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• Kyle Washington, James Sofronas, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Patrick Long Co-Drive the No. 132 GMG Racing by Car Collection Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R in the Pro-Am Class in World’s Premier 24 Hour GT3 Race

• Washington and Sofronas Turn Team’s First Laps in Productive Bronze Test Session Tuesday

• GMG Racing’s Todd Parriott Teams With Andy Lee in Belgium Competing in the SRO GT4 European Series Support Race for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours

STAVELOT, Belgium (June 28, 2023) – Championship-winning sports car racing team GMG Racing has arrived in Belgium where team drivers Kyle Washington, James Sofronas, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Patrick Long have united for a Pro-Am class campaign in this weekend’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa in the No. 132 GMG Racing by Car Collection Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R on the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

Debuting 24 Hours of Spa drivers Washington and GMG Racing principal and founder Sofronas turned the team’s first laps of the event in Tuesday’s Bronze Test, clocking in a solid ninth fastest in class in the productive session.

“There is no question this place is overwhelming as far as the aura it has around it, the stories you hear through the pits and just seeing Eau Rouge,” Washington said. “Our pit is right at the base of Eau Rouge, so we get to see every car every time go blowing by us at speed, ripping up there. I could sit there and watch it like a fire. It’s just mesmerizing. All around it is just a mecca of sports car racing, I have never experienced this European fanfare and knowledge. We did some impromptu autographs and people had pictures of every car, knew Jeroen’s and Pat’s racing history, and had photos from all of these races over the years that they had personally been to. It’s just amazing, and it’s not just the men, the Dads. It is also the Moms, Grandmas and Kids, they are all fanatical about it.”

This weekend’s 24 Hours of Spa debut has been fueled by the three-year development of team driver Washington and three decades of race and championship-winning sports car racing programs in North America led by Sofronas and the growing GMG Racing operation.

“The test yesterday was really to get Kyle and I back in the groove,” Sofronas said. “We did a lot of laps, and the point was to get us up to speed, which we did. I think we are prepared and now we want to get Jeroen and Pat in the car. The test went well but this is a seriously stacked field. We will see how everything shakes out after qualifying, but in this 24-hour race you have to be there at the end.”

Long is the accomplished former Porsche factory driver who retired at the end of the 2021 season but makes a one-off appearance at Spa in support of GMG and Washington, who he has mentored and coached the last few years.

“Pat is definitely retired,” Washington said. “He happens to be here for non-racing reasons, he has been coaching me for a couple of years, and let’s just say he may or may not have lost a pool bet! This weekend he is fulfilling his obligation of that particular wager! Is Pat Long a better race car driver than pool player? One thousand percent!”

The GMG effort at Spa is in partnership with top European sports car racing team Car Collection Motorsports.

“I have only raced against Car Collection before but they have won a lot of the big races already, which shows they know how to do the job,” Bleekemolen said. “It’s great, no worries or concerns at all, everything just runs more or less by itself. We just relax and enjoy the driving, come up with a good strategy of course, but it all goes very well.”

The GMG Racing presence at Spa this week also includes a support-series entry for team driver Todd Parriott, who is teammates with Washington and Sofronas in this year’s Porsche Sprint Challenge North America Western series. Parriott co-drives with top American sports car racing driver Andy Lee in the SRO GT4 European Series that is a featured support race of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours.

“Todd Parriott and Andy Lee tested at the same time as us on Tuesday for the GT4 European Series race and did really well,” Sofronas said. “They like the car, Racing One is doing a great job presenting it, and so far so good. Todd has really come along great for his first time being here, and Andy was quick right out of the gate. All of the traffic mitigates fast-lap opportunities to really see what you got, but they were on pace right from the beginning.”

Following Wednesday’s traditional competitor parade through Spa City Center, on-track action at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa begins in full on Thursday, June 29, with free practice, qualifying and night practice in preparation for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa that runs July 1 and 2.

