SRO America has released the entry lists for next weekend’s race meeting at Road America, which includes a 16-car field for GT World Challenge America – the largest of the season.
The field features five Pro class entries and nine Pro-Am cars, along with the first appearance of the Am class in 2024.
Road America will mark the anticipated debut of Random Vandals Racing’s new BMW M4 GT3 in the Pro class. IndyCar Series driver Conor Daly is scheduled to drive the #99 BMW alongside Kenton Koch, Random Vandals’ current driver in Michelin Pilot Challenge and GT4 America.
Daly appears on the entry list amidst heavy rumours that he’ll be called back into IndyCar action for the series’ four remaining oval races. One of those races is at World Wide Technology Raceway (formerly Gateway Motorsports Park) on the same weekend as Road America. DSC has reached out to Random Vandals Racing for clarification.
Unexpectedly, there’s another new BMW M4 GT3 on the entry list this weekend – this one from Flying Lizard Motorsports!
The #8 of Elias Sabo and Andy Lee is back with a different manufacturer this weekend. The previous Aston Martin Vantage GT3 was withdrawn during the VIR weekend after a row over the Vantage’s BoP settings in America versus Europe.
This change will not impact Flying Lizard’s other Aston Martin programmes across the other SRO America championships, GT4 America and GT America.
At last, Montreal Motorsport Group and the #92 Porsche 911 GT3 R will make its series debut. MMG planned to run this season with an all-Quebecois lineup of Jean-Frederic Laberge and former IndyCar Series star Alex Tagliani.
Laberge will continue as the team’s Bronze driver after running the GT America series races at VIR, in preparation for a full-season campaign in 2025. But Tagliani has been replaced by Ontario-born Kyle Marcelli, the 2019 GT World Challenge America Pro-Am Champion. Marcelli will run the final three rounds of the season alongside Laberge, his first GT World Challenge America race since 2020.
Marcelli missed the IMSA SportsCar Challenge at Road America last week due to a minor arm injury but should be clear to run this weekend.
AF Corse makes its first appearance since the COTA round, naturally running a Ferrari 296 GT3. But this time the team races with a new number (#163) and a new Am class line-up of 2012 Daytona 24 Hours winner Oswaldo Negri Jnr – and Jay Schreibman, who has previously raced in Ferrari Challenge and International GT Open.
They’ll race against the #19 Esses Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Will Hardeman/Alan Metni) for class honours. Metni makes his return for the first time since COTA, as does Jake Pedersen, who’s back in the #85 RS1 Porsche alongside Trent Hindman – which reverts to a Pro-Am entry.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike Racing by Riley remains absent as the cybersecurity company has just issued its debrief into what went wrong with the 19 July software update incident.
This has effectively put Samantha Tan and Neil Verhagen in control of the Pro-Am standings, as they lead by 46 points with only five races remaining. Turner Motorsport’s Justin Rothberg and Robby Foley are their nearest challengers in second place.
Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer will hope for a better end result at Road America than they had in IMSA last week. The Wright Motorsports duo currently lead the Pro standings by 36 points over ST Racing’s Varun Choksey and Bill Auberlen, but with DXDT Racing’s Alec Udell and Tommy Milner quickly catching up.
27 cars will compete in GT4 America (Six in Silver, 14 in Pro-Am, seven in Am).
TechSport Racing has changed up the driver line-ups of its two Nissan Z NISMO GT4s: Elivan Goulart replaces Eric Powell in the #22, and Johan Schwarz replaces Michai Stephens in the #23. Both cars will race in Pro-Am.
Matt Million returns to the #53 AutoTechnic Racing BMW M4 GT4, now joined by Tyler Stone. And Rigid Speed is set to make its first appearance of the season with the #33 BMW driven by Lucas and Joseph Catania.
Finally, 19 cars are on the provisional GT America entry list – 12 GT3 cars and seven GT4s. The aforementioned #8 Flying Lizard BMW M4 GT3 will at least run Practice and Qualifying with Sabo at the wheel.
TPC Racing is back this weekend, this time with a McLaren Artura GT4 for Alan Grossberg – who’d previously driven the team’s Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo.
Johnny O’Connell maintains a slim eight-point advantage in the ‘SRO3’ class standings over Jason Daskalos, while Justin Rothberg is now just 32 points back following his first win in the series. Isaac Sherman leads the GT4 standings by 63 points over Curt Swearingin, who is also the GT4 America Pro-Am points leader alongside Kay van Berlo.
Feature image © Fabian Lagunas / SRO
