Steven Doherty: U.S. GT Academy 2012 Champion

GT Academy Motorsport December 7th, 2012 by Jordan

Steven Doherty of Cherry Valley, Illinois was announced as the North American winner of GT Academy 2012 during the finale of this year’s competition on Spike TV.

A registered GTPlanet member since March of 2011, “BICDRIVER49” came from second on the grid during the dramatic last race of the competition to overcome pole-sitter (and fellow GTPlanet member) Jett Chandler (“Jett_Racer“).

Since winning the competition in August, Steve has been quietly driving under the pseudonym of “Dan Mitchell” in various development racing series as he works towards the international competition license he’ll need to begin racing professionally in 2013.

As with all GT Academy winners, we’ll be closely following his career as he continues the evolution from gamer to a professional racing driver.

Congratulations to Steve and all of the GT Academy 2012 finalists on another great year of competition!

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32 Comments

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  1. December 15th, 2012 at 1:19 pm - #
    African Kat

    congratulations to Steven! all the best for the future. i followed the series with excitement and am pumped up for the South African finals which i qualified for

  2. December 9th, 2012 at 8:15 pm - #
    LeftyWright69

    What a great deal for Steve but w/ all of the trophies he won before he won GTA he was going to make it anyway, GTA just got him there faster :tup:

  3. December 8th, 2012 at 1:56 am - #
    GumballCGT

    Congrats Steve! Awesome to have met you and the rest of my GT Academy brothers lol. Good luck in all your future racing! Hopefully the rest of us bottom 16 will make it to Silverstone next year and one of us will be racing with or against you one of these days :D

  4. December 7th, 2012 at 6:48 pm - #
    VspecZR1GT2RS89

    Congrats Steve and best of luck when you’re climbing to the top. :)

  5. December 7th, 2012 at 3:50 pm - #
    infamousphil

    Wow…. Great news out of the land of Linc… errr Road America!!! Congratulations Steven and good luck to you.

  6. December 7th, 2012 at 2:17 pm - #
    Unibob

    Congratulations and the best of luck.

  7. December 7th, 2012 at 12:38 pm - #
    stupidstormy36

    Congratulations and good luck!

  8. December 7th, 2012 at 11:08 am - #
    JeremiahTB

    I wonder how the rest of the field that didn’t make it will be looked at by the racing industry. A lot of the other drivers have obvious talent and being on TV gave the scouts something to look at. Many contestants just need more laps under their belts to become great drivers in the future. Especially Eric…considering he wasn’t brought up in a family of race car drivers like some of the others and he made it as far as he did, I can see him behind the wheel as a career very soon.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 11:13 am - #
      Mac K

      Look at Sean Johnston.. Congrats Steve!

    • December 7th, 2012 at 2:13 pm - #
      RedlineGTS

      Don’t worry, nothing short of a plague will keep us out of a race car. A few of us have something in the works, we’ll keep GTP updated as our careers unfold. Congrats to Steve for a job well done! Now that the winner has been announced, we can actually keep up with his story!

    • December 7th, 2012 at 5:55 pm - #
      topgear3793

      Like I said on the show, it wasn’t a competition about potential! Trust me when I say that all of us there were VERY fast, and we are all so passionate about it that I am sure all of us will strive for sponsorship etc. Collectively we had the fastest race camp over any of the European, German, or Russian camps!

    • December 8th, 2012 at 4:22 pm - #
      Famine

      We ran an article a couple of weeks ago about GT Academy’s runners-up getting into racing

      http://www.gtplanet.net/gt-academy-finalists-unsung-successes/

  9. December 7th, 2012 at 10:12 am - #
    carracerptp

    Congratulations!

  10. December 7th, 2012 at 9:14 am - #
    stealth646

    Good job and good luck

  11. December 7th, 2012 at 8:00 am - #
    clutchdj

    Nice

  12. December 7th, 2012 at 1:17 am - #
    ToSwift

    Woah that’s crazy! This guy is from the area I live in!

  13. December 7th, 2012 at 1:16 am - #
    JeremiahTB

    Gratz, Steve!!! That Red Helmet is a great prize and a great opportunity to further your racing career. I’ll just have to settle for a racing wheel…Thanks Nissan and GT Planet!!! Now that I will soon be able to graduate from my DS3, I might hone my skills to compete in the next GT Academy.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 2:14 pm - #
      RedlineGTS

      They are selling refurb DFGTs on Newegg this week for nearly 60 bucks. Practice practice practice!

    • December 7th, 2012 at 4:44 pm - #
      JeremiahTB

      Nissan is sending me a new one. At least I assume the grand prize is new. I hope there isn’t a long delay with all of the Christmas gifts being sent out this month.

  14. December 7th, 2012 at 12:51 am - #
    GT Motion

    Wow a spoiler on the homepage? Really Jordan? I knew better than to check the GT Academy forums but what are we supposed to do if this is our homepage? It doesn’t air for another hour or so here, oh well, I will watch anyways and pretend like I didn’t know. Extremely irritated.

    Congrats Steven.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 1:11 am - #
      Jordan

      I am sorry about that, I’ve had many show or sports results spoiled for me on the Internet and I know how you feel. As I said below, the Internet, TV, and time zones just don’t mix, but we’ll always try to have GT news available as soon as possible here.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 3:07 am - #
      GT Motion

      Sorry for sounding harsh, I was just a little shocked, it didn’t really cross my mind that it would be posted on the homepage. I thought nothing would be posted publicly until it hit all time zones. Its all good though man.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 4:43 am - #
      opelgt1969

      Try setting your homepage to the “Forum” section of GTPlanet, that way when you log in you will not be on the “News” page.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 5:26 pm - #
      BFBullpup

      Jordan, it may be a better idea to just put up “The GT Academy Winner is…..” and give the spoiler report inside the article itself, not the headline.

  15. December 7th, 2012 at 12:48 am - #
    mcfizzle

    Congratulations Steven. When you won the dog fight I told my wife you were going to win it. Could see it in the eyes. Great race.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 5:59 pm - #
      topgear3793

      I pretty much knew too, I was setting my PR laps during the dogfight and he still smoked me by about 20ft per lap. Can’t emphasize how fast Steve was in that challenge, breaking ALL previous GT Academy lap records. Sucked for me but at least I can say he deserved it! [:

  16. December 7th, 2012 at 12:46 am - #
    gpjeff

    Great job Steve!

  17. December 7th, 2012 at 12:40 am - #
    Maddens Raiders

    Never enough time for the “working” folks out here. I know I could hang but am traveling all the time :( oh well..

    Congrats Steve – keep going strong.

  18. December 7th, 2012 at 12:35 am - #
    VELOCI_2NR

    And ruin it for the West coast guys….

    • December 7th, 2012 at 12:47 am - #
      mcfizzle

      GTPlanet is the last site I would visit if I knew my time zone was delaying the airing of GT Academy from the rest of the country and I didn’t want to know. Your fault.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 12:49 am - #
      Jordan

      Time zones, social media, and TV shows don’t mix! Hopefully this doesn’t ruin it for anyone.

    • December 7th, 2012 at 1:57 am - #
      Oshawa-Joe

      I had it recording while I finished off practice for Sunday night. Didn’t go anywhere near the gtplanet app on my phone as I was sure to read something about it.