Following Jordan Tresson’s disappointing season-opener in the Sebring 12 Hour race two weeks ago, two more GT Academy graduates are involved in their own race series debuts this weekend.
As reported earlier in the month, Bryan Heitkotter will be making his first Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge start this afternoon at the Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama. Bryan is paired with Nissan veteran BJ Zacharias in the Doran Motorsports Nissan 370Z and the pair have qualified 11th on the grid for the race later today. You can find live timing at the official Grand-Am website, a live stream on Speed2 and the race highlights are to be shown on Speed on April 8th.
Meanwhile at Paul Ricard in France, Lucas Ordoñez will be competing in the European Le Mans Series Castellet 6 Hour race. This starts at midday GMT on Sunday and the Greaves Motorsport team’s Zytek Nissan LMP2, driven by Lucas, Tom Kimber-Smith and Alex Brundle, is 3rd on the grid for the race. This event will be carried live on Radio Le Mans and various regional television channels and services.
GTPlanet wishes the best of luck to the graduates this weekend!
Images courtesy of lucasordonez.com and grand-am.com
See more articles on Bryan Heitkotter and Lucas Ordonez.
I want that Signatech Nissan LMP in the game NOW. I don’t care if I have to pay for it. :)
Oh noz
Bryan crashed on the first corner on the first lap (I was at the race)
I believe it was BJ that got wrecked.
Correct, Bryan was not in the car.
It would be nice if some of the GT academy drivers cars were added to the game, like the Le Mans Series car from last year.
It’s baffling how they have this obsession with Nissan yet instead of adding new and unique models like Lucas’ LMP2 car we get another GTR instead.
well you have to understand making another GT-R is a lot faster and easier than making 100% new car, since GT5 have premium GT-R. Sometimes I dont get PD either but nothing is perfect..
Right but when did the LMP2 car debut? March 2011 I believe, plenty of time to model it.
It takes 2 years to model each car. So if you’ve got 100 employees, that’s 100 cars every 2 years. But it’s still 2 years for a car.
hey counter, that is WAY inaccurate. The longest it could take one person to completely make a brand new vehicle is over estimated at 9 months. Quoting Kaz.
How come GTPlanet does not mention other GT Academy Finalist that are racing? I understand he did not win it all, but it would be nice to follow anyone who’s moved up from gamer to driver. The video at this link mentions one driving for a Porsche team at Sebring. Sean Johnston is not being followed at all.
With four GT Academy competitions having been held, there’s nearly 80 gamers to keep track of and anyone who hasn’t won GT Academy has not had a route into driving through GT Academy – GT Academy is the news we’re covering.
In our Motorsports forum there is a thread by R1600Turbo that covers all known racers who were also GT Academy finalists. Sean is included.
@ A_HIGHER_PLACE try live.tv for streams
aw man, i really wanted to see Bryan in action, what happened???
Wonder why they withdrew..
Best of luck Bryan!
I wonder what Jann’s busy doing…
You’ll be hearing about my adventures soon. :)
Any word on why Zacharias/Heitkotter did not start the race?
Looks like they Qualified 11th and then withdrew. No reason listed.
They are a DNS, beginning to think that the GT Academy grads may have a bit of a curse following them.
Good luck Bryan and Lucas! I will see about watching these races.
Good luck guys
Cool stuff! Too bad there’s no free live stream online of either.