Hi IMSA fans!

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I hope everyone had a a good holiday and are all rested up for the IMSA season that is right arounf the corner! It has been an insane week of getting videos ready to publish but in all of that chaos there has been a bit of IMSA news worth touching on! Next week’s newsletter will be a little bit different so stay tuned for that!

Pfaff Hosts Open House to Reveal 2024 Car!

One of the perks of living in Toronto (no, it's not the winter or the traffic) is that there are a few IMSA teams headquartered in the area. One of them is the fan favorite Pfaff Motorsports! Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to go out to a public open house they were hosting and get to see their new McLaren 720s GT3 Evo in person!

Off in the Esses @OffInTheEsses This car looks amazing! The plaid is subtle but definitely noticeable! Can’t wait to see it on the high banks of Daytona next month!! 10:21 AM • Dec 30, 2023 8 Retweets 101 Likes Read 3 replies

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The car is beautiful, and I thought the livery was a nice combination of McLaren and the liveries that we've seen them run in some other forms of racing, and Pfaff, who have become well-known for featuring Plaid on their cars. There was also a feeling of excitement in the air. The team was working on getting the car ready for Daytona in between Q&A sessions, but hearing them talk about the car and the support they've received already from McLaren certainly makes it seem like they are ready to hit the ground running this month!

No BoP in the LMP2 Class? Off in the Esses ​ IMSA technical director Matt Kurdock told Sportscar 365 that “There is no BOP process” for the LMP2 class in IMSA this year, despite an additional manufacturer returning to race in the class. Kurdock went on to explain that both the team and manufacturer were aware of this and agreed with the decision. Now, this can be quite confusing for the average fan who read this. The headline of the article indicates that there is no BoP for the class, which is slightly incorrect. Kurdock clarifies that there IS a BoP table that outlines the minimums and maximums that cars can run, but there is no corrective process to balance out the cars. So basically, there is a BoP table that will be released, but there won’t be any race-to-race BoP adjustments like there are in the other three classes. I fully expect that the Ligier will be competitive on single lap pace, but the challenge will be maintaining the Ligier in its ideal operating window over a long run. The Oreca is known for being customer-friendly and able to operate for long stints within its ideal operating window. You can take a look at the video above for everything you need to know about the LMP2 class!

We Almost Know the full Rolex 24 Field of Drivers!

More Drivers confirmed for rides in recent weeks:

• Laurents Hoerr (Michelin Endurance Cup) and Scott Huffaker (Daytona Only) confirmed to the #20 High Class Racing LMP2
• Connor Zilisch (Michelin Endurance Cup) confirmed to #18 Era Motorsports LMP2. I really love this addition, the guy can drive and am super excited to see what he does with this opportunity!
• Klaus Bachler and Larry ten Voorde confirmed to #86 MDK Porsche in GTD
• Sandy Mitchell (Daytona Only) confirmed to #78 Forte Lamborghini
• Roberto Lacorte (Michelin Endurance Cup), Giorgio Sernagiotto (Michelin Endurance Cup), Antonio Fuoco (Michelin Endurance Cup) and Eddie Cheever III (Daytona Only) confirmed to the #47 Centilar Racing Ferrari
• Thomas Preining (Daytona Only) to #43 Andretti Motorsports Porsche. Priening is last years DTM champion and is making his IMSA debut!
• Nick Boulle (Daytona Only [I think]) Tom Dillmann (Full Season? [They can only have one gold driver in the car so I think he’s likely the full season driver]) to the #52 Inter Europol by PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports LMP2
• Nolan Siegel and Jonny Edgar confirmed to the #33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier LMP2

Dragonspeed was also announced as a replacement for one of the MDK Porsches. The team has a strong history of winning the race (3 times in the last 4 years) and the #81 entry will be driven by Eric Lux (Michelin Endurance Cup) and James Allen (Michelin Endurance Cup) with Kyffin Simpson also annouunced for the Rolex.

Final Lap

I want to hear about what you want in this newsletter! Are there any big pieces of news you'd like to hear more about? Or maybe you have questions about something that happened in a recent race!

Hit reply and let me know!

Thanks,

Stu

Stu​
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