October 4, 2020 — INDIANAPOLIS
- Kevin Boehm wins TCA championship after winning six of last eight races
- Mat Pombo sweeps weekend to earn first TC wins of 2020 for Honda
- Victor Gonzalez earns his first win of 2020 in TCR Honda Civic Type R
The Honda lineup competing in the SRO Motorsports Touring Car series in 2020 – the Type R TCR, Type R TC and Si – saved the best for last as Honda drivers claimed four class wins, seven podiums and one class championship at this weekend’s season finale weekend on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
TCA
Kevin Boehm led the charge by sealing his first TCA championship with a win on Friday, then celebrated with a second-place run on Saturday. Boehm, who works as an engineer at Honda’s R&D Americas facility in Raymond, Ohio, used a strong second half to claim the title, winning six of the year’s final eight races in his Honda Civic Si.
TCR
Victor Gonzalez and his VGMC Racing team spent Thursday repairing the front end of his Civic Type R TCR after qualifying, and Gonzalez made the work pay off on Saturday with a dominant win in TCR. Gonzalez recovered from two brief off-track excursions to run down Friday winner Tristan Herbert and took the lead at the race’s halfway point. He eased away from there, winning by more than five seconds to visit Victory Lane for the first time this year.
TC
In addition to those successes, Mat Pombo and his L.A. Honda World Racing team put together a strong Civic Type R as Honda took its first two TC class wins of the year. Pombo, who just ran the car for the first time three weeks ago at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, claimed the victories in both of this weekend’s races around the 2.439-mile IMS road course.
HPD has three ready-to-race Civic models for touring car competition. The line starts with the affordable and reliable Civic Si TCA race car, then leads to the Civic Type R TC racer that puts legendary Type R performance on track, and culminates with the no-compromise, championship-winning Civic Type R TCR race car. Our unparalleled trackside support at every level from HPD engineers is a unique benefit that no other manufacturer can offer. Find out more about these cars and our touring programs at: https://hpd.honda.com/Motorsports/Touring.
Honda Racing social media content and videos from the season finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway are available on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hondaracing_hpd), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/HondaRacing_HPD).
Quotes
Kevin Boehm (Boehm Racing Honda Civic Si) 2020 TCA Champion, Friday Race 1 TCA class winner: “Just to be here [racing] was a dream season and then to star, pulling out wins and running up front, makes it even more unbelievable! I still don’t believe it is real. Part of it was just learning the car. I needed to find the right combination to get what I needed out of the car. HPD provides a great package with this Civic, and we didn’t have any issues all year. It looks sometimes like we just get in the car and drive away, but it’s the sum of a lot of little things and a lot of great people working on the program.”
Victor Gonzalez (VGMC Racing Honda Civic Type R TCR) TCR Saturday race winner: “It’s very emotional for me, We should have won at least four races this year, but that makes this win more special. Honda and HPD backs us up so well, and this whole team worked non-stop and discovered an engine-mapping issue overnight that we got corrected and the work paid off.” Mat Pombo (L.A. Honda World Honda Civic Type R) TC class winner both days: “A TCR and TC Honda in Victory Lane at Indianapolis feels fitting. We worked with Honda to show what this Civic Type R could do in this class, and hopefully wins like we got this weekend will pay off for the entire HPD family. This car rolled off the truck fast and was hard to catch all weekend.”