Kelly-Moss Planning Two-Car Porsche GTD Effort for 2023

Photo: Porsche

Kelly-Moss is set to return to top-level IMSA competition next year with a two-car Porsche 911 GT3 R effort in the GTD class and aspirations of fielding a Porsche 963 in the GTP class in 2025.

The Madison, Wis.-based operation, led by team owners Victoria Thomas and Andy Kilcoyne, will expand into the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Porsche’s new Type 992 model, alongside a planned two-car Michelin Pilot Challenge effort with Porsche’s 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport.

Its presence in both Porsche Carrera Cup North America presented by The Cayman Islands and Porsche Sprint Challenge North America by Yokohama will continue, although with a slightly reduced number of cars after fielding as many as nine Porsche 911 GT3 Cup entries in Carrera Cup this year, where it claimed the entrants’ championship.

As first revealed on RSL’s Midweek Motorsport, Kelly-Moss has secured two of the German manufacturer’s new-for-2023 GT3 challengers, with Kilcoyne confirming to Sportscar365 that they anticipate taking delivery of both in late November or early December.

Drivers for the first, full-season GTD entry, have already been confirmed but are a few weeks away from being announced according to Kilcoyne.

“We’ve really worked on aligning our vision with Porsche in subscribing to their ascension model, or as I call it their pyramid [system],” Kilcoyne said.

“With being involved in Sprint Challenge, being involved in Carrera Cup, we did a handful of Michelin Pilot Challenge races this year and we’re looking to expand that to a two-car effort for 2023, then GTD being the final rung on the ladder within the Porsche [GT] sports car world.

“The plan is to run a full season effort in GTD with one car.

“We have the budget for all of the endurance rounds for the second car and we’re trying to see if we can finalize a driver lineup that would work for the sprint rounds in the second car, which would be a different lineup than the endurance rounds.”

While it will mark the team’s foray into the WeatherTech Championship, Kelly-Moss, under previous ownership, had been represented in the American Le Mans Series in the GTC class for Porsche Cup cars in 2011.

It had also served as the underpinning of Level 5 Motorsports, which was formed and managed by Kelly Moss founder Jeff Stone’s late brother, David, and shared shop space prior to its demise in 2014.

“We started a little over a year ago with this idea,” Kilcoyne said on the move to GTD. “We really ramped up our Cup car programs for 2022 and we’re going to make the Cup car programs a little smaller for 2023 as we work on repurposing some of the staff.

“We’ve done different things in ALMS and we were the foundation under the buildup of Level 5 back in the days.

“We have a lot of the people still within the organization that were a part of those programs.

“There’s a lot of braintrust and a lot of ability here. It’s just going to be fun to be able to finally brand a program as Kelly-Moss.”

Team Targeting Porsche 963 Customer Program for 2025

Kilcoyne said its ramped up program and increased commitment to Porsche could lead the team to fielding a Porsche 963 in the GTP class in 2025, which is understood to be the next allocation period following the initial two customer teams for next year.

If it materializes, Kelly-Moss would likely be the only team worldwide that would compete with all of Porsche’s sports car racing customer offerings.

“We could be viewed as having lofty aspirations but there is going to be one other GTP car through Porsche available in 2025 so we’re trying to show that we’re capable and worthy and hopefully be in GTP in a couple of years,” Kilcoyne said.

“It wasn’t until there was communication with Volker [Holzmeyer, Porsche Motorsport North America President and CEO] about customer programs being available on that.

“Initially it was thought that it was only going to be the Penske effort. But with the announcement of JDC and other customer programs, there’s an avenue for that.

“If we’re going to fully subscribe to their ascension ladder, I want to be there.

“We still do a lot of PCA club racing stuff too. That’s the root of where we came from. We want to be able to say that we participate in every level.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John