2024 IMSA End of Year Racey Awards

Welcome to the 2024 IMSA End of Year Racey Awards! 

Coming off our season recap of the Hypercar class in the WEC, we now bring you the Racey Awards for the 2024 IMSA season, covering all four classes in the WeatherTech Championship. 

As was the case with the awards handed out for the Hypercars, we'll say it all again - these are the most prestigious awards that can be bestowed upon a team or driver anywhere in the racing world. There is no other media outlet on the planet that could give the kind of proper recognition that these teams deserve, and there is no other award that a team or fan would want to win more than the ones that will be handed out below. If you are the recipient of a Racey Award you're one step closer to motorsport immortality. 

If that all wasn't too over the top for you and you're still reading, we now present to you the winners of the 2024 IMSA Racey Awards - 

Undisputed Best Dinosaur of the Year - Rexy and AO Racing 

By the skin of his three gold teeth, Rexy came out with the GTD Pro championship in 2024 thus giving AO Racing all the runway possible to cook up some of the most insane merch imaginable come next season. Painting their Porsche GT3 into a giant green dinosaur has paid unimaginable dividends for the program in terms of fan interest, and now their Pro title gives them a springboard to capitalize on all the wins and hysteria that has been built up these last two seasons. Add all that to the fact that AO won the Pro title in their first season after elevating from the GTD ranks and what you have is an easy winner for Undisputed Best Dinosaur of the Year.  

Rexy go Rawwwr

This Track Is Bloody Cursed of the Year - Wayne Taylor Racing and Petit Le Mans 

The kind of race-ending, season-ending disasters that Wayne Taylor Racing keeps experiencing at Petit Le Mans are hard to explain. The best and easiest answer to provide is simply that they're cursed, and that something will just have to eventually break their way to end that curse. This year's flavor came in the form of Ricky Taylor narrowly avoiding a complete calamity when he clipped the No. 55 Proton Ford as it lay stranded on the track coming up the hill at turn 5. We wonder, is the reunion with Cadillac the medicine WTR need to finally break this streak of bad luck? WTR and Co. haven't won the championship since 2017 and had their run of four-straight second-place finishes from 2020-2023, although they do have four Rolex 24 wins since '17. Can you picture it now? Next October, Petit Le Mans, dahkness has fallen on the track, the No. 10 Cadillac with Ricky behind the wheel, leading with five laps to go, just five laps away from securing their first GTP title and finally breaking through...and then Satan himself appears on track and flicks the car into the barrier. Would you believe in the curse then? 

Will WTRs luck finally turn in 2025?

Sandbagging Special Post-Race Technical Penalty of the Year - Ferrari and BMW at the Rolex 24   

A year after Meyer Shank Racing was shadowbanned for messing with their tire pressures at Daytona, Ferrari and BMW followed things up with their own version of shenanigans when IMSA caught a performance discrepancy from practice and qualifying to the race, a discrepancy that has earned them the Sandbagging Special Post-Race Technical Penalty of the Year. The penalties focused mostly on rescinding the manufacturer points scored in the WeatherTech Championship and the Endurance Cup along with $25K fines, and BMW were especially PO'd as shown in their statement after the fact claiming they tuned their cars well within the BOP regulations. And just like Meyer Shank the year before, Rizi Competizione were not stripped of their class victory, rightly or wrongly, it depends on who you ask. 

All BMW and Ferrari teams got a slap across the face coming out of the 24  

Martin Scorsese's Cinematic Moment of the Year - Last 20 Minutes of the 12 Hours of Sebring

Do yourself a favor and relive the last 20 minutes of Sebring from back in March. Louis Deletraz and Sebastian Bourdais were straight-up unconscious as they battled it out inches apart from each other while splitting traffic and fighting for the win. Just absolute madness between two professionals gunning for victory, and much to Louis' credit he eventually found the gap needed to pass Bourdais and hold on for dear life all the way into the final turn, with Bourdais finishing just .891 second behind. 

GTP Privateer Team Moment of the Year - JDC-Miller Motorsports Podium At Indy

You get 'em anyway you can find 'em, and following the No. 6s post-race technical infraction (a very solid contender for Post-Race Technical Penalty of the Year) at Indy everyone's favorite Banana Boat prototype racecar was elevated to their first-ever podium finish in the GTP era. Battling it out as a customer team against the factory programs on the grid will always serve as the ultimate example of the spirit of racing, and it's up to us as fans to continue to prop up our GTP/Hypercar customer teams with unwavering support. Similar to how some people work to protect endangered animals or fight for the social issues of underprivileged peoples, I strictly put all of my activist energy into supporting customer programs in prototype racing #IDidMyPart #ProtectCustomerTeamsRights 

Everyone jump aboard the Boat! 

Worldwide Software Disaster Brought To You By CrowdStrike Moment of the Year - Crowdstrike by APR 

When about half of the world's computers went offline on the morning of July 19 and brought about one of the biggest digital shitstorms we've ever seen, George Kurtz wisely put the kibosh on his racing plans for the rest of the season and went back to CrowdStrike HQ to put out the fire as best he could. A part of me definitely wanted to see Kurt say screw it and still hit the track like nothing happened, but when you own one of the biggest cybersecurity companies in the world and that company causes a cataclysmic outage that created roughly $10 billion in financial damages, I *guess* racing has to take a backseat for a bit. 

