K-PAX Rules Out U.S. Races Amid GTWC Europe Focus

Photo: Bob Chapman/K-PAX Racing

K-PAX Racing will not contest any rounds of Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS this season amid the team’s recently announced GTWC Europe Endurance Cup campaign with Lamborghini.

The California-based team, which has been a mainstay in the World Challenge/SRO America paddock since 2007, has no plans for any U.S. races this year according to program manager Darren Law.

It will mark the first time since the team’s inception that it will not have run at least one GTWC America round, with its previous GTWC Europe Endurance Cup venture in 2020 having been done alongside a planned parallel North American effort, although it lasted only a single weekend due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team, which has won the last two GTWC America Pro class titles, is a notable absence from this weekend’s season opener at Sonoma Raceway.

“K-PAX has had a very dominant run over the last several years,” Law told Sportscar365. “I feel like we’ve achieved what we needed to do. Winning two years, back-to-back, driver, manufacturer and team championships…

“Jim [Haughey, team owner] has always wanted to compete in Europe and we’ve dabbled in it. We’ve run Spa a couple times and we did a full season in 2020 with Bentley.

“He really wanted to make the commitment and race against the factory teams over there.

“For us with the Lamborghini partnership and support we’ve got from them, it was a perfect opportunity.

“I believe those teams in Europe, when you get 72 cars at Spa, that’s the best GT3 racing in the world and Jim wants to try and compete.

“We did reasonably well when we did it with Bentley. We think we stand a good shot.”

Law ruled out a run at the Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS due to the proximity of the Endurance Cup season finale at Barcelona the week earlier.

“Our last race is right around Indy,” he explained. “To get everything, all of the equipment, and all of the people, it would be a very large task to get here for that.

“I don’t see K-PAX racing in the U.S. this year but it doesn’t mean that in 2024 things change. We’ll see how it goes in Europe this year.”

The team also initially explored a full season Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli campaign but Law explained that it was ruled out due to the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2’s eligibility for the first two rounds at Bathurst and Kyalami.

“Intercontinental was considered for sure but with the EVO2 of the new Lambo and the timing and not being able to do Bathurst,” Law explained. “Our cars we flew them over to Italy to get upgraded, so we didn’t have a car available. It didn’t work out.

“Maybe that’s on the table for ’24, I don’t know. We’ll see how this year goes.”

K-PAX’s European venture is being assisted by Iron Lynx, where the team has based its operations at for this year.

Lamborghini factory drivers Sandy Mitchell, Marco Mapelli and Franck Perera will pilot the team’s solo Pro class entry in the season, which kicks off next month at Monza.

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