Smell that? It’s home, sweet home! We’re back down under for the last two rounds of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series, and South Australia is the stage.

It’s been just shy of two months since the series’ last meeting at Le Mans, a defining round that saw heartbreak for crucial title contenders as teams began to set their eyes on the prize with only a handful of rounds to go.

Before we hit the road at The Bend, let’s get ourselves up to speed as we approach the bleeding edge of the Gamesmen GTPro Invitational 2025 Season!

Topsy Turvy Runner-up Title Fight Set to Kick Off

This season’s championship has been defined by a brutal display of dominance from the Eclipse Simsports #56, piloted by the dynamic duo of Damon Woods and Kody Deith. They have topped the podium in each of the last three rounds since the shock victory from the Evolution Racing Team #31 at Daytona in the series opener. 

While that run of form sits the #56 atop the championship ladder by an – all things considered – comfortable 88 points, an exhilarating battle will rear its head at The Bend on Friday night between the Vermillion Esports #228 and the Eclipse #17. 

The Eclipse Simsports #56 has been the benchmark in 2025

The #228 and the #17 could not have had more different seasons. The Vermillion pairing of Jacob O’Reilly and Josh Purwien has not finished outside of the top 10 this season with a 5th, 3rd, 7th and 4th most recently at Le Mans. On the Eclipse side of the fence, they were a no-show in Round 1, finished 2nd in Round 2, 18th in Round 3, and 2nd again at Le Mans – talk about hot and cold!

Will the outright firepower of the #17 allow an Eclipse 1-2 in the championship? Or will the steady hands in the #228 enable Vermillion to triumph over the titans?

Just 178 points separate the remainder of the Top 10, with only 112 points from 10th to 20th. With The Bend still being a fairly new toy on the service, and Mount Panorama being the stage for the finale, this championship is so far from done; It cannot be overstated.

‘Pick Your Poison’ for Majority of Field on Car Choice

Throw everything out the window for Le Mans, we are back to a traditional circuit where setup variability is more of an open book. A mix of prolonged compression corners, elevation change and tricky braking areas makes comfortability paramount between driver pairings. Not to mention, a lack of passing opportunity at this technical venue means any edge on top speed will be sought after.

It’s become common knowledge that front-engined cars are monstrously fast after the first season of the GT rework, and not much has changed this time around despite a few balance changes and the death of the short gear stack. The two fastest cars at The Bend have been the Mustang and the Ferrari in recent past – funny that – given the Ferrari drives like a front-engine anyway.

The bulk of the front runners have an Acura NSX and McLaren 720S in their arsenal, with a handful of Mustangs that will surely be looking to capitalise on the pace opportunity while they can. If you look at any other league with a third-party Balance of Performance, the Ford is getting thumped with weight and power reduction, but that’s not a factor here. 

Regardless, teams will be looking to maximise what they have, and it should be a spectacle to see what they come up with when put under technical pressure.

We’re looking good on the forecast too. Ambient temps look to be hovering around the low 20’s with minimal cloud and no chance of rain. It’s gloves off in South Australia!

Once again, the race format is as follows (AEDT):

7:00 PM — 1-Hour Open Practice
8:00 PM — 20-Minute Open Qualifying
8:22 PM — 8-Minute Gridding (including Grid Walk)
8:30 PM — Green Flag for 3-Hour Race

The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series kicks off for Round 5 on October 17. Don’t miss the action, catch Australasia’s toughest GT3 competition live on SimSpeed on Friday night!

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by Harrison Lillas

There’s no place quite like Circuit de la Sarthe to tumble a championship order at such a crucial point of a competitive season. With car choices locked in place from as early as the first quarter of the year, teams were forced to make do with their weaponry and design an optimal setup for what would be a race of engineering and precision.

While the Safety Car was only deployed once on this occasion, don’t mistake that for a lack of drama; this was a warzone on the Sarthe River.

