An increased AMR head count at IMSA's visit to Watkins Glen next week
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
The entry lists are now out for next weekend’s visit by the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship and its supporting series to Watkins Glen for what will be a six-hour race in the IMSA series and a four-hour race for the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series.
For the headline series, it of course marks a quick return for the new GTD Class Championship leaders in the form of the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 with Ian James making a return to the driver line up alongside their new young hotshots and new full season drivers Roman de Angelis and Ross Gunn.
Fresh from their elevated and inaugural race win for the latest version of the AMR Vantage GT3 in North America last time out in Detroit; the #23 crew will be looking to replicate that act round the more traditional circuit layout of Watkins Glen in New York State whilst the GT4 runners welcome an increase AMR representation this time around.
Having been the sole AMR representatives at the last Michelin Pilot Challenge race at Mid-Ohio back in mid-May, the Volt Racing with Archangel AMR Vantage GT4 of Alan Brynjolfsson and Trent Hindman will be looking to eradicate the memory of Mid-Ohio from their minds when a misjudgement on Hindman’s part broke their car’s steering and put them out of the race whilst contesting another podium finish in the final minutes of that race.
They will once again be joined by the #09 Stoner Car Care Automatic Racing AMR Vantage GT4 of Rob Ecklin, Ramin Abdolvahabi and Brandon Kidd who missed the Mid-Ohio round in favour of a double 8hr event with the World Racing League at Road America (where they secured a podium finish in both races!). Kidd also joins them for the first time since Daytona.
A third AMR Vantage GT4 joins these two cars next weekend and that is in the form of the #23 Notlad Racing with RS1 car of Pat Gallagher and Stevan McAleer. No Matt Dalton, he presumably continues to recuperate after his second big accident at the Virginia International Raceway two weeks ago where his #00 car left the track and impacted heavily with the crash barrier and tyre wall placing the bronze driver in hospital for several days for precautionary observation.
It was always the intentions of the Notlad Racing team to enter selected rounds of the Michelin Pilot Challenge this year having started off at the season opening at Daytona at the start of the year. Having written off a chassis at CoTA in GT America at the end of April and then another at VIR, we believe that they will be racing the brand-new chassis that was shipped out to them just ahead of the VIR round following their CoTA accident.
Photo credits – IMSA / Teams
