IMSA’s Endurance Hour Is the Podcast Fans Didn’t Know They Needed

IMSA has hit its highest point in the sanctioning body’s history in terms of popularity within the paddock and without. Genesis, Ford, and McLaren are expected to join the WeatherTech Championship’s GTP category by 2028, and the GT3 class is booming. Promoters are selling tickets—or in the case of Road Atlanta, not selling them after the track was jammed to capacity for Petit Le Mans.

The fans love the cars. But what about the drivers?

Advertisement

IMSA has a fix in place to help elevate its participants’ profiles. It’s called the IMSA Endurance Hour, a podcast that launched on YouTube last year with 24 episodes hosted by longtime TV pit road commentator Matt Yocum. Making no claims about avoiding the fast forward button, after binge-watching 24 episodes, here are the Top 10 most unexpected things learned about IMSA participants.

Ricky Taylor and the F-Bomb

One of his paddock buddies once bet Cadillac driver Ricky Taylor $100 he couldn’t say the f-word. His father Wayne Taylor is known to let slip with blasphemy on occasion, such as when the team owner dropped an f-bomb in his Victory Lane interview at the Rolex 24.

Advertisement

From an early age, sons Ricky and Jordan Taylor declined to follow in their father’s footsteps, deciding to swear off swearing. Ricky predicts his younger brother, a Wayne Taylor Racing teammate, will be the first to break out of the nerd mode between the two of them.

Insurance Salesman Renger van der Zande

Acura driver Renger van der Zande got his start in IMSA by selling insurance. After getting dropped from Mercedes’ DTM team, the Dutchman faced debts to supporters who helped fund his career in Europe’s lower formulas. He decided to launch a company with a businessman friend to sell car insurance to racing teams at European venues. “They kept asking why I wasn’t racing anymore.”

Advertisement

The insurance business was a success, which enabled van der Zande to accept one-off drives where only airfare and hotel rooms were offered as payment. This eventually led to a regular drive in the American Le Mans Series PC entry of Starworks in 2013 -- just as the ALMS and Grand-Am were merging.

Mike Rockenfeller and Garage 56

How did Mike Rockenfeller land his job as one of the drivers for the Ford Mustang GT3 program? He says that job offer resulted from driving Hendrick Motorsports’ Chevy Camaros at Le Mans in the highly successful Garage 56 project in 2023.

Rocky initially accepted the Le Mans project “because I didn’t have anything else to do.” The veteran of Audi prototypes and German Touring Cars quickly learned about the popularity of NASCAR in the US, and the oversized car was a big hit in France. “I wasn’t super excited about it, but it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my whole life.”

Motorcycle Racer Leigh Diffey

Like him or loathe him (there seems to be no middle ground), announcer Leigh Diffey has paid his racing dues.

Advertisement

His father helped him pursue motorcycle racing in his native Australia as a youngster. While a college student, Diffey was offered cash to call motorcycle races at a local track, which came after realizing his mates were considerably quicker and giving up on riding himself. Eventually he hit a crossroads, deciding to skip a career as a phys-ed instructor to pursue full-time announcing in the UK before landing in the US.

Tommy Milner’s One-Finger Salute

Tom Milner Jr. may have raised $15,000 for the American Eagle Foundation by selling t-shirts memorializing his single-digit salute to a BMW competitor during last year’s Rolex 24. But the veteran Corvette Racing driver’s passionate gesture was not well received at home, perhaps a little surprising given that he is the son of longtime racer Tom Milner.

Advertisement

The driver’s mother said, “I thought you were a nice guy.” His reply? “I’ve tricked you all these years.”

Scott Pruett’s Rolex Collection

How many Rolex watches does 10-time Rolex 24 winner Scott Pruett own? Pruett’s first two victories in GTO came before the annual tradition of giving Rolex watches to all the class winners was launched in 1992. But he was already a collector and now owns 17.

Ahead of the curve, he bought his first Rolex, a Submariner, as a reward to himself for winning the final IROC event at the Riverside International Raceway in 1987.

AO Racing’s Kid-Friendly Cars

One could be forgiven for thinking AO Racing owner P.J. Hyett, a software multimillionaire, is also a marketing genius in addition to a championship team owner and driver. There is some truth to that, but mostly he wanted color schemes for his race cars that his kids could pick out on TV.

Advertisement

That gave birth to Rexy and Roxy, the dinosaur-themed Porsche 911 GT3 Rs, and Spike, the dragon masquerading as an LMP2 entry. All are now perennial paddock favorites. “My kids,” he said, “were always wondering about their father when I was off racing.”

Check the Owner‘s Manual

If you think the current era of IMSA WeatherTech Championship cars are difficult to master and require homework, you would be correct.

NASCAR star Austin Cindric appeared in Episode 1 of the Endurance Hour while sitting in the Mustang GT3 buck of Ford Racing’s simulator. But before getting in, Cindric had to study 36 pages of instructions on how to operate the Mustang built by Multimatic.

Sophomore Slump

A second championship is harder than the first, according to Ben Barnicoat, who co-drove with Jack Hawksworth to the GTD Pro title in 2023 for the Lexus team of Vasser Sullivan. “When you are trying so hard to win that first championship, the adrenaline really keeps you going,” said Barnicoat. “In 2024 we maybe relaxed a little bit.”

Advertisement

The team split up Barnicoat and Hawksworth for the 2025 campaign, but has paired them again in GTD Pro for 2026.

Not Quite F1

Jack Aitken, driver of Action Express Racing’s Cadillacs, was caught off guard when he first visited the team’s shops near Lake Norman, just north of Charlotte. The facilities, organized by longtime NASCAR crew chief Gary Nelson, were a bit rustic compared to the F1 teams of Renault and Williams, where Aitken worked as a simulator driver. “It was a departure,” said the London-born driver. “But it has everything we need, not to mention quite a few trophies on the wall.”

Aitken upgraded his new team’s equipment by bringing an espresso maker. “I’m a coffee snob,” he said. “I admit it.”