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Photo: SUPER GT Three-time GT300 class champion Morio Nitta has announced he will conclude a three-decade stint as a SUPER GT driver at end of the season. Nitta, 59, revealed the news on Wednesday ahead of this weekend’s season-closing double-header at Motegi, coming not long after he scored his first victory for seven years in last month’s Autopolis round alongside K-tunes Racing co-driver Shinichi Takagi. It brings to a close an unbroken tenure in the Japanese sports car racing series that stretches back to 1996, the year in which he won the first of his three titles. Notably, Nitta has spent his entire 30-year career in SUPER GT in the GT300 division, winning further championships in 1999 and 2002. “At the end of this season, I, Morio Nitta, will be drawing a line under my journey as a SUPER GT driver,” wrote Nitta in a brief statement on social media. “‘Persistence pays off” are words that have always been close to my heart since I was...

Source: Sports Car 365

Photo: Brandon Badraoui/IMSA Lone Star Racing will make the step up to a full-season IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship entry, with Lin Hodenius and James Roe as drivers in the team’s GTD class Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. Announced on Tuesday, the Texas-based squad is set to embark on its first full-time WeatherTech Championship effort, having contested the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds for the last three years. “We’re super excited to jump off our first full season in the WeatherTech Championship,” said team manager and technical director AJ Petersen. “We started in 2016 doing GTD sprint rounds in IMSA and continued in ’17 and ‘19. We came back in ’24 with endurance in ’24, ’25 and ’26. “To put it together for a full season effort is what we’ve been working towards for years. Working to do with proper partners, and we’re looking forward for years to come. It’s a solid foundation we’ve assembled.” The Dan Knox-owned team recorded top-ten class f...

Photo: Brian Cleary/BCPix Staff Sgt. Nathan Munnings, of Jacksonville, N.C., will officially retire from the U.S. Marine Corps after 13 years of service during the second-annual CrowdStrike Veterans Race of Remembrance powered by AWS on Sunday at Virginia International Raceway. Munnings was looking for a way to transition back into civilian life when he found Operation Motorsport, a non-profit that offers motorsports programming for veterans with a disability rating in the U.S. and Canada. He applied for their Motorsport Immersion program and spent the season working side-by-side with the crew while embedded with Random Vandals Racing in the GT World Challenge America Series. “Operation Motorsport has given me a renewed sense of purpose and a team to belong to as I transition out of the Marine Corps,” Munnings said. “Being welcomed into Random Vandals Racing has given me camaraderie, mentorship, and the opportunity to keep learning and contributing.” The sec...

Photo: Andrea Lorenzina/DPPI Porsche’s Ayhancan Guven admits that he found the transition to the FIA World Endurance Championship’s LMGT3 class “harder than I expected” as he got used to coaching less experienced teammates for the first time with the Manthey squad. The Turkish driver, who arrived in the WEC as defending DTM champion, is sharing a car this year with James Cottingham and Timur Boguslavskiy, with the No. 91 crew sitting eighth in the teams’ championship ahead of this weekend’s Monza finale. While Guven brought a wealth of experience of Porsche GT3 machinery to the lineup, his main campaigns until this year have mostly been in either in single-driver series like the DTM or have involved sharing a car as part of all-Pro lineups. Reflecting on the transition, Guven said it took time to get used to sharing information with Cottingham and Boguslavskiy, who he feels have gradually improved in the 911 GT3 R Evo transitioning from McLaren a...

Source: Sports Car 365

Photo: SRO America Staci Langham Perry has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of SRO America, as part of a strengthening of the company’s leadership. Langham Perry, a highly respected figure in the North American motorsport paddock, has been part of the organization for more than 15 years, most recently serving as the general manager. During her tenure, Langham Perry has helped drive growth in entries while placing an emphasis on competitor satisfaction, operational efficiency and overall race weekend experience. She will continue to report to SRO America President and CEO Greg Gill. “Staci has been an essential part of SRO America’s growth and evolution, and her promotion to Chief Operating Officer is a natural progression of the leadership she has demonstrated throughout her career,” said Gill. “Her extensive knowledge of our championships, strong relationships throughout the paddock, and unwavering commitment to our competitors and partners ...