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Porsche Carrera Cup North America brings intense championship battle to Road America

Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America season is becoming one of the most intensely fought title chases in series’ history. No one can rest easy entering the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America from August 1 – 4. The 4.048-mile, 14-turn “National Park of Speed” offers one of the greatest tests to drivers in a series where success comes down to the pilot behind the wheel of the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car and the team behind them in an all-Porsche paddock. Fast, technical and demanding a razor’s edge balance of patience and aggressive driving, the Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin track is an old-school style nemesis to the next generation of Porsche champions.

The premier one-make championship has eight rounds remaining across four race weekends and no class championship – Pro, Pro-Am or Masters – is a lock. In fact, the contenders in Pro and Pro-Am have changed in each weekend run thus far. While Loek Hartog (Netherlands) has remained atop the Pro class running order nearly all season, his pursuers have changed regularly each round. The Pro-Am class leaders have also swapped the top spot seemingly every lap and, while Matt Halcome (Dallas, Georgia) has remained at the top of the Masters class, the 2021 Pro-Am 991 class champion knows one misstep can close the gap quickly.

Practice gets underway on Thursday, August 1 with the 40-minute round nine taking the green flag on Saturday, August 3 and its twin, round ten, on Sunday, August 4.

• Field. 36 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race cars are entered for the weekend.
• Pro class. 15 | Pro-Am class. 12 | Masters class. 9
• Teams. 11 race teams are represented across all three classes.

• Entry list. The full Porsche Carrera Cup North America entry list can be found at:
https://www.imsa.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2024/07/24/2024PCCNARoadAmericaPreEventEntryList.pdf

• Track Record. 2:07.586, Riley Dickinson, No. 53 Kellymoss, set in 2023.

• 2023 Race Winners.
- Pro. o Race 1 & 2. Riley Dickinson, Kellymoss
- Pro-Am. o Race 1 & 2. Efrin Castro, Kellymoss
- Masters (previously called Am). o Race 1 & 2. Scott Noble, MDK Motorsports

• Point Leaders.
Pro. Loek Hartog, No. 24 Kellymoss
Pro-Am. Marco Cirone, No. 84 ACI Motorsports
Masters. Matt Halcome, No. 55 ACI Motorsports
Entrants. MDK Motorsports

Current Porsche Carrera Cup North America Championship Point Standings.
https://imsa.results.alkamelcloud.com/?season=242024&evvent=12Watkins+Glen+International

• Schedule. All times Central.
Thursday, August 1.
3:00 p.m. – 3:40 p.m. – Practice 1

Friday, August 2.
9:35 a.m. – 10:05 a.m. – Practice 2
5:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. – Qualifying (all classes)

Saturday, August 3
11:45 a.m. – 12:25 p.m. – Race 1 (40-minutes)

Sunday, August 4
11:35 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. – Race 2 (40-minutes)

• Hometown heroes. Kellymoss brings a record nine entries to its “home” race at Road America. The operation, started in 1988, is housed in an 80,000 square foot facility in the capital city of Wisconsin approximately 90 miles away. In 2023, Kellymoss won two of the three classes (Pro and Pro-Am) in both rounds here. The operation also won here in the first year of the series as well. Past Kellymoss Road America race winners Efrin Castro (Dominican Republic) and Alan Metni (Austin, Texas) are both entered this week. Castro is the only driver capable of back-to-back wins at Road America having earned both race titles here in 2023.

• Legacy Track. Road America is a “Legacy Track” on the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup schedule. The track joins Sebring International Raceway, Watkins Glen International, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta as tracks that hosted the premier one-make race series in its 2021 debut season. Road America, Watkins Glen, Sebring and Indianapolis have hosted a Carrera Cup weekend each season.

• Back home. After one year racing in support of the NASCAR Xfinity Series here at Road America, Carrera Cup North America is back on the IMSA SportsCar Weekend in 2024.

• Porsche Driver Development Workshop. Porsche Motorsport North America (PMNA) continued its long tradition of preparing the next generation of professional race drivers. The 2024 Porsche Driver Development Workshop was held in Mooresville, North Carolina July 18 – 19 at Team Penske, factory partner to Porsche in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GTP class. Ten drivers received valuable career experience in sessions with experts from the disciplines of physical training, nutrition, technology, media and career planning. The workshop was held exclusively for Porsche EBOOST North America Junior Program and Porsche Mobil 1 ® Female Driver Program North America drivers.

