Wayne Taylor Racing Calls Off LM24 Entry

Photo: IMSA

Despite having received an automatic invite to the race, Wayne Taylor Racing will not take part in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Team owner Wayne Taylor confirmed to Sportscar365 that he’s forfeited his LMP2 entry for the twice-around-the-clock endurance classic, which was awarded to the team as one of two at-large entries given by IMSA.

“It’s obviously disappointing because Le Mans is such a big part of my and my family’s life,” Taylor told Sportscar365. “But in all honesty, my focus has to be on the TUDOR Championship here, with all of the support we have from Chevrolet and Konica Minolta.

“If we were running a LMP2 at the moment, this would have been a no-brainer. But to be running our car here, finding another car over there, bringing my crew over who hasn’t ever worked on one of those cars and the testing needed, it just didn’t make any sense to do it.

“I left it until the last minute to see if there were any possibilities. But I’ve just got to focus on what we have here at the moment.”

The team had been in negotiations with a number of chassis manufacturers for the proposed effort, including ORECA and Onroak Automotive, but a deal was unable to be reached by today’s entry deadline.

“I had most of it set up but the budgets just got bigger and bigger,” Taylor said. “On top of that, we have a pretty big commitment here [in the TUDOR Championship].

“I’m sorry that we weren’t able to make this happen. But who knows. maybe down the road things change again and we may have another opportunity. But at this point, I’ve had to make that decision.”

The Taylor family will still be represented at Le Mans, with Jordan confirmed with Corvette Racing in GTE-Pro and brother Ricky currently in talks with multiple teams for the race.

Scuderia Corsa, the other auto-invite courtesy of IMSA, has taken up its entry and is in the process of finalizing its GTE-Am program, which will feature an all-American driver lineup led by Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler.

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