It’s been a busy start to November, and despite race seasons having mostly wrapped up, there are still a few key events on my calendar this month.
I just got back from a fabulous weekend at Circuit of the Americas. I’d never experienced fall in Texas before, but we were greeted with plenty of beautiful fall weather, with mild temperatures and lots of sunshine. However, on the final day of the International GT enduro, the rain finally got the better of us, and it all but washed out the day’s events.
Luckily, that didn’t stop Team Salad’s Jordan Sandridge from optimizing his first trip to CotA, learning this famed F1 circuit, and delivering a podium result in race one. Although at times Jordan described learning all 20 corners of the track as drinking from a fire hose, we broke the track down into bite-size segments that allowed us to optimize each area from session to session. That proved to be a great strategy, and Jordan gained improvements every time out.
I was also excited to have Reg Williams at CotA, where he was campaigning his beautiful GT3R in a new livery to close out the season. However, his week unfortunately got cut short as another spinning car sidelined his weekend early.
Although it was the last IGT race of the season, next year’s schedule is already building anticipation, and it will be exciting to see it all unfold in 2027.
It’s another busy week for me, as I head from Austin, Texas, to Daytona Beach, Florida, for the popular Classic 24 with Historic Sportscar Racing. This unique twist on a 24-hour event allows cars and drivers to compete in a 24-hour format, although it’s segmented into one-hour race intervals.
It’s quite a spectacle, with race groups ranging from iconic Group C-era prototypes of the 80s and 90s to classic Trans-Am cars of the 60s and 70s, all the way to more modern cars that have just recently fallen out of FIA homologation.
I’ll be in that latter group, driving a 991 Porsche Cup Car—and, yes, I know it’s hard to believe that car is already competing in a series for historic cars, but it’s got a great home with HSR now!
You can check back next week for how the event went. Meanwhile, I’ll be on my way to the annual Mazda MX-5 Cup Shootout, which will be hosted in Phoenix, Arizona, for the first time.