Here is your Round 4 race review of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series from Le Mans!

Familiar Names Stake Their Claim in Qualifying

If there is one really standout dynamic to the new GT3 tyre model, it’s how long-form qualifying sessions play out. Rather than the one-and-done style of old that is still seen in more sensitive tyre sets like the Gen 3 Supercar, it takes significantly more time for the GT3 to wriggle its way into an optimal window.

Particularly at Le Mans, that means the best way to go is fueling the car to run through the entirety of the 20-minute session. That comes out to just four timed laps to set your place on the grid for the majority of the field, with the exception of the lucky few at the top of the pitlane who could manage five laps.

On the first run, Damon Woods of the championship leading Eclipse Simsports #56 emerged fastest with a 3:52.402. Woods’ teammate Zach Rattray-White would sit the Eclipse #17 in 3rd, with Byron Pearce splitting the pair for Arete eSports in provisional 2nd just two tenths off Woods.

Drivers jostle for position in the draft in Qualifying

Lewis Greathead got his afternoon off to a strong start in the Vermillion Esports #101 to put his McLaren in provisional 4th place, with his teammate Josh Purwein placing the #228 in the Top 10 as well. 

The order tumbled with a number of cars either invalidating laps with the countless slow-down penalties on offer, or just not improving. A number of cars would be forced to back out of their laps from incidents too, including Byron Phillips spinning the Eclipse #69 into the barriers before Tertre Rouge – then Greg Patrick and Benjamin Brooke beaching themselves in the middle of Porsche Curves. 

Vermillion Esports would fight tooth and nail to upset the Eclipse momentum at the tail end of qualifying, with Josh Purwein holding the top of the table until Damon Woods pipped the #228 by just over a tenth of a second on his last run – claiming pole position in the process. Lewis Greathead would put the #101 in 4th, and Zak Kerr would claw the #5 into 9th place.

Despite a nightmare first half of qualifying for Byron Phillips, he would put the Eclipse #69 on the second row of the grid. Zach Rattray-White would not punch in another valid lap after his first timed run on cold tyres, which was only enough for 12th. Reece Wakefield would continue Antic

Motorsports’ consistent season-long improvement, delivering the #994 its best starting position of the season in 10th. 

Vendaval Simracing, Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter and One Performance Racing #51 were separated by a tenth in 5th, 6th and 7th respectively.

Eclipse Simsports lead the field into the first chicane on Lap 1

Le Mans Claims First Victims on Lap 1

Unlike the single-file gentlemen’s agreement seen in official races at this venue, it would be two wide to start Round 4 of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series. Green flag at Le Mans!

With cars bustling through the opening chicane two-wide, you could start your own economy with the amount of paint being traded door to door. But it was more than a bit of paint for Arete, who picked up some gnarly front bumper damage from hitting the rear of the Vendaval Simracing McLaren at Turn 3. That left them tumbling down the order with excessive drag leading to a straight-line speed deficit of as much as 15kph.

That may have caused some frustration for the Arete crowd, but there was utter heartbreak elsewhere. Coming into Indianapolis for the first time, Lewis Greathead would lose traction and overcorrect into the tyre wall on the left side of the track, leaving the #101 with significant damage that was only just able to limp back to the lane.

Tommy Wallace of the TSR #222 would find himself in double trouble. First being hit by the Trans Tasman Racing #22 after moving on the brakes at Arnage, then looped by the same car on the stretch leading up to Porsche Curves.

Running Order Settles as Woods Darts Away

Cold tyres and early nerves breed mistakes and slow-down penalties on opening laps at Le Mans, which meant the order took longer than usual to settle into a representative state. 

One driver that took no time to settle into a rhythm was Damon Woods. Despite slipstream making a gap difficult to build at this track, the Eclipse #56 was off into the distance building a cushion that only expanded to the rest of the field across the stint. Kobi Williams would also pedal the #69 car quick enough to escape the slipstream of the pack fighting for 3rd place.

