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Brabham Takes Dominant Trans Am Win At Sonoma

Nobody in the field had anything for Matthew Brabham, who claimed the win in the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli event at Sonoma Raceway on Saturday afternoon.

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The season of domination continued for Matthew Brabham in Saturday's Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli event at Sonoma Raceway. The driver of the No. 16 Gymweed Chris Dyson Racing Ford Mustang led wire-to-wire and took home the victory by a margin of more than one minute over the competition.

"It was fun there, it was awesome at the start, racing with Rafa [Matos]," Brabham said after the dominant performance. "It's great to have a fast teammate and somebody to give some pressure. Obviously, these guys on the podium are always out there giving us a hard time too."

Brabham has now claimed the victory in each of the opening three races of the 2026 Trans Am Series season, and Saturday's triumph marks the driver's 11th career win in the series.

Paul Menard, who came into the season with back-to-back series championships and was the favorite to claim the title again, came home with a runner-up finish.

Menard and Rafa Matos were the two drivers in the field in the same ballpark as Brabham on Saturday afternoon, but bad luck bit both drivers. In the opening laps of the race, Menard had the window net on his No. 3 Ford Mustang come undone, which forced him to pit road for a lengthy stop to get it re-fastened.

While the issue cost Menard a lot of time on track, the driver was able to claw his way back through the field for the runner-up finish.

"Just a bummer," Menard explained. "We had a good car. Had just passed Rafa for second, and obviously, Brabham had been lights out all weekend, but we were hoping to pressure him. We got the black flag. From then on, it was try to catch Tomy, try to catch David."

Matos wasn't as fortunate.

Late in the event, Matos' car stalled on track, and never re-fired. As Matos parked his car out of line and out of harm's way, his day, which looked like be a runner-up finish, was dashed.

Matos would be credited with a 12th-place result, 15 laps off the pace.

With Matos out of contention, this opened the door for veteran racer Tomy Drissi, who claimed a podium finish, as he came home with a third-place finish.

For Drissi, it was a total team effort that led to his podium finish.

"The team did such a good job. This is a team podium, because it was consistency and reliability. I didn't have the speed for these guys. I tried to get into the 30's for a qualifying thing with two laps to go, and I almost ate big [expletive]. But I said, okay, we're good P4," Drissi laughed.

While the race for the overall race win was between the drivers in the TA Class, Cole Moore came out on top in an excellent battle with Jim Guthrie for the TAC Class win on Saturday afternoon. John Moore, Cole's father, finished third on the podium in the TAC Class.

Chris Coffey took the win in the SGT Class over Patrick Utt, as they finished ninth and 10th overall in the race, and David Kunicki took the victory in the TACW class over Tim Lynn.

The Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli will compete in the second race of the weekend at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, April 26. That race is scheduled for 1:45 PM ET.

All of the TA Class and CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series events will be broadcast for FREE on RacingAmerica.TV, Racing America 24/7, and the official Trans Am Series YouTube Channel. The Racing America 24/7 Streaming Channel is available on The Roku Channel, Prime Video, My Free DirecTV, LG Channels, and PLEX. REVTV will serve as the official broadcast partner of Trans Am in Canada.

Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli Results - Sonoma Raceway

FinClassClass FinCarDriverLapsDiff
1TA116Matthew Brabham40--
2TA23Paul Menard401:01.273
3TA38Tomy Drissi401:24.624
4TAC127Cole Moore391 lap
5TAC262Jim Guthrie391 lap
6TA457David Pintaric391 lap
7TAC392John Moore382 laps
8TA559Simon Gregg373 laps
9SGT197Chris Coffey373 laps
10SGT249Patrick Utt364 laps
11TAC49Ken Thwaits337 laps
12TA620Rafa Matos2515 laps
13TAC567Phil Fogg Jr.1723 laps
14TAC608Aaron Young1723 laps
15TACW186David Kunicki1030 laps
16TACW299Tim Lynn931 laps




Photo Credit: Chris Clark

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