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VSCAracing.com: He is from Aberdeen, South Dakota and only 31 years young but is already a veteran driver in the VSCA SportsCar Championship and manager of one of the largest teams in the series. He has accumulated five top ten finishes in seven career starts and has completed nearly 1,000 race laps (994) in VSCA competition. Welcome to Grizzly Motorsports team manager and No. 7 BMW LMDh driver Joshua Wolf. Joshua! Welcome! Thanks for being with us here today!

Joshua Wolf: Thanks for having me, Ben!

V: So, I got to start here and ask: How are things in Aberdeen, South Dakota? Is it still winter there, or are you seeing signs of spring already?

J: Weather here kind of varies. Today it’s pretty cold, so definitely more winter than spring, but I think we got a couple more warmer days this week.

V: That sounds nice. So, last year you ran for Torque Freak Racing and you guys finished in a strong fifth place in the final LMP2 standings. But then you created Grizzly Motorsports. How did that all come about?

J: A lot of that came about just based off of long-time friends in iRacing and the amount of drivers we actually had lined up to run. A lot of us have either been running middle or bottom split for the big endurance races on iRacing and we enjoyed running (the VSCA SportsCar Championship) last year under the Torque Freak banner in the P2 class.

But we just got such an influx of drivers that also wanted to try out the new car (the BMW V8 Hybrid LMdh) so we just thought it would be best to actually branch off into Grizzly Motorsports and be able to field three teams that we have going.

V: How did you come up with the team name “Grizzly Motorsports”? Given how your last name is Wolf, it didn’t seem like an obvious choice.

J: Back in 2016 – not exactly sure of the exact year – Treavor (Vavrosky) and Travis (Henderson), who are both running on the team, we were actually running in the Majors series and at the time I was actually going to school in Alaska and the other two were on the Pacific Coast.

So we just came up with something common. The thing we had in common was the grizzly bear. That’s how we came up with the name Grizzly Motorsports, to kind of give a sort of mascot to the area we were living in.

V: I mean, the grizzly is pretty fast, pretty strong; it seems like a perfect name for a race team.

J: Yes, it’s definitely a very strong and very fast animal. They’re big, but they do move quite quickly. So, that was some of the origination of the team name.

V: Though, I have heard once that grizzly bears struggle with running downhill. Is that true? I hope you guys don’t have that struggle in the race car (laughing).

J: Yes, I definitely do not want to replicate some of the issues the actual grizzly bear has in the wild compared to us driving around on the race track.

V: You guys are one of only two organizations to have three cars in the VSCA SportsCar Championship. What is that like, to keep this organized and how do you manage to have three cars run such a long season that goes from January through October?

J: It’s definitely a lot of organization. I was actually just working out a big adjustment to our scheduling system to figure out who is available when, for our different races coming up.

That helps out a lot. But, now that we’re done with the 24 the actual drivers needed on a given weekend is starting to come down. The 12 hours (of Sebring) is probably one of the last ones we’ll see three drivers besides maybe Petit (Le Mans). For the rest of the year we’re probably down to just two drivers in each of our cars.

That allows us to get the fastest guys in, to run in each round. So there is definitely a lot that goes into this. It also gives us opportunities – if a race comes up on a weekend where people have scheduled vacation or something like that – to have drivers available to fill in and keep the cars running throughout the year.

V: I’m curious. Do you have any plans to have drivers run different classes in your team, let’s say a LMDh driver switch over to the GTD team and vice versa?

J: Yes, we’re looking at the possibility that could happen in this round, due to some scheduling stuff and not wanting to have drivers switch back and forth multiple times. We finally made the decision to keep them in the LMDh but one for sure that will be swapping for round three (Long Beach) will be Nicholas Davis. He’ll be dropping from LMDh to the GTD car, which I think he’s actually a lot faster in, the GT car that is, than he is in LMDh.

V: The 24 Hours of Daytona was a bit of an up-and-down story for your three cars. Your #7 BMW LMDh that you also were part of, finished fourth and led 43 laps. Your #8 ended up ninth, 27 laps down. And in GTD your #9 BMW M4 GT3 had a nightmare of a race, finishing P22, 119 laps down. How do you look back on Daytona now that a couple months have passed?

J: I think the biggest thing, we actually talked about as the #7 team: Going into the 24 we’d have been ecstatic about a fourth-place finish in that race, based off of the competition.

But looking back on it and how strong we were, it was kind of down, because I think we had a car capable of competing or even winning the 24.

We just ran into issues. All four of us had small mistakes, that just kind of led up to us not being able to finish on the lead lap.

The #8 car, probably the biggest thing that happened was: We had contact between both of our LMDh cars. The #8 car just kind of throughout the entire race had issues, whether it was self-inflicted or contact with some other cars.