That pack would consist of three McLarens; Jake Burton piloting the Vendaval #27, followed by Jacob O’Reilly and Zak Kerr in the Vermillion #228 and #5. Jamie Christison would be tailed by the two OPR Mustangs of Stefan Mccartain and Adam Hughes, and Reece Wakefield in the Antic McLaren. That bundle of cars would build a gap back to the Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car piloted by Sam Blacklock.

Lap 1 heartbreak for Lewis Greathead and Vermillion Esports

Pit Stops Reveal Fuel Savers and Burners

The OPR #51 was the first of the front runners to pit. They were accompanied by the Eclipse #69, Vendaval #27 and OPR #606 as the only Top 10 runners to not manage the extra lap.

With everything straightened out two laps later, there was a clear jumbling of position with different fuel loads taken onboard. While the Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car short fueled to put themselves from 10th to 6th, the OPR #51 had dropped from 4th to 7th; importantly without anyone to slipstream with. Vendaval and the OPR #606 also lost one position each, but were grouped closely together.

With that, the Eclipse #17 moved themselves into the Top 5. The Vermillion #5 and #228 would swap positions in the pit lane to return the favour of fuel saving the #228 lended in the first stint, maintaining 3rd and 4th with no loss of time.

Championship Scrap Heats Up

Vermillion and Eclipse have traded blows all season at the front of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series, and this time it boiled over on the approach to the halfway mark of the race.

When Josh Purwein went wide at the exit of the Porsche Curves to award himself a slow-down penalty, he would try to serve the bulk of it on the run down to the chicane section at the end of the lap. While he would serve most of it on the straight, Purwein still had some to serve through the tight-and-twisty’s. He would try to finish it while off the racing line, but when that line converged to one at the last two corners, that left Byron Phillips with nowhere to go. 

Phillips would make contact with Purwein twice, spinning the Vermillion #228 up and over the curbs, dropping them to 9th place.

As the second stint unfolded, Harrison Lillas, Zach Rattray-White and Josh Anderson would work together with bump draft to claw in the deficit ahead to the Vermillion #5 of Zak Kerr. Lillas would eventually pull the trigger on passing Kerr for 2nd place, and would peel into the lane for the second pit stop of the afternoon at the end of the same lap having short-fueled the first stop. Josh Anderson would follow Lillas into the lane for Vendaval.

The Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car would short fuel again to find themselves in 2nd place with much larger gaps behind than prior to the stops. But there was another kink in the road for this story just yet. 

Drivers push the track limits on the exit of the Porsche Curves

Safety Car, Safety Car, Safety Car!

That was the call from Race Control after the Iridium Sim Sports #268 found themselves in the fence at Porsche Curves. The field that had broken itself up from the once chaotic start was now going to be bunched together again with just under an hour to go.

The whole field would pit with the fuel margin for making it home being deadly narrow. It was achievable, but it would essentially require the entire field to cooperatively save.

And so, with a lap for people to conspire and see what others were doing, it eventually became clear that very few were saving to avoid a splash-and-dash. This was an all out qualifying run to the end with one short stop remaining.

The Eclipse #56 and #17 were now reunited in 1st and 2nd. With the Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter car forced to load more fuel into the car than others, they would drop to 4th behind the Vermillion #5. 

At the first of the Muslanne chicanes, Sebastian Varndell would extend track limits and be forced to serve a slow-down penalty. That allowed Harrison Lillas and Josh Anderson to vault past into 3rd and 4th, before another mistake from Varndell at Indianapolis saw him drop to 7th on the same lap.

As focus faded late into the afternoon, more mistakes were drawn out from the front runners. Josh Purwein was forced to concede 5th to Adam Hughes after cutting too much at the first chicane, then Harrison Lillas bowled wide at Tertra Rouge a lap later to concede his position to not only Hughes and Purwein, but Stefan Mccartain too. 

