Team Hardpoint EBM earned the team’s first-ever race win in the midst of their first full season on Friday at Watkins Glen International, where Efrin Castro scored a hard-fought Porsche Carrera Cup North America victory. Teammate Riley Dickinson was fourth overall and in the Pro Class during the 45-minute race.

Castro started the race second in the Pro-Am class in the No. 65 Fine Fare Supermarkets /GoDominicanRepublic.com Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, then moved around the then-leader on the opening lap going into Watkins Glen’s famed “bus stop” complex. In front, Castro turned the quickest lap of the race in the Pro-Am class with a time of 1:50.528 (110.741 mph) and held off a hard charge from current class Championship point leader Alan Metni to win by 0.198-second at the finish line. Castro averaged 109.547 mph over the 25-lap, 85-mile race.

The win came after an incident in Thursday’s practice two left his Porsche with damage that needed to be repaired.

“I’m just thrilled with the victory,” Castro said. “It was a tough beginning to the weekend because in practice two, I lost the rear of the car and put it in the wall. Thankfully, we’re running a very professional team here and they got the car back to normal. The car came back even better than before. The car was perfect, just on rails. I had an opportunity in the bus stop on the first lap and took the lead, and that’s all she wrote. From there, I just maintained my pace and hit my marks and didn’t make any mistakes.”

Dickinson qualified the No. 53 Porsche Austin/Team Hardpoint EBM Porsche fifth and moved to fourth on lap four of the race. Though in a line with the podium finishers, Dickinson couldn’t find a way around to improve any further. Sitting in fourth place in the Championship point standings entering the event, Dickinson is now just two points behind third place.

“The Team Hardpoint EBM guys did a great job getting the car prepped and ready to go, so I can’t thank them enough,” Dickinson said. “Ultimately, it came down to qualifying simply because it was so hard to make a pass on the guy in front. It felt like F1 almost. At the end of the race, we had the speed but couldn’t really do anything with it given the aero balance for everybody. We’ll look at the data and do what we can to get them tomorrow.”

Both Team Hardpoint EBM drivers will get a second opportunity at a podium finish on Saturday morning at Watkins Glen for the second race of the weekend doubleheader. Friday’s win, which followed podium finishes for each driver in the opening two event weekends at Sebring and Circuit of the Americas, is the result of hard work for the team, which launched its Carrera Cup effort this season.

“The first victory is always the sweetest, especially if you have to work for it too,” Will Bamber, Team Manager, said. “Efrin drove phenomenally, especially after his incident in FP2 yesterday. Missing a whole session is hard to come back from and he qualified really well. A lot of this victory goes out to the guys who had a late one last night. We made some small tweaks after qualifying and the car was a rocket ship. Under a huge amount of pressure, he stayed cool and brought it home. We can’t ask for anything more.”

Team Hardpoint EBM is also competing this weekend in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen. Team owner Rob Ferriol, Katherine Legge and Andrew Davis will share the No. 88 Richard Mille/GridRival Porsche 911 GT3 R in the GT Daytona (GTD) class of the event on Sunday.

Dickinson and Castro are back in action for a second 45-minute race at 9:35 a.m. on Saturday. The race can be streamed live on IMSA.tv.