World Challenge - Aquilante Leads Phoenix with Podium at Barber

Aquilante Leads Phoenix with Podium at Barber

April 28, 2015 / Written by Phoenix American Motorsports

Birmingham, AL – A third place finish by Andrew Aquilante, charging to the front late in Friday’s GTS race, followed by his fourth place run on Saturday, led Phoenix American Motorsports’ four-car assault on Barber Motorsports Park over four races in this past weekend’s Pirelli World Challenge event.

Aquilante was joined in the GTS class by teammates Kurt Rezzetano and Preston Calvert in a trio of Phoenix Performance and Calvert Dynamics GTS Mustang Boss 302s, while Calvert added two more starts in the GT Cup presented by Momo in the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.

Aquilante marked his return to the podium on Friday, tracking down the leaders late in the race from outside the top five, and moving opportunistically up to third over the last couple of laps around 15-turn road course.

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Phoenix Performance is a premier performance tuner, providing maintenance, tuning and diagnostic services for foreign and domestic cars and trucks, as well as performance upgrades and tuning for street and track cars. The team's 32,000 square-foot-race shop is located 30 miles west of downtown Philadelphia and has built over 30 SCCA Runoff-winning cars. For 2015, Phoenix American Motorsports plans to run a multi-car, multi-class effort in the Pirelli World Challenge. Additional High Res Photos Available Upon Request

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Return to Phoenix in the News

"We felt very lucky today to make it on the podium," said Aquilante. "It was a pretty good race from our standpoint for our Mustang. After we qualified 10th we just didn't have the outright speed to be at the front. Once we made it through the interesting rolling start, we watched some guys getting three wide early. So we dropped back and watched the fireworks up front and at the end found ourselves in third at the finish. We were able to benefit for sure from the great battles taking place up front."

Rezzetano logged a seventh place result with Calvert following in 19th.

Saturday was a similar battle at the front of the field for Aquilante, who barely missed the podium after a high-energy battle with the No. 36 Kia. Aquilante settled for fourth while Rezzetano and Calvert repeated their Friday performances, but with some attached drama.

Rezzetano came from last after a drive-through penalty, carving up the field to finish seventh and log fast lap of the race. Calvert had moved up to 15th before a late race off-course excursion moved him down the order.

It marked another solid weekend of six total races in Mustangs with no mechanical issues and fast cars.

Aquilante, meanwhile, is moving forward in the point standings and now sits third heading to Canada in May, just three points out of second and within reach of the points lead in GTS. Rezzetano isn't much further back, and sits fifth in the standings.

After scoring a string of top-five finishes in the GT Cup class, Calvert is looking for a better weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park as he muscled his Porsche to sixth and eighth place finishes at Barber.

Watch the action from Long Beach on CBS Sports Network, Sunday May 3 at 2pm eastern.

Phoenix on the web: http://www.phoenixperformance.net/, http://phoenixperformance-news.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/PhoenixAM

Team partners include Calvert Dynamics, Phoenix Performance, Ford Performance, Ron Davis Racing Radiators, Hawk Performance Brakes, Penske Racing Shocks, Brembo Brakes and Go Puck.