On that same lap, Purwein and Lillas were able to bump draft and coordinate passes on the OPR pairing to get back to 4th and 5th by the time they got to Porsche Curves.

The Gamesmen BMW Safety Car leads the field

Tense Fight to the Flag for Top 10 Positions

The Top 5 runners had broken gaps to one another on the run home. But there was an intense fight that was unfolding from 6th all the way to 12th. 

Sebastian Varndell would lead that train in the Vermillion #5, hotly tailed by the OPR #606 of Adam Hughes who pulled the trigger to pinch 6th with around 25 minutes to go. When Bradley Rattew of the Orbit Drop Bear Neptune car followed suit a lap later, chaos ensued behind.

Varndell quickly found himself under pressure from Coby Jones at the second Mulsanne chicane but managed to hold position. Behind, Dean Mackay, Stefan Mccartain and Coby Jones ran three-wide into the Mulsanne hairpin. Mackay would emerge ahead for now, but would lose both positions by the time the battlepack reached Porsche Curves. 

On the last lap, that fight would boil over when Mackay grabbed the rear left corner of Stefan Mccartain into Indianapolis sending the OPR #51 into the gravel trap. Mackay was handed a 15-second post-race penalty for the incident.

Three-peat for Damon Woods and Kody Deith!

Pole, Fastest Lap, and Race Victory. That’s three milestones on one day, and three wins in a row for the unstoppable pairing in the Eclipse Simsports #56. It was a truly pivotal result in the championship that doesn’t mathematically rule them champions, but may as well with this run of form they have shown of late.

Zach Rattray-White wheeled home the Eclipse #17 with a surgical drive up the order following a shaky qualifying that saw his car start from 12th on the grid. That brings together the leading Eclipse pairing in the championship order that had fallen away slightly after the infamous La Source incident from Spa.

Eclipse Simsports pick up a dominating race victory at Le Mans

Josh Anderson piled on the pressure for Vendaval Simracing in hopes of pinching 2nd, but ultimately came home with an impressive 3rd place. That has been enough to promote them to 5th in the standings.

It was certainly a “what could have been” afternoon for Vermillion Esports, but they will be pleased to have brought home the #228 in a strong 4th place to retain 2nd in the standings. Orbit Drop Bear Jupiter, Summit Sim Sports White, Arete eSports #79, One Performance Racing #606, Orbit Drop Bear Neptune and Vermillion Esports #5 rounded out the Top 10.

Just two rounds remain in this year's GTPro Invitational calendar, and both will be hosted at Australian icons. It’s The Bend for Round 5, and Mount Panorama for Round 6. 

Don’t miss the next round of action, join us next time live on SimSpeed on the night of October 17.

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by Harrison Lillas

It’s hard to believe we have already surpassed the halfway point of the season, but here we are! Welcome back to Race Week for Round 4 of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series.

We continue our European summer in France at the infamous Circuit de la Sarthe, more affectionately known as Le Mans, before returning home for back-to-back Australian rounds in Tailem Bend and Bathurst.

With Friday night fast approaching, it’s worth rewinding the tape to see how the season has taken shape.

Championship Story Remains Cloudy

While the halfway mark of regular championships would usually spell a clear pecking order, this season has thrown a spanner in the works when trying to pick apart who is in for a chance, due in part to the immense GT3 physics rework of the 2025 Season 3 Build.

Eclipse Simsports remain the benchmark on outright pace, showing dominant speed in any set of conditions across the past two rounds. Their two entries, the #56 and #17, have been split up slightly in the standings since the penalties from last round; but there is little doubt in one of those cars ending up on top at the season's conclusion.

It is eye-wateringly close at the pointy end of the standings, with four teams separated by just 22 points behind the leading Eclipse #56. These kinds of margins only intensify when looking down the order, including a points tie for 26th and 27th between Iridium Sim Sports and Tri Star Racing.