And then the #9: They had a whole bunch of different stuff going on. They were pretty much a pin ball, as they described it to me. It seems like it was more GT cars than prototypes they had issues with.

But one big thing that we addressed going forward is overhauling our schedule. There was actually a major scheduling issue that came up, that they changed mid-race. They were giving a very tall task to one of our drivers and he was just way too tired to be able to finish. He was supposed to have relief and there really wasn’t any.

Overall, early on in the race I was very excited about the pace of all three of our cars. I definitely look forward to the rest of the season, because I think we’ll be up there fighting for good finishes, maybe even wins going forward. We’ve got to look forward after Daytona.

V: Before we go to the next question, I want to ask you: You being a team owner of LMDh class cars - actually two LMDh cars, your #7 and your #8 car – what did you think of the overall level of competition in that new top class? I mean, it was the first race for the BMW LMDh, the first race of that new top class in VSCA.

And we look at the race results here at Daytona. The #3 they won the race and then P2 was seven laps down and P3 was twelve laps down.

What did you think were the biggest issues why the field was so spread out at Daytona in LMDh?

The two Grizzly Motorsports #7 and #8 BMW V8 Hybrid LMDh finished fourth and ninth, respectively, in the season-opening 24 Hours of Daytona in January. The team's #9 BMW M4 GT3 finished 22nd in GTD class - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer

J: I think a lot of it was the fact that you had to run a clean race. We didn’t do that and I think some of the other teams that were there were fast and could have been up there competing.

Honestly, I think the entire field had the speed in their cars, to compete for the win and I think it’s going to be a very challenging season in that class, but in order to have a chance at winning the race, you have to first finish without mistakes. The #3 was able to do that where everybody else had issues.

It's a new car. Everybody is still trying to understand how it works and how to be fast with it. I think we’re still struggling with some of that, too. We might have speed, but then drivability is not there.

I think that was some of the issues at Daytona, with it being so new. And maybe as the season progresses issue with people not finishing might start to dwindle, as people start to figure out how to set up the car and make it more drivable and fast.

V: It’s interesting to hear your comment on that. I heard some rumors at Daytona as well that drivability was a bit of an issue with that car. But yeah, it will be interesting to see how things develop during the season.

J: Yeah, I think first everybody was trying to be fast and they sacrificed some of the handling and it just caused issues.

Besides our incident with the #8 car, I think that most was self-inflicted damage. I didn’t see a whole lot that was contact with another prototype or a GT car. That was all just losing it, in the bus stop chicane or something like that, trying to get that speed to the start/finish line, which is very important there with how these cars are set up.

V: How did you spend the past two months since Daytona? What do you like to do, to unwind and get away from the competitiveness of VSCA racing a bit?

J: So, I’ve actually been very busy. I’m getting married in May.

V: Oh, wow! Congratulations!

J: Thank you! One of the things that I did was, have my bachelor party. I actually flew out to the east coast and went snowboarding with my two brothers and one of my best friends from out there in Vermont. So I did that for a couple of days, but I was gone for about a week doing that.

My fiancé actually lives four hours from me, so I’ve actually been getting ready. We made the decision to move down to where she’s at and I got a house up here in Aberdeen so I’m working on getting that ready and actually sold to move down there.

V: Well, if there is actually any good reason to be busy, I guess it’s getting married, right?

J: Yes!

V: Congratulations again; wishing you all the best!

J: Thank you! Yeah, I am definitely looking forward to it. It’s kind of stressful but working on getting the house ready and then also packing. So, it hasn’t been a whole bunch of unwind. And for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been preparing for Sebring; definitely back at it again.

V: Let’s play a little rapid-fire round of word association. I give you a word or a phrase and you say the first thing that comes to your mind. Are you cool with that?

J: I am ready!

V: Alright. Let’s do this!

V: Biggest pet peeve

J: GT cars reacting to prototype movement and not just running their line.

V: Ohhh, this answer is going to be popular! (laughing) At least with some of the listeners.

V: Full-Course Yellows

J: As much as no racing driver likes them, it is very nice in VSCA to have that break and to be able to kind of compose yourself a little bit before going back green again, unlike what happens in the official races where it’s just a 24 hour sprint race or 12 hour sprint race. I am definitely a proponent of having them, as we do them in VSCA.

V: Role model

J: I got to say my dad. He just gave me a lot of great life advice, whether it’s financial or big decisions. He’s always there for me to bounce ideas off and get his opinion on and take that and formulate my own opinion.

V: Well, I hope dad listens to this. Maybe he is tuning in and hears this.

