Billy Johnson passed Bill Auberlen for the lead with less than five minutes remaining and held on to win the Bosch Engineering 200 at Virginia International Raceway, Round 4 of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.
After opening the season with a 32nd-place finish at Daytona International Speedway, Johnson and co-driver Jack Roush Jr. now have three consecutive podium finishes in the No. 61 Roush Performance Ford Mustang Boss 302R. It was their first victory of the season after finishing second at Homestead-Miami Speedway and third at Barber Motorsports Park.
Johnson took the lead from defending Grand Sport champ Charles Espenlaub with 15 minutes remaining in the two-hour, 30-minute event. Auberlen passed Johnson entering Turn 1 with five minutes remaining, but went wide in the Oak Tree Turn, allowing Johnson to slip by on the inside.
It was the fourth consecutive podium finish for Auberlen and Paul Dalla Lana in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M3, who extended their GS lead to 21 points over Scott Maxwell and Joe Foster, who finished 15th. Johnson and Roush moved up to sixth in the championship, 35 points behind.
The Street Tuner lead changed hands several times during the final laps before Ryan Eversley finally got by Nico Rondet and held on to win by 0.681sec. It was the first victory of the season for Eversley and Karl Thomson in the No. 75 Compass360 Racing Honda Civic Si. It was also the best showing for first-year team Insight Racing, with Rondet joined by Tyler McQuarrie in the No. 18 i2i Capital/Aloha Group/Dinan BMW 328i.