Long Beach WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 2024
JDC-Miller MotorSports partners with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®for the remainder of the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season
April 15, 2024
Savage, Minnesota
JDC-Miller MotorSports is honored to announce it will be partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® for the remainder of the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.
The collaboration is possible thanks to a generous supporter of St. Jude and JDC-Miller MotorSports, who is dedicated to ending childhood cancer.
Watch for future announcements as we bring the power of St. Jude to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Its purpose is clear: Finding cures. Saving children.® It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. When St. Jude opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Since then, St. Jude has helped push the overall survival rate from 20% to more than 80%, and it won’t stop until no child dies from cancer. St. Jude shares the breakthroughs it makes to help doctors and researchers at local hospitals and cancer centers around the world improve the quality of treatment and care for even more children. Because of generous donors, families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food, so they can focus on helping their child live.
Visit St. Jude Inspire to discover powerful St. Jude stories of hope, strength, love and kindness. Support the St. Jude mission by donating at stjude.org, liking St. Jude on Facebook, following St. Jude on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, and subscribing to its YouTube channel.
Quotes:
John Church, Managing Partner, JDC-Miller MotorSports
“Our relationship with St. Jude began last June when we hosted Porsche Minneapolis and Porsche St. Paul at our facility for the 75th Anniversary of Porsche celebration. St. Jude was a key part of that effort, and our relationship was born. We take a lot of pride in being a very family-oriented organization, so it’s a natural fit. St. Jude is an impressive organization, and what they do is incredible. All of us at JDC-Miller MotorSports are very proud to support this effort.”
Amanda Cahow, Territory Vice President, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®
“We continue to be amazed and humbled by the generous support of our donors at St. Jude. This new partnership with JDC-Miller MotorSports will allow for the St. Jude mission to continue to grow and showcases the hope that St. Jude families find comfort in when they hear the four most devastating words a parent can hear, “your child has cancer”. We are so grateful for the way JDC-Miller MotorSports embraced our fight against childhood cancer and look forward to what the future holds as we find cures and save children together.”
William Dunne, General Manager, Porsche Minneapolis and Porsche St. Paul
“Our Porsche dealerships have been in a partnership with St. Jude for over a decade. Two years ago, we established a relationship with JDC-Miller MotorSports after they announced that they would be racing the Porsche 963. This relationship has grown stronger over time, as they have become an integral part of our Porsche community.”
“Connecting a passionate Porsche enthusiast with St. Jude and JDC is rewarding, knowing the partnership will help cure childhood cancer worldwide. I’m excited about what we can do together.”
JDC-Miller MotorSports partners with Kärcher North America for 2024 IMSA WeatherTech Championship season
January 23, 2024
Savage, Minnesota
JDC-Miller MotorSports is pleased to announce that it has partnered with Kärcher North America for the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship season, beginning with the iconic Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona on January 27, 2024.
As part of the partnership, Kärcher will become an associate sponsor and the Official Cleaning Partner for JDC-Miller MotorSports. The team will benefit from utilizing Kärcher cleaning equipment within the team’s race shop, race cars, and at the track.
The partnership brings together two entities utilizing equipment focused on innovation.
The Kärcher brand is associated worldwide with quality, innovation, and high performance. As innovative leaders, Kärcher is setting standards in technology, service, and design, to provide optimum benefits for its customers. This matches closely with the highly innovative and leading-edge automotive technology powering JDC’s sophisticated hybrid-electric Porsche 963 GTP race car, and the operational excellence required by the JDC-Miller MotorSports team and drivers to win in the highly competitive IMSA WeatherTech series.
Kärcher plans various sales and marketing activations around the partnership to reach and positively influence both consumer DIY and professional/commercial cleaners who demand excellence in their cleaning equipment.
With sustainability being a key corporate focus of Kärcher, this matches well with IMSA’s leading sustainability initiatives in the areas of automotive electrification, tire technology, solar power, EV charging, and diversity, within its organization.
Quotes:
John Church, Managing Partner, JDC-Miller MotorSports
“We are pleased to form this partnership with Kärcher North America. We look forward to working closely with them to develop their commercial goals. The brand is an excellent fit with our team and will greatly appeal to our team’s and IMSA’s fan base and corporate partner ecosystem.”
Robin Paul, Senior Director of Professional Product Marketing, Kärcher North America
“As a company committed to sustainability, we are proud to partner with JDC-Miller MotorSports as their official cleaning partner. Embracing cutting-edge technology and environmental responsibility, our partnership with IMSA hybrid racing showcases a shared commitment to a cleaner and greener future. Through this collaboration, we aim to accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices in motorsports, proving that high-performance racing and environmental stewardship can go hand in hand.”
“Furthermore, Paul added, we are excited to utilize JDC-Miller MotorSports’ highly visible performance platform to develop the Kärcher brand and sales in North America. This collaboration will allow us to achieve greater brand awareness and overall value for our consumers and professionals.”
