Story and photos by Tim Adams
In 2025 IMSA decided to extend the sprint race that Road America normally would host to a six-hour endurance race. This meant that Indianapolis would be losing their six-hour race, and now Indy would be a sprint race. Finally, IMSA had fixed their error. Road America should have been an endurance race the moment they expanded the Michelin Endurance Cup to five rounds. The five races are the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, the Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at Road America, and the final race is the Motul Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
It was a packed weekend of racing with Porsche Carrera Cup, Michelin Pilot Challenge, and Lamborghini Super Trofeo joining in with the headliner Weather Tech SportsCar Championship. The weather was fantastic except for Saturday. Most of Saturday was rain filled with the apart from the afternoon when the skies finally started to clear. This did not stop the fans at all. I have been attending races every year at Road America since 2003, while I’m not an old timer, I have never seen a crowd this large. IMSA clearly made the right decision to make this race part of the Endurance Cup.
In particular interest to the fans were the special liveries being ran on three of the GTP cars. The Penske Porsche 963’s were both running heritage liveries. The No. 6 car livery was a nod to the old Can-Am Sunoco Porsche 917/30, while the No. 7 car was running a livery in a tribute to the LMP2 Porsche RS Spyder which ran in the glory days of the ALMS. Joining Porsche was the No. 24 WRT BMW. They were running a Spider-Man livery for the new Spider-Man: Brand New Day film, which was just released. All three liveries were fantastic. The cars had huge crowds around them all weekend.
With all the good news coming with IMSA breaking attendance records at seemingly every race, there are many storm clouds on the horizon.
The top GTP class is not in great shape. This golden age of sportscar racing did not last long, at least in IMSA. Earlier this year, Acura announced they were pulling the plug on their GTP program at the end of the 2026 season to concentrate more on IndyCar. That is two cars gone. Rumors continue to circulate that Porsche may pack up and leave after the 2027 season, after already abandoning the WEC this year. The problem is the WEC top class, Hypercar, which is essentially the same as GTP, they just call them different names, is thriving. In the WEC, Genesis joined the grid this year, Ford and McLaren will be joining the grid in 2027. All three of them have shown absolutely no interest in joining IMSA. Running in the WEC guarantees a chance to race, and possibly win the most important race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Manufacturers can run the WEC and IMSA though, and many have done this in the past. For an American manufacturer like Ford to not race in its home series is particularly glaring, and a bad look. Hopefully the future will bring more manufactures back to IMSA in the GTP class. If not, things might get bleak in GTP in IMSA the next few years.
There is more bad news in GTD and GTD Pro. Just after winning the race in GTD Pro, PFAFF Motorsports announced their program is ending at the conclusion of the 2026 season. Ironically PFAFF just delivered the first win in North America to Lamborghini in the new Temerario GT3. Rumors are also circulating that Paul Miller Racing could also be leaving at the end of the 2026 season. Currently Paul Miller Racing is campaigning the BMW M4 GT3 in GTD Pro. Now it is very likely that teams currently running in GTD will pick up the BMW and Lamborghini and run them in GTD Pro.
IMSA has just thrown a possible wrench into this plan, however. IMSA is thinking about making it mandatory for a manufacture in GTD, that they must run in GTD and GTD Pro. This does not mean a team has to run in both, it means the manufacturer must have a car in both. There are ten manufacturers in GTD now, but three are not running full season GTD Pro cars, Aston Martin, Ferrari, and Mercedes-AMG. If IMSA were to implement this rule, do all three walk away? IMSA says the idea is to get more accurate BoP, since every manufacturer would now have at least one car driven by an entire pro lineup. I’m not sure if I buy this argument. Forcing manufacturers to spend more money to field full-time GTD Pro entries does not seem like a great idea in today’s economy. My hope is that they do not make this rule change.
As for the race at Road America, it was unfortunately a mess again. The six-hour race all the fans were clamoring for was run under caution 40 percent of the time! The driving standards were atrocious. Something needs to be done with the caution flag procedures and holding drivers accountable for terrible driving. It makes zero sense that the same field size of cars can drive around a much shorter track at Road Atlanta for hours without a caution, and can’t barely make it over an hour at Road America. Fans are not paying good money to watch cars parade around the track behind a pace car for almost half the race. This seems to be a bad trend at Road America, caution after caution. I can only hope that things will improve in the future. Reading comments online it seems to be a 50/50 split. Many fans enjoyed the race and it’s now six-hour length, but many saw it for what it really was, a caution filled mess.
The schedule for 2027 was released back in March and once again Road America will host a six-hour endurance race, we can hope the drivers come to their senses, and we can see some actual racing next year. I will see you trackside.
