Fifty Minutes at Road America That Rewrote the Standings
On August 5, 2018, Round 6 of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America series played out across Road America’s 14 turns and four miles of fast, flowing Wisconsin asphalt. A 50-minute sprint with mandatory pit stops and driver changes, contested across four classes (PRO, PRO-AM, AM, and LB Cup) on identical Huracán Super Trofeo machinery, the format was familiar. The stakes were not. Brandon Gdovic and Shinya Sean Michimi arrived at Elkhart Lake leading the PRO Class points. They left in third.
Taylor Proto, sitting on his first career Super Trofeo pole, pulled the No. 50 P1 Motorsports entry clear of the field from the start and built a gap exceeding 15 seconds before the mandatory pit window. His co-driver Edoardo Piscopo took over and watched that cushion shrink to roughly two or three seconds as Corey Lewis in the No. 29 Change Racing car and Trent Hindman in the No. 1 Wayne Taylor Racing entry closed in after their own stops. Piscopo responded by stretching the lead again over the final 12 minutes, crossing the line more than six seconds clear. Proto and Piscopo moved into a tie for first in the PRO standings with Lewis and Madison Snow, both pairs on 70 points, while Gdovic and Michimi dropped to 67 after a fourth-place finish. A three-point swing across one warm Sunday morning, and the championship picture looked entirely different heading to VIRginia International Raceway.
Class Battles: Tire Trouble, a Turn 12 Collision, and a Rookie’s Home Win
The PRO result dominated the points narrative, but the supporting classes delivered the kind of unscripted drama that keeps one-make racing compelling and grids full.
In PRO-AM, Steven McAleer led the first half for the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing entry before a tire issue during the mandatory stop cost the team its advantage. Loris Spinelli, driving the No. 71 P1 Motorsports car, capitalized on that misfortune and erased a sizeable deficit to win by two full laps. The result extended JC Perez and Spinelli’s class lead to 23 points, their total reaching 74. That kind of margin, built partly on a rival’s mechanical bad luck, is the sort of cushion that lets a team manage risk over the remaining rounds rather than chase results.
The AM Class produced the weekend’s most satisfying storyline. Ben Albano, competing in his first Super Trofeo weekend, drove the opening stint at his home track before handing the No. 5 P1 Motorsports car to Patrick Liddy, who extended the lead to a 29-second margin over Damon Ockey. Liddy captured the appeal of the series neatly:
“It’s incredible to drive one of these machines. This is the fastest one-make series in the world and you can feel that around this track.”
Ockey’s second place, combined with his pole position, moved him to the top of the AM standings with 75 points, one ahead of Ryan Hardwick.
The LB Cup race featured the most chaotic moment of the day. Sheena Monk held the early lead until she and Parris Mullins made contact in Turn 12 with 32 minutes remaining, sending both cars off the racing surface. Both continued, but the incident handed the effective lead to Brett Meredith in the No. 66 GMG Racing entry. After the mandatory stops shuffled the order, Meredith regained control and extended his advantage. Monk attempted a late charge but spun with roughly seven minutes left, and Meredith cruised to his third consecutive LB Cup victory. Mark Porto and Mullins still led the LB Cup table with 77 points, but Meredith’s surge to second, now one point ahead of Monk, made the closing rounds considerably more interesting.
The Huracán Super Trofeo as the Great Equalizer
Every class battle at Road America reinforced the same principle: when the car is a constant, driver skill becomes the only variable that matters. The Huracán Super Trofeo is a purpose-built, non-street-legal race car designed exclusively for this championship. Its 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V10 produces 620 horsepower in EVO2 specification, paired with a dry weight of 1,270 kg. That yields a weight-to-power ratio of 2.05 kg per CV, numbers that put it squarely in the territory of serious GT machinery without the complexity of hybrid systems or forced induction.
Proto noted that his confidence grew as the tires and brakes came up to temperature, and Piscopo described the weekend as a textbook exercise in car management. When the machinery is equal, the margins come from setup choices, tire management during mandatory stints, and the precision of pit stop execution. Road America’s long straights and high-speed corners reward aerodynamic confidence, and the Huracán’s large rear wing and aggressive diffuser are designed to deliver exactly that.
The series also functions as a recognized stepping stone toward GT3 competition, where Lamborghini’s Huracán GT3 Evo competed against Ferrari, Porsche, and Mercedes-AMG entries in international endurance and sprint racing. For aspiring professional drivers, a strong Super Trofeo season was, and remains, a credible path into Squadra Corse’s broader racing programs. According to Autoblog, Lamborghini’s recently unveiled Temerario GT3, the brand’s first fully in-house competition car, represents the next chapter of that ladder. The connection between a PRO-AM driver learning racecraft in the Super Trofeo paddock and the factory GT3 program competing at Daytona or Spa is direct and intentional.
Why the Final Rounds Carried Maximum Tension
A single-round recap from 2018 risks looking like a footnote. Taken in context, Road America was the pivot point of the season. The Super Trofeo series, organized by Squadra Corse across three continental championships (North America, Europe, and Asia), is Lamborghini’s most visible commitment to grassroots professional motorsport, and the quality of racing at rounds like this one demonstrates why teams keep returning.
The multi-class structure serves that purpose commercially as well as competitively. PRO entries attract young professionals chasing factory contracts. PRO-AM and AM classes welcome gentleman drivers who want genuine competition without the pressure of an outright championship bid. The LB Cup provides an additional entry point. This layered approach keeps grids full and ensures that Lamborghini dealerships, which sponsor many entries (note the Lamborghini Broward, Lamborghini Charlotte, and Lamborghini Palm Beach affiliations in the 2018 results), maintain a visible connection between their showrooms and the racetrack.
The 2018 season continued two weeks later at VIR, with the championship battles in every class still very much alive. Proto and Piscopo’s Road America win did not guarantee them anything. It simply ensured that every remaining lap would carry consequence, which is exactly what a well-run one-make series is supposed to deliver.
Gallery
