Grid Walk Crowd

Why Is IMSA Racing so Popular with Drivers? Many Reasons

Classic Racetracks, Mixing Pros with Amateurs, Fabulous Fan Support Among Those Cited

 

By David Phillips

 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Heading into the 27th annual Motul Petit Le Mans, more than 250 drivers have competed in one or more events in the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. While any racing series that includes five endurance events of between six and 24 hours on its schedule will need plenty of drivers to competitively (and safely) pilot race cars around the track, there’s no denying that the WeatherTech Championship is a magnet for the world’s top professional and amateur racing talent.

 

Reasons for the popularity are many and not difficult to discern. Take IMSA’s prerace grid walks, surely a unique feature among the world’s top echelon professional series, in that fans – whether they hold suite passes or general admission tickets – are encouraged to mill around the grid, mingle with the drivers and crews, and ogle the exotic cars that, in short order, will be racing in close quarters at upward of 185 mph.

 

Of course, IMSA’s grid walks are mainly held to enhance the “fan experience.”  But don’t underestimate their appeal to the participants.

 

“Just look around the open grid here at Indy,” Paul Miller Racing’s Bryan Sellers said during the TireTrack.com Battle on The Bricks grid walk at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “Pit lane is so packed you can’t move. Drivers are no different from anyone else: You want to feel that what you’re doing has an impact and that you’re doing it for a reason. This has been a huge driving point to the increase in IMSA’s popularity.”

 

There is also a sense that there’s a place for just about anyone and everyone who wants to participate. A single iconic event like the Rolex 24 At Daytona? The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring? The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach? All well and good. “Just” the five IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup events? Better yet. The full WeatherTech Championship? Some 40 teams and more than 80 drivers have made that choice in 2024.

 

“One of the things that makes IMSA so unique and so great is the diversity through the whole series,” says Jimmy Vasser, co-owner of Vasser Sullivan Racing. “Tracks, cars, groups of drivers, just the diversity of the whole sport together; teams coming from all over the world, just the Michelin Endurance Cup if they want, or just the Rolex 24 Hours perhaps – and also have the ability to go over to Europe or perhaps the Asian series to compete with cars that are running to a similar rules package.”

 

“The Michelin (Endurance) Cup is one of the really good things about IMSA,” says Mikkel Jensen, whose TDS Racing team finds itself in fourth place in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) season standings but tied for the lead of the Michelin Endurance Cup. “The Michelin Cup is still in play even though the WeatherTech championship is out of reach.”

 

It’s not just the big-time professionals. Many talented and well-seasoned amateur drivers who are, in many cases, every bit as fast as their Gold- and Silver-rated professional counterparts find IMSA both welcoming and challenging. And while the competition is ferocious, there is also a palpable sense that what happens on the track stays on the track.

 

“I love the LMP2 class,” says United Autosports USA’s Ben Keating. “I love the spec class, I love the class that requires a Bronze driver, I love the fact that the Bronze gets to qualify. I’ve been with IMSA now for 10 years. Heck, I did the last year of the American Le Mans Series with IMSA in 2013, so I’ve been around for a long time. I’ve driven for a lot of these teams and it’s just a great family atmosphere.”

 

“Honestly, the first time I came was 2017,” says Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Mathieu Jaminet, “and I kept coming back for single or endurance events. I got the full-time drive from ’22 on. It’s always a pleasure to be back. None of the championships in the world in sports car racing have got the atmosphere and the racing of IMSA. It’s always exciting to be in the car, racing. And if you don’t drive the finish (stint), you never know who’s going to win! It’s super exciting to see that. That’s the racing I love.”

 

But just like talking with real estate agents, when you ask drivers what attracts them to the WeatherTech Championship again and again and again, they say it’s location, location, location; where unforgiving, old-school racetracks that challenged the likes of the Juan Manuel Fangios, Phil Hills, Dan Gurneys and Mario Andrettis of yesteryear are alive and well.

 

“You get to go to some of the best locations in the country, historic tracks that some of us grew up watching or playing in video games,” says Era Motorsport’s Ryan Dalziel. “I’ve always said the best way to police track limits is with concrete walls. Some of the best racing you see, even watching F1 on street circuits, is having that discipline. When you look at a lot of the European tracks and, unfortunately, some of the newer ones in the U.S., the track limits is a horrific job for the officials to do: one wheel, two wheels, no wheels (over the limit) … painted lines? It’s a hard one to police. But as long as you make track limits a time loss, you’re doing the right thing.”

 

Cadillac Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais warms to that same theme.

 

“Where we are super blessed in IMSA is the variations and different styles of racing and racetracks,” he says. “We get to play on street courses which, from the outside, people say, ‘You’re taking those cars to a street track?’ But I enjoy the American spirit of taking those things to places that are fairly unlikely and just putting them in uncomfortable scenarios.

 

“And for me, the racing is really cool because you get to race at tracks that self-police themselves. There’s gravel traps and if you make mistakes there is rarely a freebie. So, you don’t talk so much about track limits because you don’t really have to. We’re just super lucky to be able to race on the ovals (in road-course configurations) and all the tracks the U.S. has. That’s what makes the racing the way it is, the character of the track.

 

“I feel so fortunate to be able to race at tracks that are so diverse and so challenging. You go to other places where everything is paved and you have paved runoffs everywhere, and you can make what would be a catastrophic mistake here (in IMSA), shrug and say, ‘Eh, just come back on track.’ Here, you make that mistake and it’s game over. … That’s what I like about (IMSA). It’s pure racing.”

 

As the busy VIP suites and general admission areas, the grid walks – and the grids themselves – from Daytona International Speedway to Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta attest, Bourdais has plenty of company in his appreciation for IMSA’s brand of motorsports.