Championship-winning sports car racing team GMG Racing makes its major international competition debut in next weekend’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa where team co-drivers Kyle Washington, James Sofronas, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Patrick Long co-drive the No. 132 GMG Racing by Car Collection Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R in Pro-Am Class in the world’s premier 24-hour GT3 race.

“This is the biggest GT3 race in the world and probably one of the hardest ones to win because every car on track has the ability to run up front,” said Sofronas, a championship-winning driver who is the founder and principal of GMG Racing. “You are going to be fighting every corner, every lap for 24 hours, and there aren’t multiple classes with different types of cars. We are all in same-spec GT3 cars, so this is probably one of the biggest challenges of my career and in the history of GMG Racing from that regard.”

The 24 Hours of Spa debut has been fueled by the three-year development of team driver Washington and three decades of race and championship-winning sports car racing programs in North America led by Sofronas and the growing GMG Racing operation. Headquartered in Orange County in Southern California, GMG Racing is also expanding with a new 27,000 square foot trackside motorsport facility at The Thermal Club, the exclusive luxury motoring enthusiast and competition driving club that Sofronas and GMG have supported since it opened in the greater Palm Desert, California area over a decade ago.

“I am really proud of our driver development program and how it’s evolved with many of our clients coming from The Thermal Club. We strive for all of our clients to reach the highest level that they want to achieve,” Sofronas said. “Having Spa as the halo event to shoot for is fantastic, and to realize that in a short period of time – especially with Kyle, who has only been racing for three years – and has gone through our ladder program, is fantastic. What started at Thermal and has escalated to Porsche Cup racing, SRO, IMSA and now this massive endurance race at Spa is a testament to our program and the team behind it all.”

Sofronas and Washington co-drive at Spa with two of the best sports car drivers of their generation with Bleekemolen and Long. Bleekemolen, a native of the Netherlands, is well familiar with GMG and raced and won with Sofronas in North American SRO GT competition in the past. Long is the accomplished former Porsche factory driver who retired at the end of the 2021 season but will make a one-off appearance at Spa in support of GMG and Washington, who he has mentored and coached the last few years.

“It is great to be part of this lineup and working again together with GMG Racing,” Bleekemolen said. “As soon as the whole project started it was, for me, a cool thing to be involved with. I have raced a lot with James in SRO, we have had some wins there, so that relationship goes way back. We even did the 24 hour in Daytona back in 2011. I did Daytona last year with Kyle, and we all have always wanted to come back together. Great group of people, and having Pat onboard is just amazing. It’s great to drive with him, I have raced with him before, so it’s all going to be a lot of fun.”

The GMG effort at Spa is in partnership with top European sports car racing team Car Collection Motorsports.

“I was introduced to Car Collection through a mutual friend in the motorsports industry, and I have watched them for years with all of their success, but they switched to the new Porsche GT3 R platform this year and they have already shown how competitive they can be,” Sofronas said. “They have won races overseas, in Dubai, the Nurburgring, so the experience is there, and after my first interaction and test with them at the Spa test days last month, I knew we picked one of the best teams we could have worked with. I am excited, this team is switched on, very well run and organized, and we had strong pace at the test. We are optimistic about the race.”

While the CrowdStrike 24 Hours marks GMG’s biggest international race to date, the team and Sofronas have 10 years of experience racing in Europe. The team won a Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Finals title at Vallelunga, Italy in 2013 and returned to the same Super Trofeo event in 2019 in Jerez, Spain. The team and Sofronas also won in GT2 competition in Barcelona, Spain in 2019, the same year Sofronas made a pair of starts at Spa in the Porsche GT2 RS inaugural race and the 30th Anniversary SRO Invitational representing Team USA.

“I have been lucky enough to race overseas, but not in this race which is so significant, and the fact that I am doing it with one of my close, dear friends Kyle and two top professional drivers in Jeroen and Patrick, who I have either raced with or against, makes it extra special. Jeroen and I raced and won together in SRO and I raced against Patrick 10 years ago in GT World Challenge, so it is going to be great to all be on the same team together. I am very excited and anticipating an action-packed week in really focusing on getting the team up to speed for that top spot in the Pro-Am class.”