• PT Autosport to continue driver program. PT Autosport’s Aspiring Driver Shootout program continues this season, with 88 drivers making the cut to the second round of deliberations. Each applicant was asked to submit answers to both video and written questionnaires and a personal profile, with up to 12 aspiring drivers to be chosen to attend the November 11 – 13 Shootout at New Jersey Motorsports Park. The winner will earn a driver partnership package of up to $250,000 for the 2025 and 2026 racing seasons, with second and third also receiving scholarships toward a racing school.

• Changes and opportunities. Since the most recent round at Watkins Glen International, June 20 – 23, a major change to the entry list left drivers scrambling for new homes. When MDK Motorsports announced their departure from the series on June 28, race winners Yves Baltas (New York City, New York) and Dan Clarke (Indianapolis, Indiana) as well as frontrunners Sabré Cook (Grand Junction, Colorado) and Kenton King (San Marino) were need of new teams. All four found rides in time for the weekend. Baltas moved to veteran Porsche entrant GMG Racing while Clarke, Cook and King moved to Era Motorsport.

• A new Era. The events of June 28 brought the plans of one sports car racing team forward several months. While Era Motorsport intended to enter the Porsche Carrera Cup North America in 2025, the opportunity to draft two of the Pro class’s top drivers, Dan Clarke (Indianapolis, Indiana) and Sabré Cook (Grand Junction, Colorado) as well as Pro-Am driver Kenton King (San Marino), changed those intentions. It assembled a program to support a three-car effort in the series effective immediately. The team was founded in the United Kingdom in 2018 and expanded to North America in 2020. With an entry campaigning in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s LMP2 class already on its resume, the Porsche Carrera Cup North America was a natural place for the team’s Indianapolis, Indiana-based operation to expand. Era has an LMP2 class win at the Rolex 24 At Daytona LMP2 (2021) and won the Asian Le Mans Series LMP2 championship in 2021.

• To the point. The battle at the front of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America standings is heated. Loek Hartog (Netherlands) continues to sit atop the Pro class standings with 150 points. The driver of the No. 24 Racing For Children’s Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car prepared by Kellymoss has three wins and two additional podium finishes including a pair of second places at the most recent weekend at Watkins Glen International. A victory in round eight – the second race at “The Glen” – moved Alex Sedgwick (United Kingdom) and the No. 98 PT Autosport Porsche readied by JDX Racing into second place with 119 points. The position swap came when Michael Cooper (Huntington, New York) missed the podium at Watkins Glen in the No. 88 Baby Bull Racing Porsche. Cooper holds third place just ahead of Ryan Yardley (New Zealand).

The Pro-Am class is even more intense as the top spot again swapped back between the two leading contenders at Watkins Glen. Marco Cirone (Canada) took advantage of a low points haul in round eight by Moisey Uretsky (Miami, Florida) to drive the ACI Motorsports No. 84 into a 13-point lead in the class. Meanwhile, former class champion Alan Metni (Austin. Texas) used a round seven win to jump into the top three. Having only missed one podium in the first eight races of the season, Dallas Georgia’s Matt Halcome continues his firm grip on the Masters class padding his lead to 43 over Mark Kvamme (Columbus, Ohio). However, Kvamme has withdrawn from the series moving Chris Bellomo (Portola Valley, California) to the effective second position in the title chase.

Kellymoss once again holds the upper hand in the Entrants standings with 151 points. With MDK Motorsports withdraw, the Madison, Wisconsin-based Kellymoss is the effective leader in the category. JDX Racing (139 points) and Topp Racing Performance (127) follow in second and third place.

224 points remain available for the season. To collect all the points, a driver would need to win each round, win the pole position and set the fast race lap for each remaining race. A victory pays 25 points, second place 20 and third place is awarded with 17 points. A pole position is worth two points while a fastest race lap will add an additional point to the total of a driver in each class.

• Broadcast. Races air live at PorscheCarreraCup.us, on the IMSA YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@imsaofficial, on the Peacock streaming app and at IMSA.tv. All are archived on the Porsche Motorsport North America YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/PorscheMotorsportNorthAmerica.

• On the web. www.PorscheCarreraCup.us.

  • Image courtesy of Porsche Motorsport North America.

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