About Kärcher
The company’s solutions serve customers’ cleaning needs in an economical and environmentally friendly manner. The company continues to distinguish itself with its inventive spirit, top-class performance and innovative cleaning solutions.
Kärcher is the world’s leading provider of cleaning technology. The family-owned business employs more than 15,300 people in 150 companies located in 80 countries. Kärcher North America is one of the largest subsidiaries with over 1,100 employees in the United States. Kärcher produces and distributes products and services under the brands Kärcher, Hotsy, Landa, Water Maze and Legacy.
Visit Kärcher here.
Privateer Porsches Stake Their Claim at Roar Testing
January 20, 2024
JDC-Miller and Proton Competition Top the GTP Chart in the Afternoon Session
By John Oreovicz for IMSA
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – When it comes to pure numbers, Porsche has the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship covered, supplying four of the 10 cars in the Rolex 24 At Daytona field.
Porsche is also the only one of four (soon to be five) manufacturers participating in GTP that currently sells cars to private customer teams in addition to fielding the two Porsche Penske Motorsport entries. Those customer Porsches proved their worth Saturday at Daytona International Speedway, as Phil Hanson turned the fastest lap of this year’s Roar Before the Rolex 24 test sessions in the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 in preparation for next weekend’s Rolex 24.
Hanson’s time of 1 minute, 35.216 seconds (134.599 mph) in the fourth sessions of track time since Friday paced a tight field in which the top five cars were clustered within about a quarter of a second. Neel Jani and Connor De Phillippi came closest to Hanson on Saturday afternoon, clocking identical 1:45.329 laps in Proton Competition’s No. 5 Porsche 963 and the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8, respectively.
Hanson, a 24-year-old Englishman, was asked whether he felt the factory Penske Porsches that finished eighth and 10th in the same session were not yet showing their hand.
“I don’t think we’ve shown our hand yet, to be honest,” Hanson replied with a grin. “The JDC boys did a really good job of rolling out with a strong package this morning, and I think that showed in both practice sessions. We were very fast in the morning when my teammates drove, and that also translated into the afternoon.
“I think we’re in good shape, to be honest,” he added. “We’re just trying to learn as much as we can about the car. There are several other things we want to understand, foreshadowing the race weekend. There are going to be very different conditions, so we want to get as much data as we can now to adapt as best we can. The team is doing a really good job at the moment, and it’s nice to be at the front.”
JDC-Miller was the first customer team to campaign a Porsche 963, beginning in May 2023 in the race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The team’s full-time drivers this year are Richard Westbrook and 2023 carryover Tijmen van der Helm, joined at the Rolex 24 by Hanson and last season’s Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class champion Ben Keating.
Keating is performing double duty at Daytona, sharing the JDC-Miller Porsche in GTP while also anchoring the driver lineup in his full-time ride – the No. 2 United Autosports ORECA LMP2 07 in the LMP2 class. Keating was fastest in LMP2 in the Saturday afternoon session, notching a 1:39.047 lap (129.393 mph). Nicklas Nielsen turned the quickest LMP2 lap of the day in the morning with a 1:38.576 (130.011 mph) in the No. 88 Richard Mille AF Corse ORECA.
Keating shares the No. 2 car with Nico Pino, Ben Hanley and Patricio O’ Ward. United Autosports also paced LMP2 on opening day of the Roar, in the hands of Paul di Resta in the team’s No. 22 entry.
“Obviously it’s early in the process of going through this event, but it’s looking like we’re near the top,” said di Resta, whose No. 22 Daytona teammates are Daniel Goldburg, Bijoy Garg and Felix Rosenqvist. “We’re being naive in the sense that we’re just concentrating on ourselves, trying to make the best possible car with the philosophy we think, and hopefully that will enable us to battle for the win.”
Klaus Bachler managed the fastest GT lap of the day, recording 1:45.799 (121.135 mph) in the afternoon session in the No. 86 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (type 992) that competes in the GT Daytona (GTD) class. Tommy Milner produced the day’s best lap in the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class in the morning, timed at 1:45.844 (121.084 mph) in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Porsche finished 1-2-3 in GTD in the Saturday afternoon session, a year after a difficult debut for the latest generation of the 911 GT3.
“I would definitely take it if next Sunday we would end up in this position,” Bachler remarked, looking ahead to the Rolex 24. “Nothing else to say – it was a good session for us, and the car felt really good. Last year was really hard for us; it was honestly the longest and hardest 24-hour race I’ve ever had. This is different this year, for sure.”
Roar activities were scheduled to continue Saturday evening with a two-hour session under the DIS lights. A final GTP session is set for 1:25 p.m. ET Sunday, just ahead of Rolex 24 qualifying for all classes starting at 1:55 p.m. Peacock has live streaming coverage of the Sunday practice and qualifying.
The 62nd running of the Rolex 24 takes place Saturday, Jan. 27. Flag-to-flag coverage is available on the NBC Sports platforms, with the race start airing live on NBC network beginning at 1:30 p.m.
