Petit Le Mans last weekend was DragonSpeed’s final planned appearance in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, before the team shifts its focus to operating a customer racing programme in Ferrari Challenge North America from 2027.
The long-time US-based team, which has three Rolex 24 class wins on its CV, will establish a multi-car programme for TWG Global, with a longer-term goal of building a multi-tier operation across multiple racing classes.
“I was approached to do a job,” team owner Elton Julian told DSC. “I took a look at it; thought it was a good thing to do. So we agreed, let’s do it!
“I signed a deal with TWG Global to bring my core group of guys and build them a company called Private Client, which does customer racing, initially based around Ferrari Challenge and then potentially more in GT3 racing as it grows.
“We could have stayed on the gas and built another GTD programme in IMSA for next year, but to be honest, we’ve been there, done that. I feel we’ve done what we could over time to position ourselves to be in conversation for semi-works deals, and we have been in those, but the gap between what the manufacturers want to give and what’s needed is too big.”
This new venture with TWG Global has enabled DragonSpeed to retain its current staff and build the new business from a new headquarters.
“We’re very fortunate. Aaron Zeigler, one of the title sponsors for Spire in NASCAR, was running in Ferrari Challenge with his son and ended up buying Ferrari Lake Forest, one of the premier dealers in America. A long-time friend and owner of Ferrari of Puerto Rico, Ronnie Vogel, was in contact with Tyler Epp, the commercial officer for the Cadillac F1 team, and other people within the company, and he suggested we should talk.
“So I flew to Indy after Mosport on the way to VIR, sat down, looked at the plan, looked at what they’d invested in, and the intent for us to work out of the new IndyCar team facility (Andretti, in Indiana) that they’d just put together.
“We have put a cap on how many people we want to run; we won’t go past 10 racers. Some other successful teams have grown beyond that, and then start to suffer. We’ll be doing team operations, hospitality, everything. It’s a little bit of a dream come true. They’re almost done with the building, and I’ve got customers that are ready to go in and start testing straight away.”
This new venture won’t mark the end of DragonSpeed’s longtime association with driver Henrik Hedman. Julian added that the team will continue to look after his car collection and run his son William in Ferrari Challenge.
“We had not decided what we were going to do with Henrik’s son; Challenge wasn’t on the cards because we weren’t there. But now that we’re there, it’s a no-brainer for William to race with us. And Henrik’s car’s come with me as a legacy customer.”
