(upbeat music) Welcome to the Marshall Prote podcast in your week in the sports cars episode for Thanksgiving here in the US Graham, a time where we hit a pause and do indeed take stock offer many thanks to those people in things and occurrences in life that have been very positive for us. Thanksgiving here, part of telling y'all to pound sand over there in the UK and what not, but no, it was that 4th of July. Or is it Christmas, Arbor Day? I forget with one of those, we told you, that's right, we told you to go away, but we still love you and we want you back. So anyways, how are you doing, my brother? - We got a happy Thanksgiving to everybody over there from everybody over here. No, we don't understand it still, but either way, we understand how important a moment it is in everybody's area in the United States. We're doing great. Time, just from the final touches to packing, before I leave for Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, that will be of course for the Asia Lebond series, but also I've got the part to play with Porsche and Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific and their driver shoots out, where I'll be doing some work with some stellar young drivers who are up for selection for, you know, another step on what we know is a fantastic career ladder with Porsche. Busy, busy week still on the news front and lots more to come as we get back to the final major series for sports kind of racing of the year, MP. - Indeed, Graham, we were recording here with your equipment. I already packed away ready to go to Malaysia, so we're doing just good old school phone to phone. Nonetheless, do have some folks we need to say thank you for helping to make the show possible. So let's do that quickly and come back and do a flappy gums episode. - Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Pruitt podcast, starting with FAFT Technologies. Build to print composites manufacturing company. They're specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motor sports and military applications. Visit FAFTechologies.com. It's P-F-A-F-F, technologies.com to learn more about their services and how they can benefit your business. Next, it's the Justice Brothers. Makers of premium additives, lubricants and cleaners, and servicing the automotive and motorsports industries for more than 85 years. The victories in all the biggest North American motor races, including the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours a day tona, the Justice Brothers products are truly race proven. Learn about their vast history and range of offerings at justicebrothers.com. If you're fond of awesome motor racing collectibles, including FAFT Motorsports McLaren Guirain goodies, pay a visit to torontomotor sports.com. And finally, we have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, thepruitstore.com. For all the show stickers, models, racing memorabilia, trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house, is now live and rocking. Thepruitstore.com. All right, Mr. Goodwin. So we're gonna talk about a couple of newsy items of interest. Then we are going to introduce some new friends to the show, the S triple three sports car championship Canada. You've been doing some work with them, helping to slowly introduce them to the wider world on daily sports car.com, the place where you Graham Goodwin, Steven Kilby, RJ O'Donnell and some other good contributors produce sporty car content. So we're gonna open with a bit of news and then have you explain the S, C, C, C to us and what we are doing there and welcoming them into the show and definitely been a part of DSC here for most of November. But what do you think we should start on news wise? We had some driver confirmations on the Weckity Weck side. That's the official name of the championship, by the way. - Absolutely. - A little bit of an update here that I farted out regarding Lamborghini. So we got some more, we're anticipating some formal news there. Where should we start? - Well, I start with another manufacturer and it's a big one, it's Mercedes AMG. So we wrote a little wee while ago about the potential for Mercedes AMG to take a very close look at hypercar GTP. Put that to one side for the moment because what we got with the confirmation of the full season entry list for 2025 F-I-W-C, aka Weckity Weck. It's a major title and a title worldwide. It's that Mercedes AMG will indeed be joining the fray in LMGT3 with ion links. And we'll come on and talk about ion links when we get on to, I think it must be the next turn, a little input here, which is of course Lamborghini. So this has all happened very quickly indeed leading up to the announcement of the entry list. And it was lucky enough to speak to Stefan Vendel, that he had a customer racing at the Mercedes AMG mode sport. The day that that was announced, we've got that interview teed up for early next week on Delhi sports car and racer. And basically this happened in about a week and