Michelin Pilot Challenge

So yeah, from what I remember, it's a, it's a GT4 that's limited.

It's not a top of the range GT4 that you would see in the Michelin Pilot Series or in GT4s you would see in like British GT or something.

I, I remember that much.

Yeah, and I mean, I think it's, uh...

I'm down here on the support series pit lane today.

Michelin Pilot Challenge qualifying has just wrapped up.

And we're in dinner break before they go out for night practice for the WeatherTech Championship.

I'll talk a little bit about these practice sessions in a video on Friday.

All right, so we're going to jump into the weather tech.

But if you want to stick around for this whole podcast, we'll be covering down the Michelin Pilot Challenge at the end, the very tail end of this podcast.

Outstanding.

We haven't forgot about our support series.

But

the cool thing is, right, like, I mean, apart from the prototypes, we have three very competitive classes coming to the end.

So as we wrap this up here, take a moment to talk about the weekend support series and the Michelin Pilot Challenge.

Unlike the WeatherTech race, this was not ultimately decided by which car had the most pace.

And what you saw there is exactly how Jimmy is today.

Same with Jensen and Rocky and Jordan, but also absolutely the thread of how we operated IMSA, whether it's the Michelin Pilot Challenge drivers, certainly the drivers in the WeatherTech Championship.

When the gridwalk happens, you know, they're likely at the race car or standing by their pit box.

And for me, It's an absolutely critical part of the culture that we've tried to create.

They were very, very happy with the performance.

You've got to understand, Sprint Challenge and Endurance Challenge in the Porsche 1-Make series are meant to be the ladder system to bigger and better competition, meaning to go up into Carrera Cup, to go potentially GT4 racing with Michelin Pilot Challenge or something like that.

So the competitiveness level is not necessarily...

I'll rephrase this.

Um, so yes, you can over prepare, but thankfully these race teams have done it so many times and they've got the right checklist and they know what to do.

It just becomes part of the process.

And then, obviously, basically, I believe the season's finished now, so basically, what is the team and Jim looking at doing the next season? Are they looking at doing another season of the Porsche Endurance Challenge North America, or is there any plans to, I guess, move up, if you like, into something like maybe Porsche Carrera Cup North America or Michelin Pilot Challenge?

So Jim has done plenty of higher forms of competition.

Watch IMSA with us.

And Michelin Pilot Challenge is on Peacock on Saturday afternoon.

Unique airtime, 2.23 p.m. Eastern time.

Make a note of that.