From sixth all the way down to 20th, the standings are bunched, with just 152 points covering 15 cars. Vendaval, Synergy and Trans Tasman are split by just 24 points, while further back Tri Star, Antic, and the Orbit Drop Bear Mars and Jupiter cars sit within a few points of each other. In this pack, one strong finish could easily swing a team half a dozen spots up the order.

Eclipse Simsports have set the benchmark for speed so far in 2025

The Low Down

That’s the spirit of Le Mans! How much top speed can you extract out of your machinery whilst keeping it driveable.

As time has passed, events have come and gone allowing teams to grasp a better understanding of each car's aero window, which have become far more sensitive to tune since the change.

A car that has arisen from the ashes has been the Ford Mustang. It has gone from a car that can be quick at a handful of circuits all the way to an inevitable front runner. Front-engined cars have been loved right from the beginning, but on-throttle rotation and setup adjustability has been able to separate it from the others in its class.

While the McLaren has been an unstoppable force at Le Mans for a number of months now, I’m hesitant to say it's as clear cut of a decision this time around as it has been in the past. Updates to the drag profiles since the initial build have brought back the Acura NSX at top speed circuits, most recently during IMSA Sprint at Daytona where they dominated the timing boards. If the Mustangs don’t wipe the floor on outright pace, I suspect it will be a close three-way manufacturer fight between Fords, McLarens and Acuras.

As for weather, we’re looking at ambient temperatures in the mid 20’s with partly cloudy skies and moderate to light wind. That should make for a track temp in the mid to high 30’s, with rain nowhere in sight. 

Once again, the race format is as follows (AEST):

7:00 PM — 1-Hour Open Practice
8:00 PM — 20-Minute Open Qualifying
8:22 PM — 8-Minute Gridding (including Grid Walk)
8:30 PM — Green Flag for 3-Hour Race

With the safety net of rear wings being stripped off the cars in search of top speed, incidents at Indianapolis and Porsche Curves are highly likely. This could easily throw what is a relatively simple strategy game into turmoil if a Safety Car is called. Saving fuel is of course going to be crucial, but teams will need to be clever with track positioning and driver swaps to avoid being caught out if things don’t go to plan.

The fight for glory continues August 22nd, catch Australasia’s most hotly contested GT3 series live on SimSpeed!

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iRacing’s 2025 Season 3 GT3 rebuild was talked up to throw the ultimate spanner in the works to spice up the season here in The Gamesmen GTPRO Invitational Series – but not many anticipated quite the scale of the calamity that unfolded on Friday night.

Cold tyres brewed an abundance of Safety Car interventions, leading to several battles up and down the field, all rarely settling from lights out to the chequered flag. Even under Safety Car conditions, not everyone was safe...

Here is your race review from Round 3 of The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series at Spa!

Zach Rattray-White Takes Statement Pole for Eclipse Simsports

With car choices locked in since before the GT3 rebuild, drivers would be put to the test as they acclimatised to their cars new strengths and weaknesses.

Ford Mustangs and McLaren 720s Evo’s dominated the board in qualifying, taking up nine out of the top ten positions.

The one outlier to the onslaught up the front was Reece Gucul, charging his Evolution Racing Team #456 Acura on to the front row alongside Zach Rattray-White, who had claimed pole by over two tenths for Eclipse Simsports.

Behind Rattray-White, just over half a second would separate the field down to 13th, with only three tenths separating the top 10. His teammates, Byron Phillips and Damon Woods, would lock out the second row in third and fourth respectively.

Brenton Hobson would haul his Synergy Sim Racing #88 onto the third row of the grid, accompanied by Ryan Bettess of One Performance Racing in front, and Byron Pearce of Arete eSports behind – all in Ford Mustangs.