a half and ultimately he told me that they'd turn the deal around in four working days, but it will see two of the current Mercedes AMG GT3 Evos in the hands of ion links joining the World Insurance Championship. Nothing to tell us at the moment about the two other things that I think most fans will want to know about. The first one is the replacement car, which is currently due in 2026. He did reveal this is a two year deal with ion links. And absolutely nothing to say other than, of course, they're very interested indeed in prospects for hypercar and or GTP. But what I would say to you MP with a tie in with ion links, a team of ambition, a team of resource, and a team of course with experience now in LNP racing, both at LNP too, through the campaigns with Prima, their sister team. And of course, with the Lamborghini SC63, that is a team that wants to be in the top class. I think that deal just makes Mercedes AMG's potential arrival in the top class just a tiny bit more likely. - A lot of intertwining, intermingling, I don't know if I'll say intermarriage, but it's a lot of interesting strands. Graham tying folks together here. So we have iron links, right? Well-established team. Within that family, on the back end, not promoted publicly as, we have Prima racing, which had been looking after the prototype side with Lamborghini. As you mentioned, the SC63, the iron dames in here, right? Part of this facilitation with iron links. And we know now, not a surprise, that severing of ties between iron links and Lamborghini in WEC, in order to take on Mercedes AMG, has happened. Just overstating the obvious, if I am a team, and I represent a major manufacturer in one of the two biggest endurance sports car racing championships in the world, they tend not to be allowed to engage with an entirely different manufacturer in the other one. Not saying it's never ever happened, but the idea of iron links connecting with Mercedes AMG and WEC, in light of Lamborghini, stating publicly here, what was it last week, that they won't be continuing in WEC, talking about the GTP/hypercar side. Great got that, got to understand, though, Graham, for folks who follow this stuff, maybe not as closely as us. How do we explain that? Kay, Lamborghini has said they're not going forward in WEC. Iron links are a team who pay themselves and earn a living and support themselves by running cars, obviously, for a manufacturer being the most lucrative. So if their manufacturer said we're not doing WEC anymore, you would expect iron links to find a manufacturer which they have to continue doing as such, LMG-T3, but that would likely have some impact on what happens across the pond here in the US for iron links with Lamborghini, knowing that things are not continuing in WEC, we've heard nothing formal. There's been no formal statement from the team or the manufacturer, but we do know that in light of the different paths that you've taken in WEC, we've been anticipating at minimum on the GT side, the GTD side over here with that Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 22 or whatever the exact number is, that there would likely be a service provider change just to mirror the divorce with iron links in WEC. And so we have nothing formal. We do know, though, that if we just use our thinking brains as I refer to it and say, okay, what extremely good teams have yet to announce what they're doing in GTD Pro. Obviously the customers running Lamborghinis will continue to do that on their own forte racing, for example, one that comes to mind in GTD, but on the pro end, the manufacturer connection end, who's available, who might take things over from iron links, assuming that that relationship won't continue in GTD Pro. Again, no one's saying a word formally, but we do know as we all saw it shared around, that our friends at FAFT Motorsports have put their McLaren 720S GT3 up for sale when they campaign this previous season. Does that mean they're changing manufacturers? No. Could it mean they're selling the car they used and they're buying a new one or receiving a new one again? That's in the realm of possibilities. We can also say, though, again, using that good old thinking brain, they're about the only big bad ass GTD Pro title winning level team that has yet to say what it is they're doing next year. Taking this potential likely separation between iron links and Lamborghini and Imsa on the GTD Pro side and who's available, I don't think it'd be crazy to suggest that that is where it could be headed. What do you think? Does that make sense to you, Graham? It makes perfect sense. I know, you know, I've noticed I like you as the test that data had just a few, a couple of weeks ago and no sign of either FAFT 4, indeed, the Lamborghini GTD car there. But there was, of course, an SC63. And that absolutely did still have iron link staff attending to the Lamborghini GTD P car. That might well be, though, MP, because the standing contract could be a calendar