{"id":248946,"date":"2026-04-02T20:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/248946\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T20:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:18:10","slug":"ao-to-return-to-long-beach-with-gtd-entry-for-king-pederson-sportscar365-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/248946\/","title":{"rendered":"AO to Return to Long Beach With GTD Entry for King, Pederson \u2013 Sportscar365"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"gofollow\" data-track=\"MTEsMCwxLDEw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.michelinman.com\/why-michelin\/trust?utm_source=sportscar365&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=whymichelin-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MICH_Motorsports-Banner-Ad_728x90.png\" height=\"90\" width=\"728\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-143274\" class=\"size-full wp-image-143274\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Badraoui-SEB12-03-19-26-82148-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"600\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-143274\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Brandon Badraoui\/IMSA<\/p>\n<p>AO Racing will once again return to the GTD class in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, albeit with a revised lineup from its class-winning effort last year.<\/p>\n<p>Confirmed on Thursday, the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo, known as \u2018Roxy\u2019 will contest the 100-minute GTP\/GTD-only race with its new-for-2026 full season driver Harry King and newcomer Mikkel Pederson, who fulfills the class requirements of a having a FIA Silver or Bronze-rated driver.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the team claimed class honors with Laurens Vanthoor and Jonny Edgar. Vanthoor will be racing in the GTP class with Porsche Penske Motorsport, while Edgar will be on FIA World Endurance Championship duty at Imola that weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great to be bringing Roxy to Long Beach this year after Rexy\u2019s win in 2025,\u201d said team principal Gunnar Jeannette. \u201cHarry is no stranger to the team, but it will be Mikkel\u2019s first time driving our dino-Porsche.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were impressed by Mikkel\u2019s driving as teammates in the WEC RSR\u2019s and are looking forward to his IMSA debut with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>AO is the second GTD Pro team to confirm an entry in GTD for the race, <a href=\"https:\/\/sportscar365.com\/imsa\/iwsc\/pfaff-confirms-temerario-gt3-entry-for-long-beach-with-vanier\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">joining Pfaff Motorsports\u2019 Lamborghini Temerario GT3<\/a>, which will be driven by Andrea Caldarelli and Silver-rated driver Zachary Vanier.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-del=\"avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/dagysheadshot3-80x80.jpg\" class=\"avatar pp-user-avatar avatar-60 photo \" height=\"60\" width=\"60\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide.  <a href=\"http:\/\/sportscar365.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#6306070a170c112310130c1117100002115055564d000c0e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Contact John<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ss365-1.png\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Brandon Badraoui\/IMSA AO Racing will once again return to the GTD class in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-248946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}