Photo: Bob Chapman/Autosport Image
***The Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America entry list features 34 cars this weekend at Road America following the late withdrawal of the No. 24 McElrea Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car of Thomas Nepveu, who is taking part in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series race in Saskatoon instead. It has resulted in a 19-car Pro class grid.
***McCann Racing has been working to replace the chassis for its No. 8 entry of Michael McCann, who crashed in opening practice on Thursday. McCann was evaluated and released from the infield car center following the impact but the car sustained chassis damage, forcing McCann to miss the second practice session of the day.
***This weekend marks the first time that Carrera Cup has run in support of NASCAR. In addition to the Xfinity Series, the Porsche single-make series has raced with IMSA 13 times, IndyCar (three) and Formula 1 (once, with a second race scheduled at COTA to close out the 2023 season) and has also shared the Long Beach event with IMSA and IndyCar twice.
***Porsche Motorsport North America held its Porsche Motorsport North America Junior Development Program training event at the Porsche Experience Center Atlanta last week.
***Twelve drivers – six from Carrera Cup and six from Porsche Sprint Challenge North America by Yokohama – spent two days in Atlanta discussing nutrition, mental performance, visual performance training, physical testing and training, use of race simulators, personal brand management, sponsorship, digital and social media and presenting and on-camera training.
***Carrera Cup drivers that took part in the event were Riley Dickinson, Jimmy Llibre, Will Martin, Thomas Sargent, Elias De La Torre and Sean Varwig.
***Road America is one of three tracks that have hosted Carrera Cup events since the series’ launch in 2021, the other two being Sebring International Raceway and Watkins Glen International.
***Only three drivers in the field will be seeking repeat wins at Road America this weekend. Grady Willingham (No. 21) won the Pro-Am 991 class in 2021 while Marco Cirone (No. 82) took the Pro-Am victory in both 2022 rounds. Mark Kvamme (No. 43) stood on the top-step of the Am class podium in both races last year.
***Carrera Cup regular Dimitri Dimakos earned a new distinction at Road America in May. Driving an unmodified Porsche 911 GT3 RS on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R street tires, Dimakos set a new production car track record lap of 2:00.517. The effort was supported by Goldcrest Motorsports and Carrera Cup Am class driver Jeff Majkrzak.
***Madison, Wis.-based Kellymoss, which is racing on home soil this weekend, gained nine additional points over McElrea Racing in the Entrants championship at Watkins Glen. The two have 182 and 145 points respectively. JDX Racing sits third with 135 points.
***McElrea Racing has adopted pitbox.io, a new cloud-based motorsport platform that’s aimed to streamline team operations during race weekends. All of the information from the Australian-based team, including car setups, run sheets, tire, fuel, track notes and driver feedback, are complied into a single digital platform, which has eliminated the need for paper or other spreadsheets.
***Team owner Andy McElrea said: “One of the many benefits was being able to learn at twice the speed of our competitors, given both Australian and U.S. categories share the same car. We are always looking at improving the way we operate at McElrea Racing, and ensuring drivers, engineers and mechanics have all the right tools at their disposal. So this has been a revelation giving us an extremely convenient and secure way to streamline the sharing of data between the two countries.”
***The first 40-minute race of the weekend gets underway Friday at 2:55 p.m. CDT, with Race 2 set for the green flag on Saturday at 12:15 p.m. Both races will be streamed live on PorscheCarreraCup.us, Peacock and IMSA Radio, featuring the commentary team of John Hindhaugh and Shea Adam.