V: BMW V8 Hybrid LMDh

J: Might not be my favorite manufacturer of a LMDh but since it’s the one we got on iRacing first: It’s definitely fun to drive. It’s been a challenge. I’m still trying to figure it out in some ways but the competition right now is very close in that car.

V: Inspiration

J: I’m going to look at when I started to watch racing early on. I ended up liking NASCAR and Jimmie Johnson turned into my favorite driver. Watching what he’s done, whether it’s NASCAR or IndyCar or sports cars, which is what I’ve seen him in the most recently; it’s just been fun watching him and how he’s done in all these different aspects.

I’m doing kind of the same thing in the other leagues that I run in. I’m not just a road guy, I do like running dirt and oval stuff.

V: Winter

J: My favorite season, but it can also be very long where I currently live.

V: Which is South Dakota

J: Yes

V: I think that’s just one state away from the Canadian border, right?

J: Actually two. We got North Dakota right above us. I think I’m about four, four and a half hours from the border of Canada.

V: Yeah, you probably get a lot of snow there?

J: Yeah, a lot of snow. Canada really likes to share its cold and wind a lot of times. That’s probably one of the biggest things. It’s now showing 19 degrees Fahrenheit (-7 °C) and we got a lot of wind right now so it’s actually feeling below zero. That is in Fahrenheit. I don’t really have the conversion for Celsius right now.

V: Oh okay, the freedom units!

J: Yes!

V: What is one thing that if you could, you’d like to change about the VSCA SportsCar Championship or sim racing in general?

J: I don’t know if there really is a whole lot. I absolutely enjoy VSCA, to the point where when I knew we were going to run the three cars that we did, that I made sure to set an alarm to be on when registration opened to make sure we had a shot at getting one or both of our LMDh cars in, which we did.

This championship has been so much fun. It might be a little rough to begin with but typically middle to end of the year everybody starts to understand how each of the other drivers drive.

That’s one of the biggest things that you don’t get in an official race. When you start running around other people consistently, you start to know like: Are they going to dive this corner or not dive? Or how patient they’re going to be. You get to see that and you know how you can race around them.

One thing that I can look back on from last year, at Sebring, towards the end of the race: I had probably a 35 to 40-minute battle with one of the other LMP2 drivers.

We were running very fast times in and out of traffic, just weaving back and forth and most GT drivers were thinking we were nuts doing it but we raced against each other in a different league and we knew how far we could push each other to not make contact, to have clean fun racing and not run into anybody else and cause issues.

Hopefully we start to get more consistent driver and team, year in and year out. Then we all get used to running around the same people and you can go do that. I think then it starts getting to that point where the quality of racing goes up and it’s a lot more fun to watch on a broadcast, if you got the race being broadcast.

Joshua Wolf with fiancé Amy. The couple is getting married in May this year. - © 2023 Joshua Wolf

V: I want to follow up on this, because I am curious now. You’re touching on something there. A couple years ago, I was running in another league and there was a big discussion with one of the competitors that I had after we were involved in an incident.

Long story short, he said he didn’t understand how trust played any role in racing between competitors. What is your opinion about this? Do I sense that correctly, that you would say trust is a direct factor in the quality of racing and how confident you are, how you can race close with other competitors?

J: Yeah, one hundred percent! The league that I was referring to, we were running 15 average LMP2s and somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-40 GT cars. And that is a lot of GT cars, with that little LMP2 field.

And the P2s come through and the competition is so close between us and the GT cars that you’re having to trust that the GT cars, if I’m going to throw it to the outside.

This is something that I want to do here in VSCA as much early on, but a lot of the corners in that series it’s a passing zone, no matter what the corner is, unless it’s one that is really slow so that it’s just better to wait. But we pass around the outside because we’re going to trust that the GT car, as much as he wants to swing out on the exit of the corner, because that’s his racing line, we can throw it into the outside and stick there and pass them and not lose a ton of time, just like they do in real-life.

That’s because we trust that GT car is not going come out and hit us, because they know that we’re there or going to be there.

There is some of the teams in here or drivers in here that I have raced around in many leagues and I have that trust, to send it around the outside like Sunset or turn one and know that GT car, as much as they’d like to come out there, they might lose a tenth or so and allow me to go around the outside, because I have the downforce and I’d have lost a second behind them, if they hadn’t let me do that.

So, it’s just having that trust they’re not going to do that and know that you can just go run your race and they’re running their race and it might inconvenience them a tenth of a second, where it would inconvenience us a full second and then we’re going to dive you into the next corner, because we’re frustrated that you held us up, when you just could have let us go.

V: Would you say that vice versa it works the same way? So for example, if competitors have a good level of trust in you, because they know you to be a clean driver, that it can work out to be an advantage for you, an actual competitive advantage?