The 24 Hours of Spa is also a special event for Bleekemolen, who has won Le Mans and other legendary endurance races, but joins Long in looking for his first victory in the twice-around-the-clock race at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

“I am really looking forward to it, I think it is one of the coolest lineups we can have,” Bleekemolen said. “We are all friends, we are all going to have a great time, and that usually contributes to good results as well. I am really excited to go back to Spa which is where I had my very first 24-hour race, the very first one I ever did. So it is also a special race for me. I have never won it, for me this is the big one that is missing, more or less, so if we have a chance to win, that would be amazing, but first of all we are going to do all that we can, have a nice time, and then we will see how far we can get and fight for the win.”

The GMG Racing effort at Spa next weekend also includes a support-series entry for team driver Todd Parriott, who is teammates with Washington and Sofronas in this year’s Porsche Sprint Challenge North America Western series. Parriott competes in the SRO GT4 European Series that is a featured support race of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours.

“Todd is one of our most recent driver development clients, who came in again through The Thermal Club, we got him his license, did a lot of testing, started doing some Porsche racing and now he is dabbling in GT4. What started out as him wanting to come out and watch, experience and learn more about Spa turned into an opportunity – from the relationships I have overseas with the European teams – for Todd to not just watch but to race. So we are super excited for him to do the GT4 support race at Spa. Needless to say, we are going to have a great time over there, we have a lot of friends and support coming out, and having Todd there is extra special because I know he is as excited as anyone to have his first race at Spa and in Europe.”

After the traditional competitor parade through Spa City Center next Wednesday, on-track action at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa begins in full on Thursday, June 29, with free practice, qualifying and night practice in preparation for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa that runs July 1 and 2.

As 2022’s successful racing campaign comes to a close, the GMG Racing Team is already hard at work building a foundation for a jam-packed 2023 season. The final event of the 2022 season just took place at Daytona International Speedway with the IGT Series where GMG Racing and it’s drivers, Kyle Washington, Todd Parriott and James Sofronas not only swept all the sprint races and enduro with overall wins, but took 2 class wins in their Cup cars. James also debuted their new Audi R8 GT3 LMS EVO2 with great success capturing 3 of the overall wins over the weekend.

The Team has been quite busy over ’22, with their efforts in SRO, IMSA, Carrera Cup, and the Porsche Sprint Challenge paying experience dividends. Not content with just being busied by racing, the Team has been hard at work with product development and testing at the Thermal Club, where they’re building a new 27,000sqft trackside motorsport facility.

For 2023, GMG is going all-in on VW AG brands – Porsche, Audi, and Lamborghini – and building on their decade-long championship-winning legacy. We’re grateful to Aston Martin Racing and Jason Bell for their past two seasons with GMG, when he won the 2021 GT4 America Championship, but for 2023, it’s time to refocus and align with manufacturers where we have strong relationships and pedigree.

As in years before, ’23 will see Porsche bearing the GMG standard with entries for all three models in SRO, IMSA, Carrera Cup, and the Porsche Sprint Challenge. The highlight of the season will definitely be the delivery of the new 2023 992 GT3R in June, which will be used in multiple championship events. As many as four of the 992 Cup cars will be used in the competitive Carrera Cup Championship and Porsche Sprint Challenge Championship, as we continue to use the latter program to develop newer drivers within the GMG Racing program. Many of these drivers come from the Thermal Club, where we first introduce them to our program with their street GT3 or GT3RS Porsches. GMG preps their vehicles with the necessary safety equipment and performance enhancements to increase durability and improve the driver experience at the purpose-built racing facility. Often, the drivers quickly maximize the capabilities of their street-driven vehicles and look to expand their driving experience to wheel-to-wheel racing. This is where GMG Racing Team owner James Sofronas comes in, leveraging 30 years of championship-winning experience to lay out a path for each aspiring racer to achieve their goals and desires.

