It’s not easy moving to a new category of racing; it’s even harder to do so with immediate success. But when two teams with a vast amount of experience get together, good things are bound to happen. On Sunday, that was a first and third in GTD at the Motul Course de Monterey, the fourth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship
Kellymoss, born as Kelly-Moss Motorsports in the late ’80s, has been a force in Porsche racing for three decades. Founded by brothers Jeff and David Stone, the IMSA Firestone Firehawk Series was their first destination. In more recent years, they’ve been winning in Porsche’s one-make series such as Carrera Cup – where the team was the 2021 and ’22 champions – with a variety of interesting motorsports programs in the interim. Now owned by husband-and-wife team of Andy Kilcoyne and Victoria Thomas, Kellymoss partnered with Bill Riley and Riley Technologies to form Kellymoss with Riley to field two Porsche 911 GT3Rs in the GTD category.
“Obviously we have taken on a huge task by jumping up to the GTD category,” says Alec Udell, who put the No. 92 on pole position and finished third with Julien Andlauer. “There’s a ton of experience with the Porsches in the Porsche Cup championship, running up front consistently there over the last 10 years. Bringing that knowledge with the Porsche to the Riley motorsports team that has a history of success in the WeatherTech championship, I think it’s a really, really good pairing. There have been teething issues along the way, so not everything is rainbows and sunshine, but we’re working through it and we’re doing the best that we can.”
“The best we can” has been pretty good for a freshman effort; Udell was on the podium at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring with David Brule and Andlauer, and on Sunday teammates Alan Metni and Kay van Berlo won at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in the No. 91 Porsche 911 GT3R.
For Porsche Selected Driver van Berlo, who has two runner-up finishes in Carrera Cup, the partnering of two teams he has a lot of experience with has proven fruitful, but he’s not the least bit surprised.
“I’ve driven for both teams – last year for Riley in LMP3 where we won the Endurance championship; for Kellymoss where we’ve been fighting for Carrera Cup championships for three years,” said van Berlo. “I had no doubts that the team would be capable of winning GTD and would give us a good package in order to fight for the win in GTD. Connecting the two teams this year made it even better, since both teams have helped my career a lot in the past couple of years. So that was that was a good thing. Even though we had a rough race in Sebring, we had good pace, we were at the front. It didn’t completely work out because of several reasons. But we had the package to do it. And we showed it again this weekend.”
Daytona was a rough go for all the Porsche teams, and Long Beach was a struggle for Kellymoss. While Laguna Seca has proven in recent years to generally be a good track for the Porsches, it was Kellymoss with two cars on the podium, not any of the other Porsche teams. Had things played out slightly differently, it could have been a one-two for the team.
“I think we were surprised with how many yellows that were here at Laguna and maybe we didn’t take advantage of some of those middle yellows to get us in the right position,” explained Udell. “Obviously, the track is very hard on the tire here at WeatherTech Raceway and to be able to go for track position over maybe taking a pitstop early, that’s kind of what we opted for. And with all the yellows, I think it preserved the tire life longer than what you’re used to here, so maybe we missed a little bit there on strategy. And that’s just how it is. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t. We were very lucky to get some late yellows at the race in Sebring, which put us up on the podium and here. Maybe it didn’t go our way. But you know, we’re up there. We’re fighting for the wins, and that’s where we need to be here.”