– Austin-Based Marc Austin Runs First IMSA Races in This Weekend’s IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge Doubleheader at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) in the No. 11 Lone Star Racing/Mad Joker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3
AUSTIN, Texas (February 24, 2025) – Texas based Lone Star Racing and Austin-based team driver Marc Austin make their IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge debut this weekend at Circuit of The Americas. Austin drives his No. 11 Lone Star Racing/Mad Joker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in Saturday’s same-day doubleheader schedule of races as the IMSA VP Racing series makes its COTA debut in support of the headlining NASCAR Cup series race. All weekend races will be run on COTA’s 2.3-mile, 20-turn National course that will be used for the first time for a major race weekend in over a decade.
Austin shares the same name as the Texas capital city that is home to COTA and lives just 10 minutes from the track in nearby Buda, Texas. Lone Star Racing, meanwhile, is based less than a quick three hours away in the Dallas Fort-Worth area in Cresson, Texas. Both Lone Star and Austin consider Saturday’s races a pair of “home games” on a “home track” on which they have seen some success.
Austin and Lone Star finished fifth the GT3 class in a GT America sprint last year at COTA in the same Mercedes-AMG GT3 they race with this weekend. Austin has also won a pair of Trans Am XGT races at COTA in the AMG in recent years.
“Marc is still really new to GT3 racing but he’s still having fun and still learning,” said Lone Star Racing Team Manager and Technical Director AJ Petersen. “He has raced with us in GT3-based sprints many times here at COTA, Indianapolis, Road America and Sonoma. He’s also been testing a bunch and is making some really good gains in the Mercedes-AMG GT3. The debut of the VP Racing SportsCar Challenge at COTA is a great opportunity for him to sample IMSA at his home track.”
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This weekend Austin and Lone Star compete in the new GT3-based GTDX class that debuted in the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway (DIS) in January. “We are really excited about the IMSA race on NASCAR weekend at COTA,” Austin said. Number one, it is 10 minutes from my home, so that makes it easy. We are pretty familiar with the COTA track and bringing out about 40 VIP guests for this race. It’s pretty exciting that we are using the National course layout. That will be a twist for everybody, including us. I have been really looking forward to stepping up and taking a shot at running in IMSA and the quality programs and series that they offer. It’s great to just have the chance to be involved at our home track, and we are ready to go. You couldn’t ask for a better group to run with than Lone Star Racing. You know that the car will be great, so the rest is up to me.” The COTA National circuit was last used when the Australian-based V8 Supercars visited Austin in 2013, the first and still only appearance of the popular series in the U.S. The VP Racing Challenge races are on the short National course, which nobody has driven,” Petersen said. “It’s going to be a tight track that doesn’t give tires a break, and here we are bringing a car that’s really good on tires, has good downforce and with a local driver. I think it’s lining up pretty good for us.” Austin welcomes the National course challenge. |
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| “It will be new to go left at Turn 6 instead of going right,” Austin said. “And the biggest thing is we won’t have that long breather down the backstraight, where you usually get a little break and catch your breath. It’s going to be closer to a bullring. You are just hustling non-stop in all of the sim-training we have been doing, and every 90 seconds the front straight comes around pretty quickly. It’s really going to ramp up the intensity.” The GTDX division is one of three classes competing in the VP Racing Challenge on the track at the same time. The mid-engine prototypes in Le Mans Prototype 3 (P3) are the fastest and join the GTDX competitors in sharing the track with GT4-based Grand Sport X (GSX) class, the least fastest division in the race. “We have run our Mercedes-AMG GT in Trans Am where our class shares the track with TA1,” Austin said. “They are faster, but we are also out there with GT4 cars, which is the same as GT America, and we have also run at COTA in WRL in the middle classes. So, we have had experience with lots of passing, when you are not even sure who you are passing or what faster car is going by you. You just keep your head down and keep going. I don’t believe that the LMP3 cars will be much different than a TA1 car coming at us at 175 mph, but we are a lot faster than TA1 in the turns. Of course, the P3 cars will obviously corner well too but that is just something else we have to account for and maybe even use to our advantage when we are running in traffic battling in our class.” A tight, two-day event, a pair of Friday practices at Noon and 2 p.m. CST local time pave the way for qualifying early that evening at 6:30 p.m. CST. Saturday’s first race goes green at 8:40 a.m. CST, and the second and final 45-ninute sprint of the day is scheduled to go green at 5:00 p.m. CST. Both races stream live on NBC’s online Peacock network in the U.S. and YouTube.com/@IMSAOfficial outside of the U.S. |
| About Lone Star Racing: Based at Motorsport Ranch within the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area in Cresson, Texas, Lone Star Racing is competing in the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the 2025 IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup in the GTD class. Lone Star Racing and its team members have won races across North America spanning sprint and endurance racing formats. The crew has worked together on many different teams and various types of cars, developing a strong bond and proven capability that gives them a competitive and winning advantage. Lone Star Racing competes with the support of primary partner ACS Manufacturing, Inc. (http://www.ACSManufacturing.com). Look for Lone Star Racing and team owner/driver Dan Knox on Facebook and follow the team on YouTube at Lone Star Racing, on Twitter and Instagram @LSRTeam and on the official team web site at http://www.LoneStarRacingTeam.com. |