year contract. As these things quite often are, it could be. That's just a facilitation of that with no one else to step in. Sort of GTD/GDD Pro is concerned. That makes perfect sense. As for who might be ready to step in and take the reins in GTP, that is a whole different level. Let's dive into that because that's a... It's one thing for a manufacturer to commit funds to run or facilitate a GTD Pro effort with a service provider. None of it is cheap. Don't get me wrong. But it is very different financially than what it takes to fund a GTP/hypercar factory effort. We do know for what Lamborghini has entered in IMSA for next season, it is MAC, the Michelin Endurance Cup, the five Enduro rounds, not the full calendar. So we know already the finances are one that's being managed, something where they're not spending outrageous sums to do a full season. So that's already a built-in cost reducer. But it is a different thing to engage a team to run in GTD Pro versus what we know anecdotally, Lamborghini leaning somewhat heavily on whomever the team is that they've worked with in GTP/hypercar to be a decent financial contributor to getting that car on track. Assuming or if there is a change, that's where things get a little bit complicated, right? Who else under that financial model if that model were to be carried forward into 2025, what teams are out there that might have the ability to reach into their pocket a bit to help get the car on track? That's the part that has me scratching my head. - So you could join the dots and say, right, okay, which team out there has got top-class prototype experience with this current generation of cars that is not currently employed with and by a manufacturer. And this is, of course, one team immediately comes to mind and that, of course, would be good to see. But the thought that they might contribute to bringing that program to their doors doesn't even begin to occur to me. And by the way, that's always presuming that there isn't a deal in their pocket or something else with development potential coming along in the next year, 18 months, where involving themselves with another team's race program might get in the way of a longer-term commitment with perhaps a bigger program. So this is not, in any way, a simple thing for an un-beginning to find. Don't know yet, MP, whether or not there'd be a kind of split here between the Onelinks Prima family and relabeling the support network here, but it's getting very close, indeed, to Daytona, for that decision to have been taken and for a change to come. Worth saying, by the way, that what has happened since we last spoke is that not only, of course, is the story that we wrote for DSC and race have been confirmed that they're departing both Hypercar and LMGT3, but also that they're throwing under the bus, if you like, the WC's two car mandate for Hypercar. That's so far so predictable. What may be more significant is the way in which the language is couched, talking about pausing the program, talking about aspirations to return for that program. So are we looking at a situation where they are going to have this limited program in the United States, they're not cheap, by the way, and develop that car and seek to return in a year or two years' time after affecting the de facto sabbatical for the FI World Endurance Championship. It's gonna be a bit of hashtag wait and see, isn't it, but that the immediate priority is just exactly what is that US program gonna look like? And what are the embroidered badges on the shirts and jackets of the team members gonna say, other than Lamborghini Scodra Corsa, who is going to be the service provider? - I'm gonna get some patches made that say racecar team and just really try that. - So who do you work for, racecar team? - Yeah, and just to wrap this, the thing that's just, again, to me, it's interesting 'cause we don't have answers yet. We think we know where the GTD pro side's headed. If not, then again, we would love and look forward to whatever surprise that might be. The GTP side is very much an interesting question mark. Prema, being the team hired to run the car on behalf of iron links, on behalf of Lamborghini, would seem like one that would be suitable to continue, but who would be paying for that? Prema isn't one to pay to race a prototype for someone else. So it would seem the easiest route would be for someone to partner with a Prema, bring some money, do that, we don't know if that's what could happen. Of the other names I've heard mentioned, rumored. Could be totally false. Heard Pratt and Miller, they are certainly not a team to spend their own money to go racing. They're one to be hired to do so. Riley. - I'm stepping into one on P2 for the first time this season. - Right, Pietro Fittapaldi, James Rowe, et cetera, so good on them. And then we also have Riley technology/Riley Motorsports, that's been mentioned. And Bill and family have certainly been the ones to be paid. To run significant