January’s Rolex 24 opener came to an unfortunate end after the No. 80 team and drivers battled at the front of the GTD pack for more than half the race, but the overall competitive and race-leading run at Daytona – combined with the gains from the Sebring work this week – give Lone Star plenty to build on ahead of its second 12 Hours of Sebring.

“We’ve got a great start here,” said Knox, Lone Star Racing team owner and driver. “It’s a good building block to start the season. We’ve still got some work to do to be where we want to be. We’re still not quite there but we’ll get there. We’ve always managed to get to the top with one of the fastest cars. We’re close. We’ve just got a few more things to work out. For me, a lot of it is just getting used to the car again. It’s been over a year since I’ve driven a GT3. I’ve been driving GT2 and GT4 Mercedes-AMGs the last couple of years, and just how much more grip and downforce the GT3 is something to relearn, but I’m getting there and am excited about it.”

Lone Star is contesting the IMEC GTD Championship – which awards the top performers in the year’s five endurance races – for the second straight year with first time IMSA endurance race drivers Knox and Filgueiras joining returning team pro Andrews in the No. 80 Mercedes-AMG GT3. The trio was joined by Mercedes-AMG driver Ralf Aron for the Daytona opener.

Shaking off some procedural and competition related penalties early in the Rolex 24 on Saturday, solid stints at the wheel by all four drivers put the No. 80 back on the lead lap and soon battling for the GTD lead as Midnight approached. Andrews and Filgueiras each stepped up to lead race laps early Sunday morning as the No. 80 stayed in GTD contention throughout the night.

Andrews and Aron traded off driving stints at Daytona while running in the GTD top three as Sunday dawned, but disaster hit during a crowded restart just past 8 a.m. EST as the field raced into Turn 1. Andrews got caught up in a multi-car incident and limped the damaged No. 80 back to the pits. The Lone Star Racing team repaired the right rear suspension on the No. 80 to get the car back in the race several laps down but voluntarily withdrew later on Sunday morning with no realistic chance of gaining any significant finishing positions in the GTD field. The final results listed the No. 80 in 14th place in GTD running order.

Lone Star Racing is run by longtime Team Manager and Technical Director AJ Petersen.

“We’re just working hard,” Petersen said. “In Daytona, we had a fast car. We had some hiccups in the race but we battled through them. Running at the front legitimized what we did last year. It wasn’t a fluke. We’re just continuing to build on everything. We have a really nice, tight small team and we’re all driven to reach the same goal. As cliche as all that stuff is, that’s what we’re doing and you can feel it. We’re all excited about this year. Dan’s driving great. Scott and Eric are good teammates, and it was great to have Ralf join us at Daytona to help us get off to the competitive start. They work well together and complement each other, there’s nothing but optimism here.”

“The Daytona pace was really, really good, and we worked well as a unit,” Andrews said. “Racing stuff happens, so just put it behind us and move onto the next race. The two days at Sebring this week were really positive here. We learned a lot with the car. We can take what we learned into March and fight for a podium in the 12 Hour. All of the teams are doing well, and we’re all relatively close to each other. It’s really going come down to who leads going into the last 40 minutes and who doesn’t make any mistakes throughout the race. The new torque sensors take a lot of work but have brought the racing a little bit closer. It’s definitely evens out the playing field a little bit. The Lone Star team is able to adapt, which we’ve been able to do, and it helps really, really well.”

Florida-native Filgueiras co-drove with Steven McAleer to the 2023 GT World Challenge GT3 Pro Championship and now made his IMSA WeatherTech debut at the “World Center of Racing” with Lone Star. He has even more experience on the legendary 3.74-mile Sebring circuit where he has won in both GT3 and GT4 competition, including a GT4 America sweep last year.

“From a performance standpoint, Daytona checked all the boxes for us,” Filgueiras said. “It was everything we would have wanted. Even though it wasn’t the result we would have hoped for, it left us with a really promising idea of how we can come to the 12 Hours of Sebring. I consider Sebring more of my home track from a driving standpoint than Daytona because we don’t get to Daytona very often. I’ve spent a ton of time at Sebring, not only coaching but also racing in the past in in GT3 and GT4 and have won in those categories. That gives me a lot of confidence coming into it, as well the fact I love the track. It’s a challenge, and the 12 Hours of Sebring is just a classic staple of endurance racing. It’s the fan turnout, it’s everything that makes the 12 Hours of Sebring what it is and the Sebring track what it is. I’m just so excited about it.”

“The Daytona result was very, very bittersweet, but I know everybody’s happy that we got to prove what we could do,” Aron said. “But to be honest, the first time I sat in the car in December, I came out smiling because I knew what we could do. Lone Star Racing has done a great job, the car is mega, and also a big thanks to Mercedes-AMG as well. Definitely, we were the manufacturer that needed to catch up on the new torque sensors and the guys basically pulled a miracle because we were super competitive in the race and had cars fighting for the wins to the end. I was just really happy to be there and super happy I got the opportunity. I mean, we were flying on track. We were in the lead pack in the fight for the win, which is all I wanted. Sometimes things go like this and unfortunate events happen. I guess we just move on and hopefully I get invited back here. I am looking forward to watching what our Lone Star Racing teammates are going to accomplish this season in the remainder of the endurance cup.”

Next up for Lone Star Racing in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition is the 73rd running of the 12 Hours of Sebring, March 12 – 15, at Sebring International Raceway.

Noteworthy

– For the second-straight year, Lone Star Racing called on the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America’s SPARK program for both some needed manpower and to give something back to the motorsports community while competing in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. SPARK stands for “Students Preserving American Racing Knowledge” and is the Hall’s student education program that guides high school, trade school and college-age aspirants to careers in motorsports. After SPARK student Parker Rossman, then a Senior at North Florida University in Jacksonville, embedded with Lone Star at last year’s Rolex 24, the team doubled up on SPARK interns this year. A pair of 18-year-olds from Tampa, Michael Mitchell – a Senior at H.B. Plant High School – and Tyson Boyd – a Senior attending Robinson High School – worked with the Lone Star Racing from early Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon. The students were primarily assigned to assist the team’s tire specialist put in well over 24 straight hours of paddock and pitside work on race day.

Both SPARK students helped the Lone Star crew get the No. 80 back on track after Sunday morning’s incident.

“They put this special duct tape called Bear Bond on the car and patched it right up,” said Boyd, who wants a career in motorsports engineering but would also like to drive in competition someday. “They had heat guns covering up the side pod. There was a huge crack in the side of the door, there was a hole in our radiator and a chunk out of the front wing. We just took that tape, patched it up, cleaned the car and sent him back out there. I would love to be a race car driver on this track one day and become an engineer in aerodynamics or any way of modeling parts to take a different approach and philosophy in how to sculpt a car to be the most efficient at cutting through the air.”

– Knox took his first laps at Sebring this week since his only previous experience on the track over a decade ago in the Viper Racing League. “Not much has changed in 13 years,” Knox said. “It’s still very rough. Bumpy. In 13 years, I’ve done a lot, so getting back and remembering the track was a little mixed. Some of it I remembered, some of it I didn’t, but I got up to speed really quick and I’m ready to go.”