IMSA support series take the spotlight at Mid-Ohio

While many of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s top drivers and teams are either on the way to Le Mans – or already setting up shop – there are hungry competitors in various IMSA championships who will have the spotlight in this year’s visit to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

38 cars are entered for this Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio, the second four-hour endurance round of the Michelin Pilot Challenge.

Of the 23 entries in the Grand Sport class, the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport of Luca Mars and Jan Heylen leads the championship standings following two runner-up finishes at Daytona and Sebring, and a win at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. They’re 170 points ahead of Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal, who won Sebring in the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO.

A difficult race at Laguna Seca, meanwhile, dropped the Daytona-winning No. 44 Ibiza Farm Motorsports McLaren Artura GT4 of Moisey Uretsky and Michael Cooper to sixth in the standings.

A notable inclusion in the GS entry list is the No. 16 CSM Porsche driven by Zach Veach and Harrison Goodman, continuing their season at a new team following the death of Hattori Motorsports founder Shigeaki Hattori in a road accident in April. Veach and Goodman will use the number 16 in tribute to Hattori.

Andy Lally will also return to active competition for the first time since his retirement from full-time driving in January: The Trans-Am Series president will be back in the No. 38 BGB Motorsports Porsche with long-time co-driver Spencer Pumpelly and Thomas Collingwood. Unitronic/JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Mikey Taylor is also returning after missing Laguna Seca for the birth of his child.

Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian will look for its fourth TCR class win of the year, entering four of the 15 TCR cars at Mid-Ohio.

The No. 76 Hyundai Elantra N TCR of Denis Dupont and Preston Brown currently leads the TCR standings over the No. 98 of Mason Filippi and Harry Gottsacker, and the No. 33 of Mark Wilkins and Bryson Morris in third.

The most notable omission from the Mid-Ohio entry list is the No. 55 Team Gou Cupra Leon VZ TCR which debuted in North America this year.

The VP Racing SportsCar Challenge and Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup will also have two races at Mid-Ohio, on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

Three drivers competing in next week’s Road to Le Mans support races will be racing in VP Challenge’s 20-car field, including LMP3 Championship leader Valentino Catalano, his Gebhardt Intralogistics Motorsports team-mate Oscar Tunjo, and ST Racing owner/driver Samantha Tan, currently fourth in the GTDX standings.

And in MX-5 Cup, NASCAR Xfinity Series standout Jesse Love will be the special guest star, driving in the series for the first time since Sebring in 2024. He’ll be a teammate to Tyler Gonzalez, who swept the last race meeting at Barber Motorsports Park and now sits 40 points behind championship leader Jared Thomas.