"Our little engine with a big turbo is a big question on the start,” Pobst said. “With the Weismann all-wheel drive on a standing start, we have a tremendous amount of traction, but we have a really small engine and it's not on the boost yet, so we just rev it up as hard as we can and bang the clutch home. If the wheels spin, we take off and we’re in great shape. If they get too much traction, we bog, and I think that’s what Andy [Pilgrim] and I both did. We bogged. By the time I finally got going, Tony Rivera had gotten by me and James [Sofronas] was gone.

“I got a good shot off that first corner. I figured 'now or never’ on Tony, because I knew he’d be difficult to pass. I flat dive-bombed into the inside of Turn Two and that worked. Meanwhile, up ahead, James Sofronas got in a little hot and had a wiggle. I cut down inside of him, skimmed his mirrors and we were first! It was an amazing turn of events and a very important factor in the outcome of this race.”

From there, Pobst stretched out to a 2.9-second lead over Rivera by lap five when a full-course caution came out to extract the Corvette of Tony Gaples from the Turn Two tires after he experienced a stuck throttle. The lap-nine double-file restart would dramatically change the running order.

Pobst had the inside line going into the tight Turn One, with Rivera alongside in the first row. Dino Crescentini’s Porsche 911 GT3 and Davis’ Ford Mustang Cobra made up the second row. As the cars made the middle of the corner, Rivera was backwards and the field fanned out, with Kubinski moving from seventh to second in his Corvette and Davis slotting in third after a trip to the grass.

Rivera, Sofronas, Crescentini, Eric Curran (Chevrolet Corvette), Gunter Schaldach (Dodge Viper) and Tim McKenzie (Porsche 911 GT3) were involved in the incident, with the last three not able to continue with varying degrees of damage.

After the melee of the double-file restart, series officials elected to have a single-file restart on lap 12, and Pobst was able to get away cleanly and cruise to a 1.793-second win, averaging 67.295 mph over the 50-minute time-limited, 16-lap, 56.96-mile race. It was the two-time defending series’ Champion’s first win of the season.

“It has been such a monumental task for K-PAX/3R Racing to build a World Challenge GT car out of a Volvo S60 that can win races,” Pobst said. “It’s a development year. Our car is still new, but 3R Racing has done so much development, that it’s really accelerated, but the car has actually handled very well from the beginning. Here at Autobahn, there are a lot of corners, and I knew that if there was any track where we had a change to win, it would be here. I am thrilled to be on the top of the podium for K-PAX Racing. 

“I’m glad we survived. We got whacked hard on the restart, but the car was still beautiful – you could hardly tell. I was lucky I was still on the brakes when I got hit. Since I was still braking, he didn’t spin me. I was lucky those Volvos are built strong.”

Pobst also turned the Débaufré Fastest Lap of the Race with a 2:29.046 (85.986 mph) on lap four.

Andy Pilgrim started his K-PAX Racing Volvo S60 fourth, but bogged on the start and fell back to ninth. On lap four, he spun back to 16th but picked his way through spinning cars and traffic to fight back up to finish fourth.

The race will be broadcast Tuesday, Aug. 18, at 11 a.m. (PDT) on SPEED.