Heart of Racing left broken hearted again as their #26 car gets knocked out of podium contention towards the end at VIR

Sunday, August 23, 2026

Yesterday’s eighth round of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series from the beautiful Virginia International Raceway must have left the #26 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Racing powered crew of Hannah Grisham and Hannah Greenemeir thinking of just what they needed to do to earn themselves a decent points finish as again, they were left broken hearted at the end.

Twenty-nine GS (GT4) and thirteen TCR based cars would be entering this round with the AMR powered head count increased to six with the late inclusion of two such Vantage GT4 cars from the CSM Motorsport after they entered both their previous VP Racing Sportscar Challenge and then swapped their previous Porsche entry in favour of the Vantage for the remainder of the season.

Heavy rainfall had blighted some of the earlier sessions around the 3.27-mile circuit and for the first time in three races, the #26 Heart of Racing entry had to be contended with just a second row starting position this time around as the highest placed AMR entry again after the #66 Car Blanche entry of Allen Patten and Trenton Estep lost their fastest qualifying time by being responsible for a red flag incident on track during an earlier session.

They would start 6th with the two new CSM entries starting line astern to one another in P16 and P16 for Morgan Burkhard/Gordon Scully and Ismaeel Ellahi/Aryton Houk about their #2 and #3 cars respectively. The returning Medusa Motorsport AMR of Hunter Yeany alongside Jacob Loomis who was covering the still injured Athan Sterling with the #14 Circle H Racing entry of David Hampton and Thomas Merrill completing the order in P26.

By the time the grid had formed, it was a glorious Saturday afternoon at the circuit as the lights went green and Greenemeir made up quick ground to eventually secure second place with the now all white #66 car of Patten not too far behind.

The #4 Medusa crew would start what would soon become another difficult race day as they picked up their first of two drive through penalties – the first for a starting mistake on track with the other coming at a later pit stop when too many pit crew had come over the pit wall to apply service to the car at the time.

Considering the circuit layout and just how wet the grass off field was after the earlier rain, the race stayed surprisingly green and that was despite inter car contact starting at the Oak Tree Bend before running down the long back straight where the Porsche involved in the initial incident later spun out forcing two or three other cars off track with some impacting with the tyre wall fairly hard. Fortunately, all made it back to pit lane to avoid that otherwise impending Safety Car intervention.

All of that was just half an hour into this two-hour race with the #26 Heart car still pacing the leader in second, the #66 in sixth and with the two CSM cars still nose to tail in the positions in which they had started whilst the #4 Medusa car was already at the tail of the GS class.

With the forty minute minimum drivetime soon done, the #14 crew were first in for service and driver change, quickly followed by most of the other Aston Martin runners but not all of the GS class. This was where the #4 crew picked up their second penalty which effectively ended any possibility of a better performance on track which was unfortunate considering the effort already put into it.

Into the final hour and some GS crews were looking to push the performance envelope slightly – hoping for a yellow intervention period to help their fuel economy (otherwise it would be another two stop strategy for most) as Grisham eventually took the overall lead of the race with Estep chasing hard in fifth. The #14 Circle H Racing crew would also be having the start of a torrid time of their own as Merrill quickly returned to pit lane with an unquantified technical issue that would soon see them behind the wall and out of the race.

With Grisham being called in for what was for them to be a refuel and offside tyres only stop, everything was now pushing things towards the end with the #26 now running third overall but with just twenty minutes remaining. With the #66 car and others struggling to pick up ground to the leaders after they elected for four new tyres at their last stop, things were looking good for the #26 crew – well, at least it was until the eleven-minute mark when the first Full Course Caution was waved for debris on track.

Getting back to green with just five minutes on the race clock, a sluggish restart from the #26 car saw them swamped by the pack and contact was made with the #26 car which saw them lose even more ground to eventually emerge eighth overall as the final laps contacted down. Going into a second FCY for yet more debris, the race would eventually finish behind the Safety Car with the #66 finishing P4 on track with the #26 now P9 on track.

Post race time penalties would however see a number of cars penalised, namely the #66 Car Blanche AMR after contact with the #26 Heart of Racing at the first FCY restart. That would see the #26 elevate to P8 but the championship contending #66 car would drop to P22 in class – mainly due to the proximity of the pack to one another after the restart. Even that would come surely as scant reward for the all-female crew aboard the #26 car over the last few races.

Whilst both the #4 and #14 cars would be classified as being non-finishers, the two CSM crews would finish their first MPC race in an Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 together as the #2 crew would finish just outside the top ten in eleventh with the #3 crew in P20.