DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Successful a sports activities automobile racing endurance championship in its sequence debut season is a uncommon achievement for any racing crew.
Successful two first-year endurance titles on the similar time is sort of extraordinary, however that’s precisely what Pierce Marshall, his longtime coach and co-driver Eric Foss and Matador Motorsports achieved in Historic Sportscar Racing competitors.
“To be blunt, the one time I’m on monitor is a race weekend with HSR,” Marshall stated. “My work schedule simply doesn’t permit the rest. So, my strategy to this complete factor is to get as a lot monitor time as I can at these occasions, and that’s the best way to do it. I do the Michelin Prototype Problem at each occasion, in addition to run the Mission HSR Classics after they’ve obtained them. For me, racing is a type of issues the place I really like my passion, and I’m blessed to be within the place the place I’ve my very own race store and that I can have a automobile like this.”
Driving the 2017 No. 02 Matador Motorsports Cadillac Dallara DPi, Marshall and Foss gained each the HSR Traditional Endurance Championship offered by Mission Meals Trendy Prototype/Sports activities Racer championship in addition to the season-long endurance title within the top-tier P1 class that was added to the HSR Prototype Problem offered by Michelin championship this yr.
“I might not have had these championships with out Eric Foss, who has been with me since I first began racing,” Marshall stated. “His teaching and driving have introduced me to the place I’m, and clearly Dan Binks and Binks Motorsports put together an unbelievable automobile for us. The rationale I feel we constantly had such good efficiency is that the automobile was nice proper off the trailer. There’s simply no substitute for that. We had been in a position to simply get in and go quick proper from the very starting with out chasing something, and that’s truthfully key.”
Matador’s season spotlight was undoubtedly the HSR Traditional Endurance Championship by Mission Meals by which Marshall, Foss and the No. 02 Matador crew gained two of the yr’s 4 races. In an “odd” incidence, the crew gained the opening Spherical 1 of the season on the HSR Traditional Sebring 12 Hour offered by Mission Meals in March and took its second win in Spherical 3 at Michelin Raceway Highway Atlanta in September on the inaugural HSR Traditional Highway Atlanta 10 Hour offered by Mission Meals.
The victories had been backed up by a second-place end on the HSR Traditional Watkins Glen 6 Hour offered by Mission Meals and a third-place exhibiting on the season-ending HSR Traditional Daytona 24 Hour offered by Mission Meals, which was sufficient to safe the 2025 title.
Marshall and Foss have been a successful partnership for greater than a decade.
“I used to be lucky sufficient to fulfill Pierce on the finish of 2012, so 13 years in the past virtually to the day in all probability, and we began working collectively,” Foss stated. He didn’t have a lot racing expertise again then, however I had quite a lot of GT expertise, and through the years now we have actually progressed by his race craft.
“After we obtained to the Prototype stuff I advised him, ‘You already know, I’ve no expertise in a lot of these vehicles,’ however he put quite a lot of religion in me and stated, ‘nicely, we’ll be taught this collectively.’ So, it’s been an superior journey of his studying by me, and me additionally studying the vehicles themselves. It simply makes it quite a lot of enjoyable and I’m very grateful how he places as a lot religion and belief in me as he does. In return, he’s at all times a pleasure to educate and is admittedly, actually honing his race craft and his enchancment, particularly over the previous couple of years. It has been fairly superior.”
Marshall, Foss and the No. 02 Matador squad had been the one crew within the HSR Traditional Endurance Trendy Prototype division to complete on the rostrum in each race this yr.
“It’s nice that HSR and Mission Meals and Juan Gonzalez got here up with this idea to make a championship out of those HSR Traditional endurance races,” Marshall stated. “I might argue they’re the hardest ones to win, particularly constantly.”
