Stepping into the winner's spotlight on one of the grandest stages in all of motorsports, Dan Knox and his Lone Star Racing team achieved career milestone victories Saturday and Sunday with a sweep of the GT2 class wins in the twin GT America powered by AWS races at the legendary Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The victories came in Knox’s first race starts of the 2024 season after winning the opening round of last year’s season-ending GT America race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in the major debut race of the Mercedes-AMG GT2 in North America. The twin triumphs in the nation’s premier street race also came 10 years after Knox and Lone Star Racing won a similar GTA sprint race on the temporary Detroit Grand Prix circuit at Belle Isle.
After a convincing victory in Saturday's first 40-minute GT America sprint, Knox and Lone Star turned up the heat on the competition even more on Sunday. Knox not only took a comfortable win in the weekend's final race, he finished a solid sixth overall, trailing just five of the faster SRO3 cars and finishing ahead of several other entries in that class.
“It couldn’t have been a better weekend for Lone Star Racing," Knox said. "This was awesome, to get two wins in a row at Long Beach of all places. Thank you to my crew, everyone just did a fantastic job on this car. Street races seem to be my specialty. I’ve always done well at them and always wanted to win Long Beach. It was a great opportunity, a great chance to race here this weekend and we’re so excited. The crew and everybody on the team worked so hard for this.”
Lone Star Racing Team Manager and Technical Director AJ Petersen has led the off-track preparation of Knox's and the team's competing cars in a variety of sports car racing series for more than a decade. Last year's Indy win combined with this weekend's double victory at Long Beach give Knox, Petersen and the team a notable three wins in the last four GT America races the team has contested.
"It’s been a pretty good run," Petersen said. "But it’s another rung on the ladder. We’re not done. We are hoping this is business as usual, but it’s a really good deal with the GT2 to be able to come out and be competitive right away. It’s a driver’s class, having to manage a high horsepower car, it’s the right package, it’s really cool. We’ve got the Mercedes-AMG GT2 hooked up and Dan does a great job wheeling it. To be the fastest all weekend long and just dominate is what we came here to do. Mission accomplished, and now it’s time to do it again next month at Circuit of The Americas (COTA)."
Lone Star Racing competes in the 2024 season with the support of ACS Manufacturing.
Next up for Lone Star Racing in GT America competition is an SRO3 class Mercedes-AMG GT3 effort at next month's doubleheader at COTA, May 17 - 19, for returning team driver Marc Austin.