Reno, NV: May 20-21, marked the 4th race weekend of the 2023 SRO GT America series with races 7 & 8 taking place in the great state of Texas at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. The 20-turn course, full of American color and beauty, had been a destination the TKO Motorsports team was excited and looking forward to experiencing this season! Circuit of the Americas is another track that TKO Motorsports team driver, Memo Gidley, was racing for the first time and excitement had been building.
“COTA is such a fantastic facility, and I was excited to see and drive it in person for the first time with the #101 TKO Mercedes AMG GT3!” said Gidley.
Qualifiers took place Saturday morning and with the on again – off again rain, it left the TKO team with a tough decision on whether to run slick or weather tires. In the end, it was ultimately most important to TKO Motorsports Owner, Dave Traitel, that Gidley was as safe as possible, and the decision was made to not race in qualifiers with slick tires. Gidley still managed a 4th place pole position with just over 8/10ths of a second gap separating TKO Motorsports and pole sitter Johnny O’Connell in the SKI Autosports Ferrari 458 Italia.
Following qualifiers, Race 1 and Race 2 both posed to be challenging for Gidley and the TKO team/crew dealing with unforeseen mechanical issues leading TKO to not be able to finish where they would have liked. But hey, what can we say except that it’s all just part of racing!
“It was too bad we had a couple races with mechanical issues that cost us stronger finishes. But we did manage to get some valuable points and learned as a team! I am excited to go to our next race at VIR Raceway in Virginia. This is a track that I have had great success and really enjoy being there racing!” said Gidley.
TKO Motorsports and Gidley are still proudly holding onto 1st place in the overall standings for the series with a total of 144 points and a strong 26-point lead from CRP Racing following with a total of 118 points and CrowdStrike in 3rd with 113 points.
TKO Motorsports will be back on the track in SRO GT America’s 5th race weekend of the series at VIRginia International Speedway June 16-18.
Don’t forget to watch this season’s races live at https://www.gtamerica.us/live and view our race weekend photos and videos on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram!
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