J: Yes, it’s definitely a help when they can trust me and they’re going to allow me to do that, then I don’t lose time, they don’t lose as much time. We’re both going to lose time. If I was going to run the ideal line into turn one at Sebring, I’m still going around the outside and may lose a tenth or two. But we both lost a tenth or two, not me losing a second and him losing no time.

Because that is where the frustration builds, when a prototype loses a second and then can’t get by you, because you then block them or something like that going into the next corner, because I don’t want to dive you.

If you just go around the outside and not swing out where you’d normally would and then clip us, causing us to wreck, then that trust just starts building as time goes on and it does allow for more competitive clean racing in the long run.

V: I know you told me, you’re not originally from South Dakota. Where did you grow up originally and how did you end up in South Dakota?

J: Originally I grew up in upstate New York, just about fifteen minutes from Watkins Glen International. Also, that is my home track and I love running there, whenever I get the chance. So that is one big circle on my calendar for this year, to go there for the six hours.

V: Hold on a second. You’re actually running there in real-life or do you mean in sim racing?

J: In sim racing. I wish I was running there in real-life, but no. Just in sim racing. So, I look forward to that. Typically, when I get the chance, I go there every year besides 2020, when they didn’t actually have the six hours there.

I’ve been to the six-hour race there for the past seven to ten years straight. I will not be there this year.

So yeah, I grew up 15 minutes from the track. I’ve been there to see NASCAR, sports cars, IndyCar – I absolutely love it, I definitely recommend the sports car weekend.

After I graduated high school, I got an automotive degree at a local community college but then a couple years later I decided to go to Alaska and go to school for what I currently do, which is an instrument electrician for an industrial facilities.

That’s what brought me to the mid-west. I was trying to get work up in Alaska. That wasn’t working out, because they wanted years of experience and I didn’t have it.

So, I went to the mid-west. I initially moved to Iowa and was doing an operator position in an industrial facility and then found this electrical company that I currently work for.

I’ve been all over the mid-west but have been here in Aberdeen for the past three to four years.

V: That sounds like you have seen a lot of different places. That must have been quite interesting.

J: Yes, I’ve seen lots of different places. I’ve seen people in different parts of the US and how they roll. You’ve got the fast pace of the east coast and as you move to the mid-west it gets more laid back and slowed down. That’s definitely more my style. I do enjoy being here in the mid-west.

V: Final question. Sebring is up ahead this weekend, another American classic, but totally different track compared to Daytona. What are your thoughts going into championship round two?

J: Daytona, I’ve done so many laps around, I’m definitely glad to be out of there. Sebring, as you said, is a completely different track.

The biggest thing, as you could see with IMSA or WEC this past weekend, is just respecting the big bumps. That’s one thing you have to do here. It will be interesting to see how some of the other LMDh guys do.

Like I said before, at Daytona with the drivability thing, I think that’s going to be a very big factor. The people that are fast and have the drivability through the entire stint or two, they are going to do a lot better.

We’ve been struggling in a couple of different spots and it even comes down to just how the drivers attack in certain corners and how the car handles completely different.

It’s going to be a challenge. Then add the two different classes. I think the biggest thing – me being in the LMDh – it’s not fun passing the LMP2s because they are just as fast as you through the high-speed corners, maybe just a tiny bit slower.

So that kind of frustrates you, because you have to wait for them, but you don’t have enough speed to pass them. And then they can also go deeper into the braking zones than the LMDh are.

So, getting past them and not hurting their laps and us not getting slowed down too much by them, that will probably be one of the harder challenges this week, than to pass the GT cars.

V: Alright, before we log off: Do you want to give a shout out to anybody?

J: Just to all guys on my team. We’ve already done a lot of work, preparing for this race. I’m looking forward to it. We do have some sponsors like TFR Labs, Garage61 and Speed Seats. They’re great sponsors for us.

I’m just looking forward to the 12 Hours (of Sebring) and hopefully we get one position better, if not more, so we can be on the podium or challenge them for the win this week with one or both of our LMDh also to see about our GTD car.

V: I wish you best of luck, you and your team and all three of your cars. We’ll be watching! Hopefully we’ll be able to see a good race at Sebring.

Thanks again for being here with us today! And for everybody listening: Make sure to keep checking in on www.vscaracing.com and also check out the VSCA YouTube channel.

We’re going to have a live stream of the 12 Hours of Sebring this weekend on March 25th. Make sure you tune in at 1400 GMT for Round 2 of the 2023 VSCA SportsCar Championship.

Thanks again to you Joshua, I really enjoyed this. This was fun, hanging out. For everybody else: See you next time!