Eclipse Simsports cars lead the way into turn 1 after holding 3 of the top 4 spots in Qualifying

Dented Doors and Wonky Wings on Green Flag

Jamie Christison and Byron Phillips Led the way down into Turn 1, with Jon Piesnik forced to leave room for Damon Woods and Ryan Bettess on the inside. Woods would have a snap of oversteer on the exit of the infamous hairpin, but was luckily straightened out by Bettess before things got hairy.

Orbit Drop Bear’s Sam Blacklock would be involved in a similar incident, half-spinning across the front bumper of Ewan Baker before being straightened by the same car moments later. Both cars emerged unscathed in that affair.

Dylan Shephard would not make it to Les Combe before the OPR #43’s afternoon concluded, overcorrecting at the top of Raidillon before slamming into the barrier on the right side of the circuit. The force of the impact was so severe that Shephard bounced all the way back across the track, ending up in the grass on the opposite side. Somehow, no other cars were involved.

Just down the road at the exit of Malmedy, a major incident toward the back of the field left several cars with missing panels and bent steering.

Safety Car Makes First Appearance of the Night

Dylan Shephard could only limp his Ford Mustang as far as No-Name before coming to a halt. With no reasonable escape road nearby, Race Control issued the first Safety Car of the afternoon. Less than a full racing lap had been completed.

With the Safety Car deployed so early, there was no strategic benefit to pitting — the running order remained largely unchanged, aside from those diving in to repair significant damage.

Cold tyres would catch out two front running cars on the restart, with Jon Piesnik in the ERT #456 and Brenton Hobson in the SSR #88 both spinning out on the run through Pouhon. While Piesnik would find his car sideways in the tyre wall off to the right of the racing surface, Hobson would meet the concrete on the left. Both cars would be left with damage that put them out of effective contention.

With a moment of green flag running beginning to sort the pecking order, the lead pack of Christison, Phillips, Pearce and Woods started to bridge a gap to the rest of the field. A fierce battle on the fringe of the top 10 including Ewan Baker, Sam Blacklock and Lachlan Caple would only extend the growing gaps further.

The Gamesmen GT Safety Car made it's first appearance before the end of lap 1

Nasty Incidents Foreshadow Second Safety Car

Just over half an hour remained in the first stint when Madison Down and Josh Purwien went side-by-side through Blanchimont before making contact and spearing into the barriers at frightening speed. Incredibly, both cars were able to continue despite the damage.

But the GTPro Series field wasn’t safe just yet. Moments after Down and Purwien’s incident, the Summit Sim Sports #55 driven by Jaxon Reihana came to a standstill at Pouhon. When that car was deemed to be in an unsafe position by Race Control, the Safety Car was summoned once again.

This is where strategy gets interesting. While the majority of the top 10 opted to stay out, the Orbit Drop Bear #862 was the first car to box. This would extend the second stint to around the halfway point of the race, providing half a tank of fuel offset to those who chose to stay out for track position. The #862 would emerge in 16th – a net position loss of only seven places.

Nightmare Afternoon Continues for Summit Sim Sports

When the cameras panned to the SSS #25 Ferrari parked up in the gravel without a rear clip, you couldn’t help but feel another Safety Car was imminent. Surely enough, the field was under full course yellow for the third time in less than an hour.

Teams that had not pitted under the previous Safety Car period were now forced to pit. Sam Blacklock would take the lead for the Orbit Drop Bear #862 car, followed by Wayne Bourke in the Vermillion #89 who chose to stay out. Damon Woods would emerge as the leading car for Eclipse in sixth, who had been occupying the top three places for the bulk of the race thus far.

The race would go green for two laps before being plunged back into a full course yellow. When the Vermillion #89 peeled into the lane, the Antic Motorsports #994 piloted by Reece Wakefield claimed second place on the same fuel strategy as the leader.

Damon Woods would launch the Eclipse #56 back into the lead with an hour and 40 minutes remaining, with his teammate Zach Rattray-White in the #17 trailing closely behind.

