Yahoo Autos The Mercedes-AMG GT3 Will Race in America Next Year
Mercedes will make its long-awaited return to professional sports car racing in North America with in-house performance brand AMG and the North Carolina-based Riley Motorsports outfit. IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will serve as the primary focus for the manufacturer as it vies for a title in the GT Daytona category.
As the firm responsible for building and running the championship-winning Dodge Viper American Le Mans Series program, Riley is uniquely placed to spearhead a new two-car effort for the German marque using the thundering V8-powered Mercedes-AMG GT3 coupe as the centerpiece.
In concert with the new "AMG-Team Riley Motorsports" entry and the second Riley car run under the existing WeatherTech Racing banner, a third Mercedes-AMG GT3 program, fielded by SunEnergy1 Racing, will also make its debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona season opener in January.
Factory-affiliated GTD entries from Acura and Lexus will also begin their campaigns at Daytona, and with ongoing representation from Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche, IMSA's entry-level GT class is poised for an explosion in competition.
Mercedes-Benz USA also reports "additional teams are scheduled to announce their intent to race as AMG Customer Sports teams in advance of the 2017 season," which should help the GTD grid to reach record numbers next year.
The last Mercedes-related program of note in the U.S. took place in the late 1980s as Bob Strange found success racing a four-door 190 in the SCCA-sanctioned International Sedan series. Privateer GT3-spec Mercedes AMGs have raced and won in the Pirelli World Challenge series in recent years, and the factory Mercedes-AMG team dispatched a new GT3 car and personnel to test the car at Daytona in November of 2015, but the emergence of a proper works effort was not forthcoming in 2016.
In joining forces with Riley, team veteran Ben Keating and co-driver Jeroen Bleekemolen are expected to be confirmed as pilots for one entry, and the move by WeatherTech founder/owner David MacNeil from six years of Porsche-centric racing with Alex Job Racing to place his WeatherTech Racing team within the Mercedes-AMG family is also a significant power shift within the IMSA paddock.
Along with the debut of IMSA's new Daytona Prototype international formula with factory cars provided by Cadillac, Mazda, and Nissan, America's lone professional endurance racing series is headed for its strongest curtain raiser in many years.
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