racing programs, manufacturers, winning for manufacturers. If I remember correctly, I think Dodge might have been the most recent program they led to victory there in the former GTLM class, but that's another team I've heard. But all of these graham involve a wire transfer of significant funds to activate a Pratt and Miller or Riley, a whomever, to do this for a Lamborghini or any other manufacturer. And while that could certainly happen, we have the very prescient point you raised here. On Sunday, it is December 1st. We will be doing media day interviews with drivers, I think January 15th, standing in Daytona. - Six weeks away. - Yeah, six weeks away. So just throwing this out there is a thought. We know that Lamborghini is committed to IMSA, to the Michelin Endurance Championship, First Race, late January at Daytona, second, middle of March, at Sebring and so on, move on to Watkins Glen, yada yada. We know that our friends at heart of racing slash Aston Martin Racing will not be bringing the Valkyrie to Daytona, preferring to, at least in the US, have its debut in March at Sebring. It did just occur to me, Graham, that in light of the question marks of who's going to run what, how it's going to be paid for. If there is a change in service provider, I would not be surprised if we have the SC63 making its annual debut in IMSA at Sebring. Just because handing everything off, getting up to speed with the car and being truly ready in 45 days time, it can be done kind of, but you go into a race with almost no confidence because you have folks going into a 24-hour enduro, learning about the thing for the first, hey, we're about to do our first pit stop in competition with this car that we just got. So again, just something to think about, if there is a change in provider, part of me wonders, might we be seeing the green SC63 debut for the calendar year here in IMSA in March? I hope that's not the case, but we are waiting on our friends at Lamborghini to tell us, Graham, why don't you cover off here the last newsy bit, that being Alping, telling us who will be driving their cars next season in Wackity Wack. And for one of them, not a surprise, but a surprise that they decided to sever ties with Formula One team in order to further or deeply commit. - Well, there is one new name to Alping as we have Fred McEvicki stepping over. That was very much rumored after it is announced departure, pre-nounced departure from Porsche, but Fred McEvicki will be joining Alping, long-signed Charmelazzi. By the way, the driver squad's not yet defined, but long-signed Charmelazzi, returning, Paul Lucheta, returning Jule Gunan, stepping up to a full season drive with the team. Mick Schumacher is the name that you were kind of implying there, and that Mick opting to step away from Mercedes MG Formula One, and committing for a second full season in hypercar with the highly encouraging Alping endurance team. Final, one of the six-player-way Ferdy Habsburg, who, of course, missed a couple of races through injury after the testing accidents, hoped high for this effort. They were showing great pace at the end of the 2024 season, and there's a major upgrade to come around engine turbo and engine management, which was the thing that caught them out badly at Le Mans. They've done well with the way in which they've managed that issue since then, but they've got high hopes of taking a pretty major step, and we've seen teams take those major steps, MP, in this fascinating new class. One of the quick things as an aside, by the way, the other driver that, of course, stepped away from Alping, Nico Lapier, the new sporting director of Alping endurance team, he will continue alongside his Alping duties with his LMS LNP2 team, but the change there announced today, no longer will that be cool racing. Instead, that will be CLX Motorsport, CLX, Connie, Alexandra Connie, Lapier, Nico Lapier, CLX Motorsport will be the LNP2, and LNP3 team from Switzerland next year, and Nico will continue on his role there, alongside his new duties out of the cockpit with the Alping endurance team. It really has been a very busy off-season, indeed, so far, there's an awful lot more to come, including, by the way, more entries to be awarded for Le Mans, one of which will come this weekend from the end of the GT World Challenge Europe season in Czechs notes, Saudi Arabia, so the bronze cup-winning team from the GT World Challenge Europe will earn an entry to the Le Mans 24 hours, and then we've got more to come in February with the Asia Le Mans series, so it doesn't stop here. We now get into this pretty bonkers series of races, significant races in Southeast Asia and the Gulf region, before we can settle down for Christmas, and then more of the same into January and February. But before we talk about the eastern end of the calendar, you want to talk about the northern end of the calendar, and a fascinating new partnership we've got with both Delhi Sports Car and most particularly, for