After nearly a year on the sidelines, GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing will return to top-level sports car racing competition, having announced Wednesday a single-car effort for Pirelli World Challenge.
Jon Fogarty will pilot a brand-new No. 99 GAINSCO Hyundai Genesis Coupe in the GTS class next year. The car will also carry associate sponsorship from Bob Stallings Hyundai.
The Texas-based squad returns to the sport after missing the majority of the 2014 season following Memo Gidley’s serious accident in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship series-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona in January.
The team’s Corvette DP was totaled the accident, forcing Stallings to curtail plans of a partial season effort in the Prototype class this year.
Instead, Stallings went to work building a new program around his Dallas-based car dealership.
It marks the first Hyundai Genesis coupe to compete in the World Challenge GTS class, joining the likes of Ford, Chevrolet, Kia and Aston Martin in the production-based category, which will run standalone races in 2015.
Longtime GAINSCO driver Fogarty will pull double duty between World Challenge and his recently announced program with Extreme Speed Motorsports in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Fogarty is expected to miss at least one World Challenge weekend due to his FIA WEC commitments, with no word on his replacement for that round.