Kellymoss with Riley in “Hard Push” to Rebuild from Accident

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Kellymoss with Riley has been in a “hard push” to rebound from an accident in testing that’s resulted in fellow Porsche customer teams coming together to offer their assistance to get the GTD class contender back on track for this weekend’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

The team’s No. 91 Porsche 911 GT3 R, which claimed a breakthrough victory at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, suffered an accident last Wednesday at CTMP in the hands of Alan Metni, who was uninjured in the crash.

While no chassis damage was sustained, the team was left with an initial shortfall of spare parts, which is where their competitors stepped in according to team co-owner Andy Kilcoyne.

Fellow Porsche entrants Wright Motorsports, MDK Motorsports and AO Racing all offered spare parts, while Canadian outfit Pfaff Motorsports extended the use of their race shop for the rebuild, which wasn’t required.

“We weren’t really worried about making the race,” Kilcoyne told Sportscar365. “It was more an issue of how, which is just the mode of operation that we operate within.

“With the 24 Hours of Spa happening at the same time, a huge effort was put into put into pulling that race off by the Europeans.

“Trying to get any type of support was challenging at best, trying to get parts shipped from Europe.”

Kilcoyne explained that spare parts arriving at Porsche Motorsport North America’s headquarters in California need to be re-distributed, which adds several days to the process.

“The timeline is sometimes the challenge,” he said. “The Porsche channels require everything to be drop-shipped from Europe and go directly to Carson [California] and then get re-distributed to the teams.

“Sometimes it adds days on the shipping timelines just based on the logistics.

“We’ve got some partners that can source parts for us at their shop, with their teams in Europe, and are able to ship direct, which is helpful and sometimes expeditious.

“It’s been a lot of reliance on each other, as far as the teams.

“Porsche Motorsport [North America] was fantastic, coming in on the holiday to unpack freight that had been shipped in from overseas. [They] got stuff unpacked so it was able to ship out first thing [Wednesday] morning.

“There’s a whole lot of things that had to go incredibly right in order to get back on track.”

From the outpouring of support in the paddock, Kilcoyne said AO Racing is bringing parts from its spare chassis that will be used if Kellymoss with Riley’s own replacement parts don’t show up in time.

He said the team will be working well into this evening in the CTMP paddock to get the car ready to hit the track for practice on Friday morning.

“It’s great to have the relationships that we have,” Kilcoyne said. “Nobody wants to work all night but everyone wants to make sure we’re not missing time on track and try to get the best results and score the most points we possibly can.”

“Alan is incredibly tenacious and loves testing. He’s not your typical Bronze driver. He’s not the guy that’s just in it pen a check and achieve a result.

“I don’t know if there’s a Bronze that trains any harder than he does. And not only making sure he’s physically ready to go but putting the time commitment in on-track to try and narrow the gap in lap time between him and his teammates.

“It’s been a hard push for the team because it’s a lot of travel, it’s a lot of logistics, it’s a lot of being on the road away from family and friends.

“A setback like this, in the middle of the year, sometimes hurts a little bit more, just from the team side of things.

“We’ve got a couple of guys that are running on fumes. But their attitudes and morale are really good and everyone just wants to achieve a good result.

“I think they see the effort Alan is putting in, which makes them want to do a good job. They want to make sure that the car is back out there and that they’re feeling fulfilled in that moment.”

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