the purposes of this podcast, this podcast. Hey, no way! Indeed we do, friends, friends of friends, we were introduced to, what, three, four months ago Graham, and took just a little while to get this moving, this whole crazy racing life of ours, and running around the planet tends to get in the way of smooth planning, but yeah, film motorsports, FEL, and their sports car championship Canada program, they also, within that run the Radical Cup Canada series, pretty cool stuff. It realized, I hadn't fully realized, how big and important the SCCC happens to be in Canada when it comes to sports car team, sports car driver, overall sports car, everything, development. If we were to look here in the US, Graham, we might think of IMSA's Michelin Pilot Challenge series, GT4 based cars, TCR vehicles and such, this is the area where FEL motorsports and the SCCC has said, you know, this is a great foundation, along with the Radical Cup that they run, to say, all right, we're gonna develop folks, be it engineers, be it mechanics, be it drivers, all levels of crew, engineers, and we do indeed need to have a national series, they don't do a ton of races yet, right? This is not a huge calendar Graham where they're doing 10, 15 rounds per year, it's a little bit more modest, yeah, a little bit more modest there, but they do hit a lot of fun places, whether it's a CTMP, AKA Mohsport, Calibogi Motor Sports Park, which has been there, I've driven it, it's really cool, but one that's really special to our friends at Multimatic, also, you know, part of Taw Revere's event annually and so on, but good friends there, presented by Michelin, so great alignment in terms of what's being used in the series, but I appreciate what they're trying to do and have been doing here Graham in saying, you know, we can head down to the lower 48, head down to the good old U.S. of A, and compete in a variety of series, could be SRO, IMSA, could be club racing, right? Cars here are all certainly capable of running and allowed to run an SCCA or NASA series, but this is home spun pride in Canada, and I love that as well, Graham, part of my career, young life as a mechanic, engineer, and whatnot, being involved in open wheel, sports cars and such, constant trips north across to Canada, the passion there from the west coast here, all the way out east, been to tracks from, again, west coast to all the way across and Quebec, Edmonton in the middle, Toronto area as well, Vancouver area, just love and have loved the place for its true passion for motor racing, and this fills a very necessary place, knowing that yes, you can go elsewhere to learn or race and develop yourself, but why do that? When indeed you can do that here in Canada, and so they reached out to us and said, "You know, we want folks to know we're here, and we're good, and people love what we're doing, and guess what, don't stop what you're doing elsewhere, right, but maybe consider coming here, get on a plane from the US or Europe or Asia or wherever, and you want to go do something at most sport, or Tuah Riviere, or some of the other events on the calendar, like, we have some marquee tracks as well, in cars, very likely, that you see racing, wherever you go there locally, because that GT4 formula, TCR in radicals, they're everywhere, so this is just a bit of a surfacing of something really cool that's been going on in Canada for a while now with the sports car, championship Canada in a radical cup, Canada programs, and there's also some good friends of ours involved here, whether it's Chris Bide looking after things there, Peter Lockhart is heavily involved, there's another Canadian guy who I lovingly refer to as sports car Jesus, and there is no human being with a better command of the F word and the other words that aren't particularly savory. Argylere Holt, big involvement there, and some great young drivers who've done well in the SECC and come down and raced, and are racing in MSA, in TransAm, SRO, you name it, so just getting together here, Graham, and through you and the DSC family, really helping to bring that forward. So we're gonna start doing this, make this a more regular thing in the podcast, just to talk about this, because we care about it. - Well, yeah, I mean, you know, it's, oddly enough, in the very early days of my involvement in Malcolm Craig, well, before Daily Sports Car, there was then, I think what was called the Canadian Sports Car Challenge, and you'll remember, I'm sure, the bitsec brothers. - Oh, yes. - No, I'm 11. - Oh, yeah. - GT1, so I remember my very first trip to the Rolex 24 Hours in the old Benny Khan room at Daytona, and I was there, I think, for two days before I saw a car on track, this place like a bunker, I had one tiny window, and as I stepped up to leave the building, it's close to my left, and through that window, saw bright yellow, Porsche 911 GT1 that I knew very well from the pictures would be sharing. But Canada, huge country, huge heart, as