DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – If you were among the thousands who attended the 73rd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, or if you happened to stream the flag-to-flag coverage, you had to be impressed with what you saw.
With Sebring Int’l Raceway’s expansive infield already packed with campers, a steady stream of race day spectators continued to pour into the historic race track long after the 10:10 a.m. green flag for the second round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Once racing began in earnest after some early laps behind the Safety Car, fans were treated to three lengthy stints of green flag racing, including a caution-free run of more than four hours that covered the middle third of the race.
All four classes remained up for grabs into the last of the 12 hours, and the lead changed hands in the final 15 minutes in the Le Mans Prototype 2 and Grand Touring Daytona classes.
With Chamber of Commerce weather adding to the attraction, Sebring, IMSA, and sports car racing have never looked better. And it turns out several heavy hitters in the WeatherTech Championship paddock feel the same way.
Start with Wayne Taylor, who as a longtime competitor in sports car racing both in IMSA since the 1990s and around the world wants everyone to know that we are currently seeing the sport at an all-time high. Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing fields two entries in the premier Grand Touring Prototype class.
“IMSA gets a hard time from everybody – including from me, many times in the past,” Taylor said prior to the Sebring race. “But I definitely would say right now that IMSA is at the highest level. They’ve got good people and good leadership. (President) John Doonan really does a good job. The big thing about John is he’s a racing fanatic. When you’re a racing fanatic, you’re passionate about this and you put the extra effort in. He does do that.
“IMSA has always been the backbone in terms of promoting sports car racing, and (IMSA Chairman) Jim France really is the driving force behind it,” he added. “I would say after all the years I’ve been involved, IMSA is at a pretty high level, at the moment. If somebody told me to change sanctioning bodies, I don’t think there is another sanctioning body that would work that well.”
Bobby Rahal is best known for his success as an Indy car driver. But his sports car racing roots run deep, and his record includes overall victories in the Twelve Hours of Sebring and the Rolex 24 At Daytona as a driver, class wins in both major endurance events as a team owner, and a GT class championship for his team. BMW M Team RLL’s No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 claimed the Motul Pole Award at both Daytona and Sebring to start the 2025 campaign.
Rahal is enthusiastic about sports car racing’s current golden era – especially the top Grand Touring Prototype class.
“When you look at the corporate involvement, you’ve got something like 18 manufacturers across all the IMSA platforms,” Rahal observed. “People loved what you might call the first GTP era, in the ’80s into the ’90s. They never had that even in the height of that initial GTP period where you had Jaguar, Toyota, and Nissan, and then you had the non-pro teams with Porsche and the 962.
“Now there really is factory racing, and maybe the only time we’ve seen this in sports car racing was maybe the late 1960s and early ’70s when you had Ford, Porsche, Matra and Alfa Romeo,” he related. “As far as the cars and the quality of the teams, it’s professional at all levels. That’s to the great credit of Jim France and John Doonan. The racing is great, and the venues certainly are good venues. I’d like to see more races, but I think everybody’s happy with the 10 we have. It’s definitely ‘the good old days,’ and they’re right now.”
Taylor credits the participating manufacturers for not only participating in the technical development of the GT3-formula cars that race in the GTD and GTD PRO classes and the GTP prototypes, but also for their aggressive activation of marketing programs based on the IMSA sports car platform.
“The variety is great; you’ve got GTP, you’ve got the GTDs, and all these single-make formulas,” Taylor said. “It’s got everything across the board. A combination of a lot of things is driving IMSA’s growth, but I think honestly it has to do with the hybrid era. What that has done is brought in a lot of manufacturers, and the manufacturers have the budgets.
“When I did most of my driving, there was no real manufacturer involvement, so we relied on partnerships and sponsors and so on,” he continued. “IMSA didn’t have the financial wherewithal to do what they can do today. Manufacturers not only spend money on the race teams, they’ve got to activate. They have to work with the sanctioning body, and the combination of that is probably the biggest step that has been taken to make this a success.”
Mike Shank cut his teeth racing open-wheel Formula Atlantic cars, but when he ventured into team ownership, he chose to enter sports car racing during IMSA’s Grand-Am Daytona Prototype era. Over the last 20 years, the growth of Shank’s team has mirrored that of IMSA in recent years, particularly through the WeatherTech Championship’s Daytona Prototype international and current GTP formulas.
Shank and his wife Mary Beth mortgaged their house to buy a Daytona Prototype in 2004. Now they employ 108 associates and Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian is Acura’s factory partner team, running two ARX-06 prototypes in the GTP class.
“This is where we started, and this is where we belong,” remarked Shank. “You’ve got to credit Jim France and what all the IMSA people and staff have done over all the years through all the ups and downs. Jim kept his vision intact and created a place where manufacturers can compete at a high level, and while it’s still expensive, it’s a much better value proposition today. It’s impressive, and it’s really just now starting to show and to pay off, in my opinion.
“Sports car racing is only getting stronger and stronger.”
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