Six Aston Martins see out IMSAs 2023 season from Petit Le Mans

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Shadowing each other throughout most of the season had the SRO group of North America race series reach their seasonal conclusion at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last weekend and this weekend see the end to the IMSA family of series from an equally notable Road Atlanta circuit.

Whilst the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship will again race out their season at their season at the Petit Le Mans headlining event, the two series that allows GT4’s to compete within them will also run this weekend with an expected six Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s amongst the extended grids albeit not for any championship position of note.

Within the Michelin Pilot Challenge Series, just three such crews return for their finale in the form of the #19 Van Der Steur car of Rory Van Der Steur and Austin McCusker as well as the two Team TGM cars of brothers Hugh and Matt Plumb within the #46 car and Ted Giovanis and Owen Trinkler aboard the #64 car.

Competing again amongst another mixed GT4/TCR grid of thirty-eight cars for this final two-hour round, sees the #19 Van Der Steur crew assume the lead AMR role (in P10) from the Plumb brothers (in P12) with the #64 crew in P23 all sadly in excess of 500 points or more back from the leading BMW M4 powered crew. That means all the AMR crews will only be racing for personal satisfaction but we’re sure that no crew ahead of them in the Championship can expect an easy pass around the iconic Braselton circuit as winning this round comes with its own kudos.

For this series, just three AMR entries is something of a disappointment having had eight such cars run in the season four-hour opener at Daytona way back in January at the Rolex 24 event.

Supporting the IMSA package again will be the VP Racing Sportscar Challenge for another mixed grid of this time GT4 and LMP3 cars. Having raced at Daytona, Sebring, CTMP, Lime Rock and VIR before rounding off at Road Atlanta, three further Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s are expected within that provisional entry of twenty-seven cars.

Having all entered or swapped between both sets of American GT series during some point of this season sees the #33 API AMR entry of Moisey Uretsky join the ranks with Scott Blind within his #45 Archangel prepared Ruckus Racing entry with Brady Behrman completing the trio with his Van Der Steur prepared #82 car.

Racing as solo bronze rated drivers only, these guys will get a final two races around the 2.5-mile circuit starting on Thursday. Again like the Michelin Pilot Challenge, none of these guys have any championship opportunity for this first running of this new series this year.

Despite that, GT4 racing in North America continues to be in rude healthy thanks to the efforts of those at CSJ Motorsport as far as Aston Martin Racing is concerned for taking us there!

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media