| DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – How does a boy’s fascination with Kyle Busch’s M&Ms car from the late 2000s lead to a career in professional motorsports? Neil Verhagen can explain. When he was 7 years old, Verhagen was fixated on Busch’s brightly colored NASCAR Cup Series car, mainly on the M&Ms that graced the car. He recalls asking his dad, Ken, how he could become a race car driver. Dad didn’t have the answer, but he had an idea. “A couple of months later, there was a go-kart under the Christmas tree,” Verhagen said. “We just did it as family fun with my brother and I. We just played around very unseriously and had fun with it.” Skip ahead 17 years. A boy’s obsession with anthropomorphic candies on a stock car has transformed into something quite serious – his first victory in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and an unlimited future in a sport that’s far more intense than candy-coated chocolate. “This team knows how to win in IMSA,” Verhagen said of Paul Miller Racing, which moved Verhagen from a IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup role to a full-time role in the No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO for 2025, and added a second car – the No. 48 BMW co-driven by Dan Harper and Max Hesse. “They’ve had tons of success in the past,” Verhagen said of PMR. “We’ve definitely had to learn as a whole team and make (two cars) work. It’s a lot more difficult than people initially think. It’s like, ‘OK, they’re already running well, just add a second car and that will run well, as well.’ It’s very tricky to add a second car – more so than people think.” His stock rises with each race. Days after Verhagen and Madison Snow won the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class in the Motul SportsCar Grand Prix earlier this month at Road America, Verhagen signed with a new management group that represents several drivers with connections to IMSA and BMW. Verhagen’s contribution to the team’s Michelin Endurance Cup championship in the No. 1 car with Snow and Bryan Sellers in 2024 opened the door for Verhagen to advance to a full-time role when Sellers shifted from full-time driving into a new team management role at DXDT Racing at the end of last season. |
| Even though he was part of that endurance championship effort, Verhagen says he learns more with each race. “There is still a lot to learn,” Verhagen said. “There are some things that I’m learning along the way, as well, that we’ve been trying to polish.” So far, so shiny. After some disappointment early in the season, Verhagen and Snow and the No. 1 BMW are sixth in GTD PRO standings – just 10 points behind teammates Harper and Hesse and 80 out of fourth place – as the team prepares for the Michelin GT Challenge on Aug. 24 at VIRginia International Raceway. The team won at VIR last year with Snow and Sellers driving, its first GTD PRO win. Snow, the 29-year-old veteran with two GTD championships, mentors effectively, Verhagen said. “He’s obviously done IMSA for a long time, but Max, Dan and myself have also done full championships elsewhere,” Verhagen said. “We’re coming into a different paddock, but I think Madison is able to help with things like tracks that are new to us. The expectation for both cars was that everybody was going to be able to compete on a high level already from the get-go. That’s why we’re all here.” Winning at Road America proved special, perhaps prophetic. It was the site of Verhagen’s first SCCA Skip Barber Racing School event when he was just 13 years old. He continued to pursue open-wheel junior categories in the U.S. before joining the Red Bull Junior Team and racing in Europe, where BMW noticed. Verhagen was one of three Team USA Scholarship recipients in 2016. That’s nearly a decade ago already, but he was part of a memorable slate of winners alongside multi-time IMSA and IndyCar race winner Kyle Kirkwood and several-time junior open-wheel series champion Oliver Askew, who also has both IMSA and IndyCar race experience. “That’s when it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s actually potential that this could work,” Verhagen said of the Skip Barber weekend at Road America. “We knew there was a big chance of it then.” A long way from those days of karting for the fun of it, certainly. “It was fun to do it with my father and learn everything,” Verhagen said. “We just had the kart in the back of our pickup truck. We had a little tent, and we’d set it up and we’d go to these events and try to compete with all the big teams and their fancy equipment.” Now he’s the one with a prime seat in some fancy equipment. And he has M&Ms to thank for it. |
