The 2025 motorsport season is in full swing! This weekend was packed with Sports Car action at the World Center of Racing. Meanwhile, the West Coast stock car racers revived their season at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway. Here’s a roundup of the results you may have missed over this past weekend of racing.
IMSA:
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship kicked off the 2025 asphalt racing season with the 63rd running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway.
Porsche Penske Motorsport claimed victory for the second year in a row, leading the Grand Touring Prototype class. Drivers Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy, and Laurens Vanthoor piloted the winning No. 7 Porsche 963. They completed 781 laps over the 24-hour endurance race. The Meyer Shank Racing No. 60 Acura ARX-06, piloted by Tom Blomvist, Colin Braun, Scott Dixon, and Felix Rosenqvist, finished 2nd, just 1.335 seconds behind the Penske Porsche. Another Penske Porsche, the No. 6, placed 3rd as the final car on the lead lap.
American manufacturers prevailed in the GTD Pro and GTD Classes. Ford Multimatic Motorsports won in the Pro Class with Christopher Miles, Dennis Olsen, and Frédéric Vervisch driving the No. 65 Mustang GT3. After 723 laps, they beat out the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet ZO6 GT3.R by 1.909 seconds.
Chevy took the victory in the GTD class; the No. 13 Andrew Wojteczko Autosport Corvette completed 719 laps with Matt Bell, Orey Fidani, Lars Kern, and Marvin Kirchhöfer behind the wheel. 2nd in class, 1.454 seconds behind the leader,r was the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).
While not a spec class, the entirety of the Le Mans Prototype 2 class drives the Oreca 07. The No. 8 Tower Motorsports entry took the largest class margin of victory. Sebastián Álvarez, Sébastien Bourdais, John Farano, and Job van Uitert finished with a 44.697-second gap on the car in second.
IMSA continues its schedule with the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring at Sebring International Raceway on March 15.
ARCA West:
The ARCA Menard’s Series West got its season off to an early start at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway with the West Coast Stock Car Motorsports Hall of Fame 150.
Trevor Huddleston earned the season-opening win back behind the wheel of his No. 50 High Point Racing Ford. Huddleston had to hold off a charging No. 71 Jan’s Towing Racing Ford in the closing laps, but Kyle Keller was unable to find the run to get past the dominant car of the race. Keller finished a little less than a quarter of a second behind Huddleston.
Daniel Hemric earned the pole driving the No. 19 Bill McAnally Racing Chevy. However, he dropped off the pace late in the race and finished three laps down in 9th. He was running inside the top 5 before the problem occurred.
The ARCA West schedule continues on March 7 at Phoenix Raceway in a combined race with the ARCA national series.
Cars Tour West / Legends Tour West:
Spears Cars Tour West ran alongside ARCA West at Kern to open its sophomore season. The event debuted the Cars West Super Late Model division and featured the rebranded Limited Pro Late Models, a continuation of the 2024 ‘Pro Late Model’ class.
Rackley WAR driver Dawson Sutton earned the first SLM victory in Cars West competition after earning the pole in qualifying and beating out teammate Kevin Harvick on a restart with about 35 laps go. Harvick had a strong run late after Sutton had led by more than half a straightaway. However, it was too little too late as Sutton took the victory by about two car lengths.
Madera, California driver Joey Iest took the win in the Limited Pro Late Model race with Dylan Zampa in 2nd and Parker Malone in 3rd.
The MMI Legends Tour West ran a double-header with two 25-lap mains. Brendan Ruzbarsky won the first race, beating out Shane Sawin, and he placed 2nd in the 2nd main. Taylor Mayhew took the victory in the second main after race leader Ethan Nascimento got bumped out of the way on a late restart. Nascimento was able to quickly recover and saved a podium finish.
The next Cars Tour West event will be at Havasu 95 Speedway on Feb. 8 with the LPLMs and MMI Legends racing.
MAZDA MX-5 Cup
The Mazda MX-5 Cup began its season as part of Rolex 24 weekend at Daytona.
Race 1 had some interesting challenges, as forecasted weather had teams begin the race on rain tires. However, the rain did not come for quite some time, which left drivers running a lot of the 45-minute event in the dry, putting extra stress on tire temperatures.
Nate Cicero opted to pit for slick tires early in the race while running up front, a decision that did not pay off as he was unable to make up nearly enough time on track to recover his running position. Tyler Gonzalez went on to win the race as he was leading when a caution struck in the closing minutes.
Skies were blue for race No. 2 the following day, though a NASCAR-esque pile-up on the opening lap marred the event. More than half the field was involved after two cars near the front went into the outside wall on the race start.
The incident resulted in a grueling delay, with a lot of clean-up needed near the Turn 1 road course entrance. The race resumed with just 16:20 remaining. Cicero led for most of the time but was overtaken in the closing laps by 2024 Championship runner-up Jared Thomas. Thomas is the point leader following the first race weekend.
The Mazda MX-5 Cup Series will race next on the streets of St. Petersburg, running alongside IndyCar opening weekend, Feb. 28 – March 2.
Michelin Pilot Challenge:
BMW M Endurance Challenge at Daytona Winners:
Grand Sport: Michael Cooper, Moisey Uretsky #44 Accelerating Performance McLaren Artura GT4
Touring Car: Preston Brown, Denis Dupont #76 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian Hyundai Elantra N (2024)
Next Race 3/14: Alan Jay Automotive Network 120 – Sebring International Raceway
Image Sourced Via CARS Tour West FB
