Perfect Season Would Be “Unbelievable” for Noaker

Reigning and current Mustang Challenge champion Robert Noaker said completing his thus far perfect season with a win and sweep in the final round of the Mustang Challenge season at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval would be an “unbelievable” achievement.

Should the Ford Racing Junior Team driver win, lead every lap and set the fastest racing lap in Race 2 Saturday evening in his No. 13 Robert Noaker Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse R, he would become the first IMSA driver in recent memory to achieve a ‘perfect season’ by topping every practice and qualifying session, winning every race, having led every racing lap and setting the fastest racing lap time in each points-eligible rounds in a season.

The 21-year-old already solidified a clean sweep of both practice sessions and qualifying at every points-paying event this season.

Noaker, who wrapped up his Dark Horse class driver’s title fight at the Blue Oval’s single-make series’ previous race weekend at Circuit of The Americas, said the aforementioned flawless season metric was not on his radar until arriving in Charlotte this week.

“It was not on my mind until load-in day,” Noaker told Sportscar365. “I was talking with John Hindhaugh and he brought it up and I was like, ‘I’d never really thought about that actually ever, one: being a possibility and two: never being done before.’

“Coming into this weekend, the championship was already pretty well-sorted.

“I still obviously want to run the best I can here, but it was just going to be a fun run and race. Finding that out kind of gives another goal to go towards and to be able to do that for me would be unbelievable.

“To be able to do that perfect season, even in other series, there are people who have gotten close but had a reliability problem or something, but knock on wood, we haven’t had that problem yet.

“I think that goes to show our team and how good we can prepare a car to not have those mechanical problems.”

Noaker will start Race 2 from the pole, with two of the six RNR Fords leading the 20-car field to green after three of the team’s cars found themselves in the top five after Friday’s qualifying.

He said that his focus in the final round of the season will be on both putting a bow on his dominant season, while also helping his RNR teammates succeed.

“It’s kind of a two-sided thing,” Noaker said. “I obviously want to be able to achieve that goal and just be able to say I did it.

“But on the other side, Race 1 didn’t quite go the way we wanted to with our other team cars, so just thinking about them and trying to get them higher up to be able to stay up front for the second race at night.

“After qualifying, finding out that two of our team cars were second and third, I was more excited for them than I was for myself.

“No one has raced at night before here in the series so that’s going to be another variable, along with the temperature and we don’t have any idea what the track’s going to be like to be like so we’re going to have to learn on the fly and use prior experience to figure it out.”

Noaker, however, does have prior night racing experience, having done a pair of 25-hour races at Thunderhill Raceway Park, a TA2 Trans Am race at Sydney under the cover of darkness, and developmental testing in the Dark Horse R at Daytona International Speedway, which included night running.

Le Mans Invite Efforts Supplemented U.S.-Based Dominance to Make Case for GT4

Noaker’s dominance on U.S. soil has been difficult to overstate. After securing the inaugural Mustang Challenge drivers’ title last year and earning his Junior driver status, Noaker has seldom been challenged this season in any on-track session.

His only defeat in Dark Horse R machinery this year came in the pair of Le Mans Invitational races in June, where a technical infraction relegated him to the back of the grid for both contests, despite going fastest in both practice sessions and initially winning the pole.

Despite starting both races from 39th and last on the grid, Noaker still charged up to a seventh place finish in Race 1, and took the checkered flag second in Race 2, just 0.174 seconds off of Cameron McLeod’s winning Mustang.

Noaker recently paired up with McLeod in his GT4 debut with KohR Motorsports at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and recorded a podium finish after fighting for the win in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race.

The two-time Mustang Challenge champion feels that his efforts this season, both Stateside and abroad, will help attract attention for a GT4 ride next season.

“I would like to think that it would help me progress further along,” said Noaker.

“Not just in points-paying races, but also Le Mans, showing if I do get hardship and have to start towards the back or the whole way at the back, I can still make something happen, get my head down and still get through two races and keep the car clean starting at the back.

“In an ideal world, it would be GT4 in Pilot Challenge next year. It’s all speculation and conversations right now. The major thing is money. I think for any racing driver, financial backing is the main problem.

“Getting the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Mustang GT4 was the next step in my career, to be able to run that car. Just to be able to do a one-off there in Indianapolis, especially with Cameron.

“But the ultimate goal for next year would be to do a full season of GT4 and hopefully win in that.”