Jaxon Reihana was out of the race after this tremendous impact

Blanchimont Claims Another Soul

When the Vermillion #5 McLaren driven by Tao Soerono went firing into the barrier just prior to the halfway point of the race, the race was back to yellow flag running – the Safety Car’s work day continues!

Sam Blacklock would take the opportunity to hand over duties to Harrison Lillas in the #862, with the fuel load on the alternate strategy covering the driver swap time. Damon Woods, Zach Rattray-White and Jobe Stewart would lead the way on the green flag.

Jobe Stewart would come under threat from Vendaval Simracing’s Alexander Bird, who sweeped into third in a scrap that disconnected the pair from the leading Eclipse McLarens.

With an hour remaining, some moves would happen inside the top 10 with Marino Morella pitting for Arete eSports, followed by Matthew P. Johnson for Momentum Motorsport. One lap after, the two leading Eclipse cars would pit with a comfortable time margin they had built in that same stint. These would be scheduled stops that would allow these cars to go to the end.

Hearts would drop when Tom Freer was seen crawling along in a severely damaged Acura NSX; but that car was cleverly limped to an escape road off the racing surface to avoid Safety Car intervention.

What on Earth!?

Adam Jepson wouldn’t be as lucky as Freer in his search of an escape road when his AMG was left with severe damage in the Gravel at Stavelot. Buckle up, the field has been bunched together with 30 minutes remaining.

At this stage, Harrison Lillas was leading the way in the #862, but would likely lose track position to the Eclipse #17 and #56 when he stopped for his last splash of fuel.

But in the most dramatic sequence of events in The Gamesmen GTPro Series so far, the Eclipse stable was thrown into pandemonium. As Kody Deith and Zach Rattray-White rounded the first corner, they would make contact, spinning Deith around on the exit. As Rattray-White waited for his teammate to correct himself, Harrison Lillas exited the lane in the lead of the race.

While Deith and Rattray-White were able to claim the lead over Lillas on the first lap, the #17 of Rattray-White was handed a Drive Through Penalty for causing the collision under Safety Car conditions.

At the entry to the Bus Stop Chicane on the first lap of the restart, Alexander Bird had a look down the inside of the #862 to no avail. When Bird went to accelerate out, he would lose traction in front of Byron Pearce. With no time for Pearce to react, Bird was spun around and was forced to wait for the bulk of the field to pass by.

Harrison Lillas leads away the restart with 30 minutes to go

One More Time

Matt Arnold of Tri Star Racing would find himself backwards and missing a rear clip at the exit of Malmedy with 20 minutes remaining, bringing out the final safety car of the night.

With Rattray-White forced into the lane to serve his penalty to avoid an iRacing disqualification, the order up the front was now Woods, Lillas, Phillips, Pearce and Grigg-Gault. Phillips would be holding on to a 15-second penalty from a previous incident, but would fight to protect the leading Eclipse car now piloted by Kody Deith.

Phillips would pass Lillas at the Bus Stop Chicane with 12 minutes remaining, with Pearce capitalising on the opportunity to follow through at Turn 1 on the following lap to take effective second place.

Bitter-Sweet Victory for Eclipse as Woods and Deith Triumph Chaos

Despite crossing the line to claim a second consecutive victory for Eclipse Simsports in The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series, joy would not be the word to describe the face of Damon Woods on this occasion.

It was an impressive victory for the stable, who continue to display pace that is difficult to match across all three of their entries; but disappointment riddled the post race interviews.

“ZRW (Zach Rattray-White) made a mistake, yeah I get that,” said Woods.

“The decision from Race Control to give him a penalty is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.

“I think it’s just ruined the entire race, really. Despite the fact we straight-up had the pace on everyone.”

The Arete eSports #79 would come home second, followed by the Orbit Drop Bear #862 in third.

The Gamesmen GTPro Invitational Series continues onto Le Mans for Round 4 on August 22nd.

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