you quite rightly say, needs that opportunity for a platform for talent behind the wheel and behind the pit wall in the same way that any other major marketplace does. And because it's got such heritage in motor sport, you've joined the dots beautifully there, MP, it's the other part of it. Same as we see in the UK here with the British GT championship, which is drawing people to some of those iconic tracks and those iconic races in cars that they'll be familiar with from around the world. So it's absolutely, it's almost like the missing jigsaw piece, isn't it, in North American motor sport. It serves many purposes and many masters. We've already been speaking to one or two of the guys and have made their way across the border and into the Michelin pilot challenge, for instance, and lots of people with good things to say about the vision and about the plan and looking forward to what can come out of the little guys that could in Canada. And I'm keen to see just exactly how far they can take this and we'll be helping the world all the way. - So DSC in the SCCC, gonna be doing columns here about once a week. I think our guy, RJ O'Donnell, is gonna be helping primarily with that here and has been, right? - I'm gonna correct you. I'm gonna correct you. It's RJ O'Connell. - RJ, what did I call him? O'Donnell? - O'Donnell. - Well, it's his fault. - It's the Daniel thing. You've been listening too much of the Daniel O'Donnell stuff in this Thanksgiving week, mate. - Well, it's his fault and we're gonna have him change his name because it's clearly... (laughing) - Sorry. - Talking conversations with Chris Pye and lots of stuff to come, I took a glance in the back end of DSC where we keep all the drafted material that we're working on and there is a ton of content to come. - Cool. And so we're doing that about once a week and we'll have Chris on here on the podcast here. Shortly you heading off to Malaysia, obviously. We'll try and get another show done next week, but if not, maybe I'll have Chris as a co-pilot here and talk about some more fun stuff and more racing news coming. And that's maybe the thing to close on here, Graham, other than encouraging folks to check out dailysportsguard.com to see some of the early and new SCCC content. It's that we're getting into that phase, right? Okay, Alpine's announced this. This team's announced that we're starting to get into that phase where here end of November, beginning of December, it's just super happy news time. Cross, imps across, seemingly everywhere. And so on top of all the news, it will be generating here shortly about what's happening. Brother, I can't mention who or what, but I just heard of an entry coming next year. I won't even mention the series, but I just heard of an entry a couple days ago. I think it might only be a one-off, but it's like, oh, that might be the most fun driver group I've heard of in a long time. And so it's just stuff like that where you wake up just excited about what's coming, what we get to report about, and so on. - Yeah, I mean, before we say good night from both of us, what I want to say is this and be, I'm very aware, it is a very exciting time to be doing what we both do and what the people around us do as well. And that's proven by the fact that there's a lot more fans turning in their gaze and wondering what this crazy part of the sport is all around. If you're one of those, then welcome. And we will, in the coming days, be pointing out a call for questions. How does that work? Well, if you enjoy listening to Marcia and I flapping our gums about news, enjoy this. There are no stupid questions about sports car racing, and we invite you through social media to submit questions which we then use to form the show. So whatever questions you've got, whether or not it's super detailed and the Anoract like, as we'd say here in the UK, or whether or not it's general and just asking us to explain something that you don't understand, that doesn't make you stupid. That makes the sport complicated, and that's what it is. Do engage with that. We do that through Twitter, through Facebook, and the Marcia Proit podcast page there, and actually also through a couple of the channels on Discord as well. So keep an eye out for that if there are places where you roam for the moment, though, and with thanks to staff technologies, Justice Brothers, tontomotsports.com, and our other Canadian friends, the FCC. I've been growing good with him. He's been Marshall Pruitt. This has been the Week in Sports Cars, part of the Marcia Proit podcast collection. Happy Thanksgiving, and we'll speak to you next week. - I did tell you that my father once said there's no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid people ask questions, and said that while staring straight at me, right? - That's the most bad thing ever. - Staring straight at me. And that was a, oh, oh, okay. So we'll talk to you all next week. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
