Alec Udell – The Eyes of Texas Are Upon Him

August 29, 2017 | Austin, Texas | Alec Udell returns to his home track, the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), August 25 – 27 and there is no time better for the driver of the No. 77 Calvert Dynamics Porsche 911 GT3 R to be in front of family and friends. With Hurricane Harvey overwhelming the area in recent days, North America’s premier sprint format GT racing series offers an excellent opportunity to celebrate the strength of Texas. Udell, a native son of the Lone Star State from The Woodlands, will race in front of the “eyes of Texas” in the final three rounds of the Pirelli World Challenge (PWC) SprintX Championship with Pro/Am class co-driver Preston Calvert (Potomac, Maryland) at the Austin-area race track.

Entering the three, 60-minute races, Udell has been on a hot streak. He earned his first professional class podium in the Sprint Championship round at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and followed that with a two fifth-place finishes with Calvert in the most recent SprintX races at the Utah Motorsports Campus earlier this month. He then tested a new Porsche 911 GT3 R in California before flying across country to Clemson, South Carolina where he started his senior year at the University last week. He will wrap his PWC season with the final two Sprint Championship rounds at Sonoma Raceway in California on September 15 – 17.

Like most of the tracks on the PWC schedule, Udell has his name in the COTA record books. In 2016, the Clemson University Mechanical Engineering Major earned victory in Race 1 of the GT Cup Championship driving a GMG-prepared Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car. The following day he finished in second-place. To bookend the year, Udell joined Moorespeed Racing from Austin to campaign the Porsche Supercup Series. The one-make championship travels with the Formula One circus and sets the international standard for Porsche “Cup” series. Against the world’s best, Udell fought to an impressive eleventh-place finish in the first of two races of the weekend. To prove the Texan’s prowess, he charged to seventh-place in the second race. That kind of success is almost unprecedented in a series dominated by specialists.

Udell and Calvert will have a unique weekend with three events versus the standard two in Austin. Testing begins on Thursday, August 31 with official practice underway at 9:30 a.m. Central Time on Friday, September 1. The makeup SprintX, Round 4, from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday evening. The grid for that event was set in May. Qualifying for Race 1 at COTA will be Saturday at 11:45 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. with the 60-minute race starting at 4:00 p.m. Race 2, the final round of the 2017 SprintX season, will take the green flag at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Adding the possible wildcards for the COTA weekend is the weather itself. With some reports predicting rain totals from “Harvey” – now a tropical storm – up to 30 inches, massive flooding has hit Southeastern Texas. The Circuit of the Americas area has been particularly hard hit. While the intense winds have subsided, flooding is expected to continue. Udell’s hometown in the suburbs of Houston is also facing serious flooding. Houston was near the epicenter of the Hurricane when it hit the coast of Texas with evacuations ongoing.

The races can be watched live at www.world-challenge.com and on tape delayed broadcast on the CBS Sports Network, Sunday September 10 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time (ET).

Alec Udell |
about COTA| “Going to COTA is something I always look forward to. I have a lot of laps on the track and I love the city of Austin. Preston got to test there over the summer so I feel we're ready for another strong race in the Calvert Dynamics Porsche!”

about the Hurricane Harvey | “Hurricane Harvey has had a profound impact on my home city of Houston. We've seen hard storms before and I know the community will come together to support those who need help. I pray for safety for all of us affected by the storm.”

about Alec Udell |
Alec Udell is a junior studying engineering at Clemson University. The 21 year-old from The Woodlands, Texas began his racing career in karting at age five. He went on to win the Rotax National Points Championship in 2008 and represented his country as part of Team USA in Egypt in the World Championships in 2009. By 2011, he made history by becoming, at the time, the Pirelli World Challenge’s youngest ever competitor at age 15. He has 15 career Pirelli World Challenge GT Cup class wins entering the season and is the 2016 PWC GT Cup Champion.

about Euroworld Motorsports |
2017 is the third season Udell partners with Euroworld Motorsports (www.euroworldmotorsports.com). Euroworld is the country’s only certified automotive carbon fiber repair facility. Based in Houston, they are one of Texas’s leading European auto repair and performance facility.

More information on the 2017 Pirelli World Challenge can be found at www.world-challenge.com .

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