ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — What more could a bona-fide sports car racing aficionado ask for than an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Road America?
Set in the bucolic Wisconsin countryside a stone’s throw from the timeless hamlet of Elkhart Lake, America’s “National Park of Speed” has been hallowed ground for sports car racing since founder Clif Tufte opened its gates for a Sports Car Club of America event in 1955.
Road America’s 14 turns and four miles have long been a fixture on the IMSA calendar, and the WeatherTech Championship era has witnessed an epic battle from start to finish of the yearly two-hour and forty-minute sprint races.
This weekend sees the renewal of the tradition of endurance sports car racing at Road America that dated back to a six-hour enduro in 1956 as well as the 500 milers that annually drew the sports’ top drivers, teams and marques to the Dairy State over the following decades.
Michelin Endurance Cup Take Four
This weekend marks Round 4 of this season’s five-race IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup. With the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen in the books, competitors jockeying for position heading to the finale in the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta will look to maximize their points haul at Road America. With points awarded based on a car’s position at the three-hour mark as well as the finish, watch for some teams to adopt a key points-scoring approach at these two markers.
There’s an interesting wrinkle within these Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) standings. Laurin Heinrich has 40 points across both the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport and No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963s through three races, just one point ahead of the No. 7 full-time pair of Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer.
It’ll be interesting to see if the trailing No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R, on 30 points, will eat into the nine-point deficit to the No. 7 car and 10-point deficit to Heinrich this weekend.
Among the other three classes, the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07 leads by just two points over the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA.
Paul Miller Racing holds a nine-point lead in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO), as the No. 1 Paul Miller BMW M4 GT3 EVO (34) is nine points clear of both the No. 911 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) and the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Meanwhile, the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) race features the No. 21 Af Corse Usa Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO on 29 points, four better than the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO but with no fewer than 10 other competitors within 10 points of the lead.
The Pursuit of Cooperation
It was fair to call last year’s Road America race a rough-and-tumble affair with a high volume of paint traded, fenders rubbed and car parts scattered over the course of the 4.048-mile layout. It triggered a response to clean up the driving standards for the remaining rounds of 2025.
“It’s not a very forgiving track, so if you do go off, there’s a high chance that you’ll either hit something or get stuck in the gravel,” says Cadillac Whelen driver Jack Aitken. “That’s a common feature in a lot of the IMSA tracks, so it’s not the only reason.
“I think the track itself does produce pretty good racing, but it’s difficult to make a pass. There are a few big braking zones where you can try. And a lot of places where you can go side-by-side, but it needs cooperation. And we’ve had plenty of races … where cooperation is not always given. You get body parts, debris, cars off in the gravel, and all of those things can lead to cautions.”
Theoretically, a six-hour enduro could produce more cooperation as the prime directive for drivers to arrive on the lead lap and with cars intact for the finish.
As a new Michelin Endurance Cup round, there will be some Road America first-timers and others not as familiar with either the track or IMSA’s style of racing on a full-time basis.
“Being an endurance round now, you do have a lot of cars, a lot of drivers that are not full-time, full-season entries, with a bit less time in the seat, and that can also contribute to yellows,” Aitken says.
GTD second-place man and Birchwood, Wisconsin native Aaron Telitz is optimistic, meanwhile, of a cleaner 2026 race. He’ll share the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 with Benjamin Pedersen and Frankie Montecalvo.
“I’m gonna say this year at Road America I think there will be significantly less yellow than we actually saw on the sprint race,” Telitz said. “It’s just because people will want to try to get to the end and try to make it more than in the sprint race format. Some of the restarts on in the sprint race the last couple of years have been absolutely wild. But I think we’ll see some more green flag running this time and hopefully that’ll make for some really exciting racing.”
Endurance Cup Extra Stars
If you’re looking for an interesting trend to note in Michelin Endurance Cup races, look to GTD.
Two of the three GTD endurance races this year have seen a Michelin Endurance Cup-only entry claim the win, with other newer or part-time entries also featuring.
Af Corse USA won in Sebring courtesy of Antonio Fuoco’s ferocious, frenetic comeback and final lap charge to pass Tom Gamble’s Aston Martin. Then Manthey 1st Phorm broke through at Watkins Glen.
Veteran squad but now part-time entry Magnus Racing nearly won the Rolex 24, while Car Blanche debuted on the GTD podium in its first start at Watkins Glen.
Might Triarsi Competizione continue this trend in Road America? Kenton Koch and Onofrio Triarsi won here last year in just their second start together. Together with Robert Megennis, the trio seeks a complete weekend in 2026 as they make their fourth start aboard the No. 023 Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO. Koch noted it’s the first time in 2026 he’s actually driven the Ferrari in consecutive years at the same track, albeit in evo spec.
“You go into any weekend wanting to just do your best,” Koch explained. “Going into a sprint weekend versus an endurance weekend, you approach the endurance weekend like you would approach an endurance weekend regardless of if you’re full season or not. Yes, it’s a year of driving a little less GT3 cars, and that’s probably the only thing that I’m bummed about. I would love to be driving some more GT3 cars this year. But I’m very happy and fortunate to be in this situation with a good program.”
