DETROIT, MI (Saturday, June 1, 2024) — The Paul Miller Racing team capitalized on a messy day of racing on the streets of downtown Detroit, keeping their nose clean and executing well to finish fifth after starting at the rear of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Pro field.
Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow had a difficult day ahead of them. After struggling for pace in qualifying, Snow would start 11th and last in the field. But, through clever pit strategy, a well-executed stop, and 35-minutes of caution in the 100-minute race, the No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 machine would avoid the incidents that marred their peers and advance through the field to cross the line fifth.
“In Laguna Seca we had a seventh-place car and finished seventh. Here we had an 11th-place car and finished fifth!” Paul Miller Racing team manager, Mitchell Simmons, said.
“Before the race, I came on the radio and told everyone that today would be hard, but no matter what we were going to perform to the same level as if we were going to win this race, and they really did.
“The crew kept looking for more speed, and they executed the pit stop perfectly. The drivers drove a really heads-up race today on a day when a lot of others didn’t and we managed to stay out of trouble. And I also want to give special thanks to our spotters. They are always really top-notch and that paid dividends in avoiding incidents today. All-in-all, this was a team effort and we took a tough day and turned it into really a pretty good result. One we can be happy about.”
After today’s 100-minute sprint race, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns to endurance racing later this month with the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen in Watkins Glen, New York June 21-23.
Bryan Sellers
“I think resilience is the word of the day this weekend. It was a tough weekend as soon as we rolled onto the track—we knew we weren’t going to have the pace. I think where you have to shine in those moments is that you have to keep looking and keep trying, even when it’s hard. I think everybody kept looking. I think we were still missing speed to some of the other cars, but we gave it the best effort we could. We threw every single thing we could at it. But, in these races what really matters is survival. Survival is what moved us up quite a bit of places. It saved some points for us on a day where it could have been significantly worse and those are the types of days that keep you in it. We’ll go on to the next and hopefully have some more speed and be able to race a little bit harder.”
Madison Snow
“I think we should be getting some sort of ‘Hard Charger’ award for this one! We definitely worked our way up. The crew worked really really hard all weekend making big swings and changes between every session to try and gain everything we could. It seems like we had the fastest car we could have in the race, so all that hard work paid off. We still weren’t quite on pace with the field, but we managed to stay out of trouble and run a clean smooth race with a great pit stop and that’s what got us up to fifth. This weekend, after how it had gone, that fifth feels like a podium.”
