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Four Full-Season PC Entires Confirmed for Final Year

Four season-long PC entries confirmed for final year…

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Four full-time cars have been confirmed for the final year of Prototype Challenge in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with BAR1 Motorsports firming up plans for a two-car season-long entry.

The Brian Alder-led team, which previously announced a single full-season Oreca FLM09, joins one confirmed car from Starworks Motorsport and another from Performance Tech Motorsports.

Still to be determined is just who will be driving the cars.

Starworks has not announced a driver lineup, and Performance Tech has only confirmed James French in one of the two full-season seats.

BAR1, meanwhile, will have former Rolex 24 at Daytona and Indianapolis 500 champion Buddy Race alongside Don Yount in the No. 20 entry for the whole year, while the No. 26 car is expected to be occupied by a rotating cast of drivers.

Tom Papadopoulos, Trent Hindman, David Cheng, Adam Merzon, and Johnny Mowlem are entered in the No. 26 entry for this weekends Rolex 24, and Alder said that some combination those drivers are in the mix for future races, but the list is not limited to BAR1’s Daytona drivers.

“Possibly some endurance racing with the guys you’re seeing [at Daytona], and maybe another pairing in the sprint races,” Alder told Sportscar365.

“A lot of the guys here are obviously interested in doing more. We’ll see how the weekend goes, that determines a lot, as you know, of what the future plans look like.”

Alder added that there has been significant interest from drivers in competing in the final year of PC.

“We’ve had more interest this year than in years past,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s because the cars are going away. There’s less teams here obviously, so it’s a smaller pool of teams for drivers to come to.

“We’ve continuously worked on building our team. It’s growing every season. A lot of repeat guys are coming back. Guys that have been with us in the past, couple years ago, are back with us.”

A total of five PC cars are set for its final 24-hour race this weekend, with the four full-season entries being joined by a second Starworks entry.

Ryan Myrehn is an Indianapolis-based broadcaster and reporter. In addition to his work covering primarily domestic sports car racing for Sportscar365, he is the lead announcer for SRO America's TV coverage as well as a pit reporter for IndyCar Radio. Myrehn, a graduate of DePauw University, is also the host of Sportscar365's “Double Stint” Podcast.

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