Toney Doubles Up With Road America Race Win, Airbnb Title

Toney Driver Development captured both the race win and the IMSA Airbnb Endurance Challenge championship following Sunday’s two-hour finale at Road America.

This year marked Nathan Toney’s team’s first full-season effort in IMSA competition, with flawless execution across both its two cars to carry a championship.

The team recently committed to another multi-car effort in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge for 2027, which will run seven endurance races.

The 2026 LMP3 season has been split with both sprint rounds and the new Airbnb Endurance Challenge component.

Wyatt Brichacek shared the winning No. 95 Toney Ligier JS P325 Toyota with Lincoln Day.

It was Brichacek’s second Airbnb Endurance Challenge win of the year, in addition to three VP Racing SportsCar Challenge sprint race wins. It was Day’s first win of the season, as Brichacek’s win in the two-hour COTA race came with Titus Sherlock.

Teammates Ari Balogh and Garett Grist in the No. 30 Toney Ligier JS P325, meanwhile, finished second.

That propelled them from third in the championship standings entering the race – 40 points off the lead – to first leaving it after trouble struck both first and second in points ahead of them.

Quite how the No. 95 car got to the win and the No. 30 car got to the title came as a result of the pitfalls that befell both the top two cars ahead of them.

From pole, Oscar Tunjo in his No. 1 Gebhardt Motorsport Duqueine D09 Toyota built a lead of north of 24 seconds in the first 15 laps and half hour of the race, prior to the minimum drive time of 40 minutes elapsing.

But the first twist came as one of Tunjo and Valentino Catalano’s two closest rivals, Brian Thienes, brought out the first full-course caution to condense the field.

Thienes ran deep into the gravel trap in his No. 77 Forte Racing Ligier JS P325. He resumed and pitted to repair the nose assembly but lost a couple laps for Patrick Kujala to take over the car.

This car entered the race second in points, 30 behind Tunjo and Catalano, with Thienes also ahead of Travis Hill in the Bronze Cup standings.

When the race restarted, the floodgates opened as cars took turns making stops over the next several laps.

Tunjo stayed on board the No. 1 car while Toney took the opportunity to swap out Day and Balogh for Brichacek and Grist, respectively. Brichacek was over eight seconds back but quietly started carving the gap to Tunjo to near three seconds.

The race and season championship battle reached its crescendo with 56 minutes remaining.

Tunjo ran off course into the gravel exiting the Carousel, Turn 10, with an apparent mechanical failure. That took the No. 1 car out of the race before Catalano had a chance to drive.

The teams still needed to make its second mandatory stop once the race restarted, and with 44 minutes remaining when the green flag flew the pit lane got busy again.

Brichacek, Grist, Patrick Liddy in the No. 86 Forte Racing Ligier JS P325 and Andy Lee in the No. 29 Riley Ligier JS P320 Nissan pitted from the top four positions.

That promoted Jules Caranta, in his second start in the No. 18 Forbush Performance Duqueine D09, to the lead with Caranta opting to run an extra lap and attempt to bank a gap to overcut and keep the lead once it made its second stop.

It didn’t quite work. Brichacek got by to the lead with Caranta emerging second, with Liddy and Grist then passing the Frenchman in quick order. Grist got Liddy for second, with Caranta able to recover to get to third.

With the stops complete, the race settled into a final rhythm, with Brichacek leading Grist in a Toney 1-2 by 13.366 seconds.

Caranta was third, with the Liddy/Jon Hirshberg car in fourth and completing the Bronze Cup podium ahead of Lee and Slade Stewart.

The Hill/Daniel Oliver car finished ahead of the Thienes/Kujala car, which unofficially puts the Bronze Cup season-long standings in a tie.

The VP Racing SportsCar Challenge season concludes with two more sprint race weekends.

The GSX class runs solo next week at Virginia International Raceway with LMP3 competitors rejoining the GSX field at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in October.

RESULTS: Race