Walker: “I’ve Been Trying to Catch Up and Work to Put a Program Together”

As his Team Falken Tire team prepares to sign off in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, Derrick Walker is still focused on securing both the next phase for him and his Walker Racing team.

Walker confirmed his staff will be retained until December, as he continues to work to assemble a race team program to replace the Falken-backed, Porsche 911 RSR, which has been campaigned the last two seasons.

“As yet, it’s just discussions but there’s nothing done,” Walker told Sportscar365. “We’ll keep everyone on the payroll right through Christmas.

“I have a little bit of time to find and run something, but not much.”

Walker has spent the last month, since his final day as INDYCAR’s president of competition and operations following its Sonoma season finale on August 30, playing catch-up and focused fully on his sports car commitments.

“I got a really late start this year when I finally decided to move out of INDYCAR,” he said.

“I hadn’t spent enough time on this. I’ve been trying to catch up and work to put a program together.”

Walker admitted a bit of regret he was unable to do more for INDYCAR, but said he was thankful to be back in his own office.

As for his own future plans, as first reported by Sportscar365, Walker was on site at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Pirelli World Challenge season finale earlier this month as an invited guest.

World Challenge interim CEO Greg Gill confirmed to Sportscar365 that the series and Walker have had “ongoing discussions,” but could not elaborate further due to the nature of those discussions.

Walker explained what the Mazda Raceway weekend in Monterey meant to him and offered thoughts on whether he might fit in some leadership capacity to the series.

“It was a little bit of a surprise when it changed, naturally,” Walker said regarding the departure of Scott Bove, WC Vision President and CEO, which was announced at the series’ banquet.

“But there’s huge potential there if they can take the right decisions to move it to the next step, the next level.

“I’m not sure the series owners’ plans. They need to make some change. They’ve gotten this far, but to maintain the standard they need to, change is necessary.”

Walker said he’s excited about any potential opportunity there if it arises.

“The challenge of helping the series is something I’m keen on. But I think that’s pretty unlikely at this stage,” he said.