Metni on Double Duty: “It’s All About Trying to Get Better”

Alan Metni is pulling double duty in both the Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at this weekend’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach as he juggles multiple race programs to maximize seat time.

“For me, it’s all about trying to get better,” he told Sportscar365. “And the more times we get to practice and hone our art and our skill the better we get.”

The 56-year-old Texan’s schedule features a partial Carrera Cup season with Kellymoss to bolster a full-time effort in the WeatherTech Championship in the No. 91 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R in GTD.

Metni also doubled up in Sebring last month, participating in the opening round of the Carrera Cup season and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Sportscar365 understands that Metni will again drive in both championships in Indianapolis this year and will contest his home Carrera Cup round at the Circuit of The Americas in October.

Additional Carrera Cup races are believed to be an option, providing they do not interfere with travel or his commitment to the WeatherTech Championship.

“This year, the focus is WeatherTech and it kind of feels like a restart of a wonderful, challenging progression,” Metni said.

“By the time we got there last year in Carrera Cup, we were kind of a big fish in a little pond, now we’re the smallest fish in a bigger pond.

“It’s cool to have that challenge; it’s why we come back. It’s cool. When it stops being challenging, it stops being fun, that’s the point.”

While Metni is no stranger to busy race weekends, having raced in multiple IMSA-sanctioned series in the same weekend on numerous occasions in years past, this year marks his first attempt at tackling the WeatherTech Championship full-time.

“There’s a whole other level to manage in your head,” he said. “There’s also a lot of complexity around yellow flags and strategy calls and what that does to the flow of the race.

“The traffic management is insane because when you’re used to single-make, single class racing, you’re focused on what’s happening right around you.

“In this, yours focused on who’s going to be coming through and where the leader of the GTP field is.

“It’s interesting, it’s cool to have another several things to learn and to try and master.”

Metni cited Kellymoss with Riley co-driver, Kay van Berlo’s help as a coach as beneficial to helping him improve in both Carrera Cup and in the WeatherTech Championship.

The Dutchman finished runner-up in the Carrera Cup’s Pro class in 2022 with Kellymoss and has also made the jump up to WeatherTech Championship competition this season.

“It’s been great,” said Metni. “This is almost like getting the band back together because we were [Carrera Cup] teammates at Kellymoss and he was very helpful and supportive and gave me coaching along the way.

“He shared his data and let me sit in on his debriefs and stuff like that so I’ve been learning from Kay before this year and that’s continuing this year and he’s a great teammate and a solid guy.”

The Texan also noted the benefit of running his busy schedule all under the Kellymoss banner, especially as he develops in the WeatherTech Championship.

“It’s nice when you have a bunch of people that motivated towards a common goal and I couldn’t think of doing it with anybody else,” said Metni.

“I think Riley brings a lot to this effort. The combination of Kellymoss and Riley is what’s running our GTD effort and I think that’s a wonderful combination because they’ve got three decades of experience doing this.

“It allows me to have that continuity with Kellymoss but also lean on that experience [from Riley].”

Metni on Continued Carrera Cup Success

While his focus is in the WeatherTech Championship paddock, Metni felt strongly that Carrera Cup was the best place for him to continue improving as a driver while maximizing seat time.

He has contested the previous seven seasons of the Porsche’s premier North American single-make series and its previous iteration, the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama.

“The price of poker has gone up in that series,” he said. “You know, when I started it wasn’t Carrera Cup, it was GT3 Cup and there were like one or two young kids, and now there’s like 20 of them.

“It actually is great, because it raises the level of play for everybody all across the field and keeps it really, really exciting.

“I’m here to race. The only way to get better at racing is to race and that’s why I want to race as much as I can.”

Metni’s 2023 Carrera Cup campaign is off to a strong start. As the reigning Pro-Am class champion, he took control of the Pro-Am title fight with a class victory in yesterday’s Race 1.

“I had several years of really really good results,” he said. “I think that in Carrera Cup, it’s just a whole lot of fun. The competition is great. The cars are identical.

“It’s obviously spec racing so it’s really all down to the driver and to the teams for setting up the car, but it’s a very pure form of the sport.”