Like last season, Audi will once again act as a pillar of the GMG racing campaign. In addition to once more backing the Audi R8 GT2, both the R8 GT4 and the newly acquired R8 LMS GT3 EVO2 will see GMG’s peerless support. Using the Audi cars offers another GT3 option for GMG’s drivers to run in higher GTD and GT3 classes for ’23, before the new GT3R arrives in June. The GT4 car has been a staple in the GMG program since its release in 2018, when GMG Racing won a double championship with the vehicle.

Finally, GMG does have one additional hotly-anticipated event on the ’23 calendar: Rennsport Reunion 7. One of the most exciting events for the season, we’ll be bringing no less than six P-Cars, as well as a booth featuring many of our renowned Porsche performance products. With over 100,000 attendees forecasted, we’re excited for the best-ever Rennsport Reunion in September!

As always, stay tuned this offseason for 2023 updates and announcements from the GMG Racing Team, and we’ll see you at the track!

With a storied history consisting of tense competition, embattled victories, and one of the most difficult courses on the racing calendar, GMG welcomes back its home race, The Long Beach Grand Prix, after the event was red flagged for 2020. 2021 will mark the 15th anniversary of GMG’s first entry back in 2006, driving a Porsche 996 Cup Car in the World Challenge series, now known as SRO Competition. Since then, GMG has competed at the same circuit with the ALMS series in 2010 and 2011.

While the technical and difficult track hasn’t changed, GMG will face a new challenge this year, entering the highly competitive class of IMSA GTD, fielding the formidable Porsche 911 GT3R. Combined with a team of unwavering and steadfast work ethic, GMG have made every possible preparation to continue the success they’ve enjoyed on the Streets of Long Beach.

Sitting just 25 minutes south of the famed the circuit resides the Headquarters for GMG’s performance tuning, engineering, and race shop. Because of the proximity to Long Beach, this event is their home race and personal proving grounds for their line of performance parts that carry the moniker, “proven on the track, refined for the street”.
Kyle Washington, James Sofronas’ Co-Pilot, who acquired his first Porsche Cup and GT3R race Car less than 2 years ago, has made a tremendous impact in the racing world in that short amount of time. He‘s secured impressive finishes in the SRO GT3, recently battling for a 3rd place in GT America class at Road America.
The duo of James and Kyle initially met at the acclaimed Thermal Club, a gorgeous, world-class motorsports facility, located just outside of Palm Springs which will also play host to GMG’s new 25,000 sq ft. motorsports facility opening in 2023. Their friendship has developed into a strong bond, a bond that will help them co-pilot their GT3R in this weekend’s highly anticipated Roar on the Shore event.

James Sofronas: “I’m extremely excited to be back at Long Beach! The atmosphere for this event is electric and I have always looked forward to competing here since my first time back in 2006. To have Kyle Washington as my teammate makes it extra special as we’ve been training together for the last 18 months to build up to an event like this. Being our home race, we’ll have many friends/family members and guests in attendance and the GMG crew is ready for the challenge. Kyle is an extremely talented athlete and combined with his tenacity, has proven that the hard work he puts in pays off. He’s also an amazing friend and when we are racing together, there is no lack of excitement when he is in our paddock. This event is going to be an epic. I want to thank all our sponsors, especially Circle Porsche who have been key to not only our racing, but have been so helpful in our street car performance side of our business. Mike Earnst and his team are first class every time and we couldn’t do this without them.”
Kyle Washington- “This is a bucket list race for me, with James and I having worked so hard for nearly 2 years to be able to get here. The GMG team have become almost a second family to me and I feel very honored to battle for the podium knowing how much professionalism they’ve put into our car setup. I hope we can bring home a great result after this massive effort. I want to Thank my Family and everyone who’s been behind me not only here in Long beach, but during this entire season. Centr, Eboost, DraganFly, Seaspan, and Troy Lee Designs.”
Race time is 2:05pm PST and will be broadcast live on NBC Sports network.