Paul Miller Racing to Skip Daytona, Sebring July Races

Photo: Barry Cantrell/IMSA

Paul Miller Racing will skip the next two IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races, with the Lamborghini outfit taking a race-by-race approach for the remainder of the season according to team owner Paul Miller.

The 2018 IMSA GT Daytona championship-winning squad, which claimed victory in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, has elected to forgo the Daytona and Sebring rounds next month due to economic conditions impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to Sportscar365, Miller cited his group of ten car dealerships in New Jersey, which still has staff furloughed, as the driving force behind the decision.

“This afternoon, I just notified the person that handles our logistics that we are not going to be running Daytona or Sebring,” he said.

“I think we’re going to try to take it one race at a time.

“A high percentage of our employees are still on furlough here in New Jersey, and obviously I like to have everybody back before I consider a direction for our little racing program.

“That’s kind of the big picture view of it.

“To go racing and not have our staff all recovered and pulled back and working, it would be a real slap in the face to a lot of our employees.”

Miller explained that his dealerships were at a “virtual standstill” in April, and while business has been improving, it has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.

The state of New Jersey lifted its stay-at-home order on Tuesday, ending an 80-day lockdown in one of the hardest-hit states with confirmed COVID-19 cases.

“We we feel that over the next month or so based on today’s announcement, we feel that that 90 percent of our people can be recalled over the next month,” Miller said.

“But I still think we need to sit back and look at the results for June and and the results for July and then make some decisions on what we’re what we might do later in the season.”

Miller confirmed his Georgia-based team has also been furloughed, although hopes to resume racing later this year.

Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow were slated to contest the full season in No. 48 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo.

“Our intention is to keep the band together and to continue as soon as we can,” Miller said.

“It’s possible we’re going to be race-to-race after July and hoping we can move forward with the race effort.

“What’s so disappointing is we came out of Daytona really in the catbird seat and we consider some of our major competition to have not had a great result at Daytona.

“To not be able to, in good conscience, run these early races and solidify our championship position is very frustrating.

“Everybody on our team is very frustrated. But that’s the realities of what’s going on in the world.”

Miller said a decision on the team’s participation at Road America will come by early July.

“It’s going to take us that long to get the team back together, to prepare the car and make sure everything is right with our whole effort,” he said.

“There’s some other logistical considerations too.”

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