Indianapolis Weekend Notebook

Photo: Porsche

***The Porsche Carrera Cup North America presented by The Cayman Islands entry has been reduced to a 27-car field following the late withdrawal of the No. 7 Moorespeed-Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car of Max Root, who is filling in for the COVID-19 positive Ryan Hardwick at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca this weekend.

***Wright opted not to fill Root’s seat in the Pro class entry, resulting in a total of 22 Type 992 model cars alongside the five Pro-Am 991 class entries for previous-generation machinery. 

***MRS-GT Racing has an all-new lineup this weekend in Andor Kovacas and Alexander Marmureanu, who are both racing in the Pro-Am class. The German squad was previously represented in Pro with Erik Johansson and Jimmy Llibre at the most recent round at Road America.

***Carrera Cup is holding Rounds 9-11 this weekend, coincidentally on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Even more coincidental is the fact that Porsche’s namesake model is the 911.

***A third race has been added to the Indianapolis and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta events to make up for the canceled Toronto Indy round in July.

***Porsche single-make racing in the form of Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup ran on the Indianapolis road course from 2000-06 in support of the U.S. Grand Prix Formula 1 event., with future factory drivers Joerg Bergmeister, Sascha Maassen and Wolf Henzler among the race winners.

***Pro-Am class leader Alan Metni will miss Saturday’s Race 1 as he competes in the opening Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America race of the weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca before taking a red-eye flight Saturday evening to Indianapolis. 

***As part of a cross-series arrangement with the fellow IMSA-sanctioned single-make championship, Metni will score last place class finishing points in the Carrera Cup/Super Trofeo races he will miss this weekend as a result of the clashing events.

***Kelly-Moss Road & Race, Wright Motorsports and Team Hardpoint EBM are also pulling double duty between Monterey and Indianapolis with entries in both locations.

***Hardpoint team owner Rob Ferriol, who is racing at Laguna Seca in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, has called it a “perfect storm” of simultaneous motorsport events, which has required his team to “force some creativity on fly-in support elements” for both teams. 

***This is the second weekend of the year that Wright’s Porsche sports car racing efforts have been split up, following the GT America powered by AWS races in Nashville, which clashed with IMSA’s event at Road America last month.

***Following an incident at Road America where his previous-gen Porsche 911 GT3 Cup was destroyed, Jeff Majkrzak has purchased the most recent Type 992 to enter the country. He will move-up to the Pro-Am class in the Goldcrest Motorsports-prepared machine.

***The car had been slated to be on display here this weekend but was forced into service after Road America.

***Leh Keen has two previous Indy starts (2012,2013) in Grand-Am competition with a best finish of third in GT in a Brumos Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.

***In addition to Carrera Cup, the USAC-sanctioned Porsche Sprint Challenge North America by Yokohama and Porsche Club of America are in action at the Brickyard this weekend as part of the inaugural Porsche Sportscar Together Fest that includes other on and off-the-track festivities.

***Luftgekühlt 7 was held Friday in the Bottleworks District of Indianapolis, as part of the weekend’s Porsche-themed festivities. The outdoor auto-art gallery and social affair for air-cooled Porsches was without its co-founder Patrick Long, who is racing this weekend at Laguna Seca but was on-site Thursday evening to help prepare the event.

***Race 1 of the weekend gets underway Saturday at 4:15 p.m. ET, with Race 2 slated for a 8:45 a.m. start on Sunday followed by Race 3 at 3:30 p.m. that afternoon. All three races will be streamed live on PorscheCarreraCup.us and IMSA.tv.

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