WeatherTech Championship GTD and Michelin Pilot Challenge GS Crowns In Range
By John Oreovicz
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Turner Motorsport arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last week with entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge very much in championship contention. The only thing missing from the longtime BMW campaigner’s strong 2026 season was a race win.
That box got checked at IMS, as Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher secured the WeatherTech Championship Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class victory in the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks in the No. 96 Turner BMW M4 GT3 EVO by 0.501 of a second over GTD points leaders (and two-time defending class champions) Philip Ellis and Russell Ward in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Gallagher and Foley are now just six points behind Ward and Ellis going into the season finale, the 29th annual Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Given Winward’s recent track record, they know they’ve got their work cut out for them.
But the Turner group is ready for the challenge after Foley and Gallagher’s Indianapolis win – their first in the WeatherTech Championship in just over two years (Road America in August 2024).
“Today, the team executed perfectly,” said team owner Will Turner. “The drivers and crew were 100 percent, no mistakes, and I’m so proud of them.
“We needed this win for multiple reasons,” he continued. “I like to win – everybody likes to win, the team likes to win. But more importantly, it came at the right time because it gives us points for the championship going into Petit Le Mans. We have just a small deficit to the No. 57. It’s going to be exciting, and hopefully we can seal a championship there.”
Even in a moment of triumph, Turner’s weekend was tinged in sadness due to the passing a few weeks earlier of Matt Dalton – a friend and partner of the team who made eight starts for Turner in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge and VP Racing SportsCar Challenge competition in 2025 (four apiece).
Prior to a long career in the finance industry that led to his ownership of Belle Haven Investments, Dalton attended Seeger High School in western Indiana and he considered Indianapolis his home track. He was particularly close with Gallagher, with whom he shared a career-best fifth place finish in a Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT4 EVO in the Michelin Pilot Challenge race at Road America last year.
Gallagher’s second WeatherTech Championship race win matched his career tally in the Michelin Pilot Challenge. He placed a memorial sticker to Dalton on the event trophy.
“A pretty emotional win,” said Gallagher. “Now we’re heading to Road Atlanta with all to play for. Robby did a great job, Turner Motorsport did a great job, and we had a fast BMW. Given everything that’s happened in the last three or four weeks, just kind of a great way to cap that off.”
Foley is the latest in a series of successful lead driver/mentors for Turner, a list that includes the likes of Dane Cameron, Joey Hand, and Bill Auberlen. The Indianapolis win was the ninth for Foley in WeatherTech Championship competition; he’s also scored five Michelin Pilot Challenge wins.
“We’ve always sort of been there,” Foley noted. “I think Patrick and I finished second together a ridiculous amount of times (eight since 2023, most recently at VIRginia International Raceway in August). So we needed to get that win. We’ve had a good confidence in the team that we can do the job. Everybody’s been firing on all cylinders. The car has been good. We made good steps this year, our second year with the EVO car.
“If you look at the history of the last couple of years, obviously Winward has been dominant, and they’ve won at least three races,” he added. “If you want to win the championship, you’ve got to win. Hopefully we can take this momentum to Petit Le Mans.”
In the Michelin Pilot Challenge, Dillon Machavern and Luca Mars (pictured with Will Turner and strategist Don Salama in Monterey) built an 80-point lead in the Grand Sport (GS) class prior to Indianapolis with a win at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and three other podiums in the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 EVO. But a mechanical issue on the final restart while Mars was running comfortably in the top 10 dropped them to a 16th-place finish and out of the points lead.
Machavern and Mars now trail Austin Krainz and Stevan McAleer (No. 27 AutoTechnic Racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO by a manageable 30 points heading into the season-ending Fox Factory 120 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Robert Noaker (No. 13 McCumbee McAleer Racing Ford Mustang GT4) is 40 points off the lead, while Michael Cooper and Moisey Uretzky (No. 44 Ibiza Farm Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4) and Bryce Ward (No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4) still harbor title hopes.
Turner has won multiple titles in the same season before, but not WeatherTech Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge simultaneously. The team won both the GS and VP Racing Challenge Grand Sport X (GSX) titles in 2023; prior to that, the team also won both GS and Street Tuner (ST) in 2006.
Machavern (2017) and Mars (2025) are both past GS class champions, part of Turner’s quartet of past class champions along with Foley and Vin Barletta. Mars, 20, is considered one of the top rising stars in sports car racing and is new to Turner this season.
“We’ve been very fortunate to have the kind of drivers that are professionals, but they’re also kind of chill,” said Turner. “When Luca came in, basically he just arrived with his stuff, he just does his job and is great at it. He’s low drama. He’s a professional even though he’s kind of a young kid.
“Fortunately, when I look back at all the Turner seasons, we’ve had some great drivers. Having very chill, calculating drivers like that makes it easier on the team because when you find one of these guys and you see the talent that they have and what it can do for your program, it can be such a plug and play type thing for the team.”