a tenth of a second at the line, and the narrowest of Championship victories over Stevenson.