IMSA Wire: Turner BMW Duo Hanging Tough in GTD Championship

Road America Win Ends Team’s Two-Year Victory Drought
August 13, 2024By John OreoviczIMSA Wire Service

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Central Wisconsin is not generally regarded as a hotspot for Mexican food. But the tacos at Road America sure tasted good after Turner Motorsport ended a victory drought of two-plus years in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
The cuisine was even more satisfying when chased with a Spotted Cow beer from Wisconsin brewer New Glarus.
Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher teamed to take Turner’s No. 96 BMW M4 GT3 to the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class win Aug. 4 in the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America. It was the first WeatherTech Championship victory for Gallagher and the eighth for Foley – all with Turner. It earned the drivers and the rest of the Turner organization the team’s traditional victory celebration of tacos, apparently paired for some with a favorite local brew.
“It’s a bad day to be a Spotted Cow!” Gallagher exclaimed in his interview over the track’s public address system from Victory Lane. “I’m just happy for these guys behind me working in the shop and on this race car every week. They bring a fast race car. They make our job easy. I’m just thrilled, and maybe we can get a streak going.”
Gallagher and Foley will need to if they hope to catch the class-leading No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 and drivers Russell Ward and Philip Ellis. The good news is that the Turner duo ranks second in the GTD standings. The bad news is that they are 268 points behind the Winward pairing with just three races remaining in the 2024 campaign.
The No. 96 BMW has actually scored just one less point than the No. 57 Mercedes in the last five races. Unfortunately, Turner dug itself a 267-point hole in the first two events of the season, the Rolex 24 At Daytona and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Cadillac, races won by Winward while Turner finished 14th and sixth.
Foley and Gallagher clawed back some of the margin with a second-place finish at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in April and have finished in the top five in every race since. But Ellis and Ward added victories at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in May and Watkins Glen International in June, followed by a second-place result at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in July, to grow their cushion to 340 points before Turner’s Road America win shaved 72 points off the deficit.

For Foley and Gallagher, the Road America victory – the team’s first since Foley and Bill Auberlen won at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in May 2022 – is hopefully the catalyst toward a championship charge. Foley is especially optimistic about the next track on the calendar, VIRginia International Raceway, where he and Gallagher finished second in 2023.
“I think my approach to this championship is win when you can but get points,” Foley said. “Things get crazy. Patrick and I have had five top-two finishes and we have not even driven together two years. We’ve missed the top step, for sure, but for us, we don’t want to change a thing. The car is working well. We’re learning the new tire every week, every time at a new track. Don’t do anything fancy.
“Winward runs a great program. Russell and Philip do a great job week in, week out, and they’ll be tough,” he added. “This is the first weekend we finished ahead of them. We need to close the gap. Our BMW loves VIR and (Michelin Raceway Road) Atlanta, for sure. At Indy (Indianapolis Motor Speedway), we had a strong car last year but were unlucky in the race, so we’re optimistic. Just keep the pressure on, but don’t do anything silly. We haven’t sealed second in the championship yet.”
If Foley and Gallagher do pull off the GTD championship comeback, they’ll be eating a lot of tacos along the way. For the short term, they’re content to enjoy their breakthrough success together from Road America.
“I’m just happy to bring it home for Turner, our first win since 2022,” Foley said. “These guys have been an absolute family for me since we did a couple races in 2018. They’ve given me the opportunity, and BMW has given me the trust to drive their cars. I owe a lot of thanks to the team and all our partners.
“We should have had a couple wins this year, but hopefully we get some more and get on another streak. The monkey is off our back now, and we’ll keep pushing for more.”
The GTD and GTD PRO classes race in the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR on Sunday, Aug. 25. The race airs live at noon ET on USA Network, Peacock and IMSA Radio.