The No. 04 looked way better after 24 hours of racing than CrowdStrike looked on July 19

LMP3 Honorary Crash of the Year - Pipo Derani at the 12 Hours of Sebring

Undoubtedly one of the most wild moments of the 2024 season came when Peacock returned from a commercial break with a square shot of the No. 31 Cadillac laying upside down on its roof with all four wheels pointing towards the sky. If you were like us as we sat in the driveway drinking beers through the 12 hours of racing, to suddenly see the race leader crashed out and resting on the tire barrier out of nowhere we all shouted "OH MY GODD WHATT??" And yeah, just like that the No. 31 was out of commission after leading for most of the race, and thank the Lord that the tire wall held up as well as it did because there were a whole lot of fans enjoying their day just past the barrier as it took the brunt of a prototype machine slamming into it at what, 120mph? Gold Star for the tire wall!  

   

Sad Pony Noises of the Year - Ford Multimatic Finish 6th and Last In Full-Season GTD Pro Standings 

The first year of the Mustang GT3 was - to be frank - mostly ass in both IMSA and the WEC. The two Proton Fords in the WEC finished 13th and 17th out of 18 entries, while the No. 65 Ford Multimatic finished last against the other eight full-season teams in the GTD Pro standings in North America. The bright spot to be seen was the No. 64 finishing 6th in the overall standings, helped immensely by a pair of late-season P2 finishes at VIR and IMS. But don't lose faith on the Pony Program just yet, we're primed for a major glow up in Year 2, you just wait and see! (there is no evidence to suggest a glow up is imminent or guaranteed we're just rolling with the tried-and-true 'Year 2 with the Car Will Be Much Better' copium).

What can we expect from the Mustang in 2025? We'll just got with "something better" for now

This Is What You Get For Ditching Porsche of the Year - Pfaff Motorsports switching to McLaren

It was a season from Hell for the Pfaff guys after their controversial decision to end a decades-long partnership with Porsche and switch to McLaren, bringing about a season of trials and hardship with their new 720S GT3 Evo. A pair of podiums at Laguna Seca and Watkins Glen were glimpses of hope along the way, but otherwise Pfaff didn't find much else in terms of performance and results for the other eight races of the season. Add that to the fact that they were teetering on the edge of folding as a racing program just before they secured the funding necessary for 2025, and what you got was a season in which Pfaff straight up did not have a good time.

Would Have Been Class Champions If Not For Winward Racing of the Year - Turner Motorsports 

The Turner Boys put together an impressively consistent campaign in 2024 with a race victory at Road America and three P2 finishes while also finishing inside the top 10 in nine of the 10 races this season. However they decided to do all of that in the same season that Winward Racing went absolutely ballistic with six total podium finishes split between four wins (Daytona, Sebring, Long Beach, Watkins Glen), a P2 at Mosport and a P3 at VIR. All of that produced a near-insurmountable lead going into the season finale at Petit Le Mans, a lead that WWR did not relinquish. Winward (3266) and Turner (3036) were the only GTD teams to crack 3K points in the standings, and they were also the only cars not to see a race retirement all season long. 

Any other season and Turner would be champs. Oh well. 

Livery of the Year - No. 5 Proton Competition Mustang Sampling 963

Bringing back a classic livery will always get the people going, and Proton's decision to bring back the Mustang Sampling black and gold livery to their 963 was the correct move in all the right ways. Pfaff put up a titanic fight for Livery of the Year when they dropped an Aryton Senna tribute for Laguna Seca, yet not having 'Marlboro' as the sponsor on the car unfortunately prevented it from claiming the award. For Proton, we're hoping they keep the Sampling design for at least for another year, and you wonder what's going to happen with the rest of the GTP liveries in 2025. Cadillac, BMW, and Porsche opted to keep the exact same designs on their machines in the first two seasons, yet naturally we're going to see different liveries come about as WTR goes back to Cadillac and Meyer Shank returns to run the Acuras. We'll see what those teams cook up for the new year. 

Would you just look at this thing?!

Potentially Program-Saving 1/2 Finish of the Year - BMW M Team RLL at Indy 

The BMW M Hybrid V8 has been plagued by electrical gremlins and a lack of consistent performance through the first two years of its existence, and only the No. 25 was getting results dating back to last season with a win at Watkins Glen (due to a post-race tech failure by Porsche) and two pairs of P2 and P3 finishes. It's been a way worse ride for the sister car, and as we all know, manufacturers' demand results and they demand them often. Up until the Battle on the Bricks in September the No. 24 hadn't sniffed a podium finish of any kind through 16 previous races, yet Phillip Eng and Jesse Krohn finally found their breakthrough and delivered on their maiden victory. Now that the monkey is off their backs, let's see if RLL keep the mojo going for 2025 (we sure hope so cause we don't want to see BMW axe the program). 

Stayin alive, stayin alive! 

Petition To Make This An Endurance Race of the Year - Road America 

Road America produces some of the best racing every time out, and the track AND the fans deserve it to be an endurance race when IMSA rolls around each year. 2:40 isn't enough time to enjoy all the madness that plays out - we need six hours at least. Indy was granted the honor of being expanded into an enduro but if you were putting both tracks up to a vote you know the fans would blow it out the water in picking RA; it's better racing, better camping, better views, better everything. IMSA are pretty solid when it comes to doing right by the fans, and this is the next domino to fall in our favor. Make it happen Doonan! 

 

Racing Fans of the Year - IMSA fans 

The last and most important award to hand out is Racing Fans of the Year - won by the fans of IMSA! Congratulations! Respect and honor this award with pride, we all earned it by setting record numbers for in-person attendance, viewership on the Cock and NBC/USA, and engagement on social media platforms throughout the season. The health and growth of the series has never been stronger, so enjoy this victory and let's prepare to do it all again next season in 2025.

We all earned this Racey Award - congrats!

So there you have it - all of the winners for the Racey Awards for the 2024 IMSA season. Is there anything that we missed? Comment below with who you think should have won an award in 2024.

(photo credit - Motorsport Media Hub)