IMSA and Michelin Pilot Challenge back on the agenda at Road America this weekend

Monday, July 31, 2023

IMSA is back in town this weekend, from Road America to be exact, with another two action packed rounds (no doubt) of its Weathertech Sportscar Champions and supporting Michelin Pilot Challenge Series.

The main IMSA series sees all five classes return for this round after the GTD only round from Lime Rock Park where the two Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD’s took both overall (GTD Pro) and class wins (GTD) between them but at the cost of sadly another DNF for the returning Andretti Autosport Aston.

This weekend sees all three AMR’s return for this weekend’s two hour’s forty-minute race starting on Sunday morning (local time) with both #23 Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas and #27 Roman De Angelis/Marco Sorenson all eager as mustard to get back into the point winning ways having each maxed out in upstate New York, closing the deficit in their respective championships to those in front.

For the #94 Andretti car of Jarret Andretti and Gabby Chaves, it will be a case of third time lucky having suffered similar fates in both opening IMSA visits so far at both Lime Rock and before that at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Whilst the Michelin Pilot Challenge skipped Lime Rock Park completely two weeks ago, it returns this weekend back into its usual state with both GS and TCR classed cars competing within the scheduled forty-six car entry and with six Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 powered crews competing within the twenty-four strong GS class.

The usual suspects from Van der Steur (#19 Rory Van Der Steur/Austin McCusker), Team TGM with both (#46 Hugh/Matt Plumb) and (#64 Ted Giovanis/Owen Trinkler), the #44 Accelerating Performance AMR of Moisey Uretsky/Michael Cooper and the #88 Archangel Aston Martin of Todd Coleman/Billy Johnson all return for another two hour round but will this time be re-joined again by the #09 Automatic Stoner Car Care entry of Rob Ecklin and Ramin Abdolvahabi.

The Stoner crew returned to the IMSA series at Lime Rock for their first race within the VP Fuels Sportscar Challenge Series where Ecklin came away with a brace of Bronze Cup trophies for his efforts.