Brake failure was all that separated Sopwith Motorsports from a top position at Texas Motor Speedway last weekend when the team retired 16 hours into the 24-hour sportscar endurance race.

Piloted by Joseph Smith, Travis Meadows, Stephen Dale and Stephen Cox, the G-Force Sopwith Ford Thunderbird ran as high as 4th and never lower than 9th among the 26 teams in the field. Sopwith remained a strong contender throughout the event, logging a total of 409 laps around Texas Motor Speedway’s road course before a terminal brake issue ended their effort at 3am Sunday morning.

“From our perspective the day was successful,” said Sopwith’s Stephen Cox. “Our main purpose is to get a lot of laps for Travis and Stephen Dale. They’re both rookies and we want to give them a relaxed, entry-level environment and be competitive at the same time. They ran really solid laps and kept us in the fight. Joe Smith had the car prepped really well and except for a little bad luck, I think we were going to be a podium team. We were running 6th just before the brake problems, and we weren’t pressing that hard.”

The team will default to its backup car for this weekend’s 24-hour sportscar endurance race at Iowa Speedway. Watch for live streaming video updates from the race on Sopwith’s Facebook page at the top of every hour beginning Saturday, June 26, at 12 noon Eastern.