Circuit of the Americas

Round 13 of the ATC O'Reilly Auto Parts Series visited the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, and it was #84 Gio Turpin who emerged victorious in what turned out to be a dominant afternoon at the wheel. Turpin, starting from third on the grid, seized 32 of the race's 35 laps — a total only interrupted by four lead changes across the field — and crossed the line ahead of polesitter #03 Kyre Mullaney to claim his first win of the season in the ATC series. Mullaney, who led the opening lap from pole, ultimately had no answer for Turpin over the distance and settled for second, with #81 Andrew Marsh rounding out the podium after climbing four positions from his seventh-place starting spot. Turpin's 18 incident points were notable, suggesting the race was hard-fought rather than clean, though it ultimately did nothing to prevent the #84 from reaching victory lane.

If Turpin's win headlined the afternoon, the drive of the race belonged to #2 Mikal Jones. Starting ninth, Jones delivered the hard charger performance of Round 13, advancing five positions to finish fourth in the final running order. Jones's 2 incident points over the course of that charge speak to how efficiently the #2 team executed — fighting forward through a 12-car field at a technical road course while avoiding the kind of damage that plagued others. By contrast, #08 Charlie Bennett and #67 Preston Salmon — who racked up 41 and 42 incident points respectively — were among the most penalized drivers in the field, with Bennett falling four spots from his front-row starting position to sixth, and Salmon slipping from fourth to fifth. #62 Riley Bennett had perhaps the most disappointing afternoon, dropping six positions from fifth to eleventh.

The one driver to run a completely clean race was #49 Zachary Mullen, who took the green flag from the back of the 12-car field and finished exactly where he started — twelfth — but did so without a single incident to his name, a distinction no other driver in the field could claim on the day at COTA.

In the playoff standings, this result reshuffles the order meaningfully heading into the next round. Mitchell Williams, who crossed the line seventh in the #54, holds the top seed with 123 points — a 16-point advantage over Andrew Marsh, whose podium finish vaulted him to second in the standings at 107 points. Larry Millard sits third at 94 points after an eighth-place run, with Sean Timothy fourth at 86 and Justin Frazier fifth at 70. Marsh's strong afternoon tightens the gap at the top of the playoff ladder, and with Williams and Marsh separated by just 16 points, every position will matter in the rounds ahead.