It’s hard to believe the 2023 season is coming to a close already. Seemingly just yesterday the grid took the green flag at Daytona on its way to VSCA’s second annual SportsCar Championship season.
The BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh celebrated its debut in the series, as the new top class in competition. Meanwhile a much smaller but no less spectacular championship season kicked off in LMP2 competition.
And the largest of all classes, GTD proved to be where the action is at once again this year, featuring 25 cars battling it out race in race out.
It all comes to a conclusion this weekend at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Grizzly Motorsports and the #7 BMW lead the series championship in LMDh, coming off a huge win at Indianapolis, coming into the final race of the year with an 89-point lead of 24 Hours of Daytona champions #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance.
In LMP2, the #19 Dallara of Trading Paints Racing has been making headlines by winning a spectacular six races this year, dominating the second-highest category in the series. It is the team’s championship to lose with an 82-point lead, but anything can happen, as was seen at Indianapolis two weeks ago.
The #96 Albrecht Motorsports team won the 2023 Sprint Cup at Indianapolis when Trading Paints Racing wound up a season-worst 12th.
Can the German team repeat and steal the series championship as well?
In GTD, the 2023 season started out fantastic for the #67 Kinetic Racing Porsche, winning the first three races right out of the gate. But ever since, it has been the #5 Mercedes of Screeching Moose Motorsports leading the way. The Canadian team out of Maple Ridge, British Columbia has the smallest points lead of all championship leaders, standing at only 44 points. So there will not be much margin for error for the team in a high-pressure situation for the title.
Endurance Cup to be decided at Road Atlanta
The other championship on the line at Road Atlanta is the 2023 VSCA Endurance Cup - the in-series championship entailing all endurance rounds at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta.
Daytona winners #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance, #199 DeltaSport (who have since been suspended from the series) and #67 Kinetic Racing are all leading the Endurance Cup standings going into Petit Le Mans, respectively in their class. All three teams won at Daytona, which obviously paid the most Endurance Cup points.
But with the ten-hour event this weekend, a maximum of 15 Endurance Cup points are up for grabs. Endurance Cup points will be awarded at the 4-hour and 8-hour mark and at the finish, respectively.
The second annual VSCA Petit Le Mans will go green Saturday at 14:00 GMT and a live stream of the race will be available on the VSCA YouTube channel.