Koch: “Cool to See” Evolution of Random Vandals GT3 Effort

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Kenton Koch said it’s been “cool to see” the evolution of Random Vandals Racing’s GT World Challenge America powered by AWS program heading into the one-year anniversary of its debut at Road America.

Koch and Madison Snow gave the Paul Sparta-led team its GT3 debut last year at the four-mile Wisconsin circuit, in what proved to be a challenging maiden weekend with the BMW M4 GT3.

While having showed continual improvements in the final races of the season, the team’s 2025 campaign has been highlighted by four wins for he and co-driver Connor De Phillippi, who have only finished off the Pro class podium once this season.

Additionally, the Vandals expanded into a two-car operation with the addition of the No. 51 BMW for Bill Auberlen and Varun Choksey.

“It’s definitely been cool to see the evolution of the Vandals program since their first race a year ago with the BMW M4 GT3,” Koch told Sportscar365.

“There’s been a lot that’s changed. Just from the end of that year to the beginning of what we’ve done in 2025 in having a new team manager in Alberto Pena and some new hires on the crew side that have been key and instrumental to our success now has made it what it is.

“Last year was more-or-less our first foray coming into Road America last year. We learned a lot that weekend. There were teething problems here and there but we did it, and you’ve got to start somewhere.

“Now we’re leading the championship and hopefully we can keep it that way.”

Koch and De Phillippi head into this weekend with a reduced 14-point lead over the RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R pairing of Jan Heylen and Alex Sedgwick, who claimed a double win last time out at Virginia International Raceway.

“I think coming into Road America we figured out a little bit of why we frankly sucked at VIR,” said Koch. “The 51 car was strong at VIR and we weren’t.

“We understand why that is so hopefully that is resolved for [this weekend] and hopefully that puts us closer to contention because frankly we just didn’t have the pace that weekend.”

When asked for the issue he and De Phillippi encountered at VIR, Koch revealed their engine wasn’t producing the full amount of power.

He explained the team will run a spare powerplant for Road America, with the hope that it solves the situation.

“If that doesn’t fix it, there’s something else that’s planned. We’re taking a spare motor and putting it in because we couldn’t get a new motor in time for the race.

“If the spare motor is no good, the new motor should be there [in time] for the race. But there should be no reason why the spare motor isn’t OK.

“We were losing a lot of time because I couldn’t put my right foot down hard enough. But that’s how it went. The motor was kind of at the end of its life and I think it just showed signs of weakness.”

Koch highlighted the benefits of having a sister car, which was able to help diagnose the problem during the VIR weekend.

“We didn’t feel that we were that far out of the window,” he said. “Then we did a compare [with the 51 BMW] and we realized there were some things that were not fully under our control right now that we just had to do the best we could.

“Not to take away with what RS1 did, it would have been tight and a heck of a race. Maybe the result wouldn’t have changed.

“You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. They did a good job.”

Koch expects a close fight between he and De Phillippi’s No. 99 BMW and the RS1 Porsche for the remainder of the season.

“We’re here to win a championship so we’re definitely going to do the best we can to put up a battle,” he said.

“With that being said, I have all the confidence in the world that Random Vandals will do well and I’m sure RS1 will keep that momentum rolling. It’a going to be a battle.”

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