JDC-Miller Motorsports has announced that it will expand its racing program in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for 2017 by entering the Prototype class with an ORECA 07 LMP2 car.
JDC-Miller Motorsports currently races in the Prototype Challenge class of the American endurance series, as well as fielding entries in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Series and the IMSA Mazda Prototype Lites Series.
Here is the release in full from JDC-Miller Motorsports.
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Current Prototype Challenge entrant JDC-Miller MotorSports announced it will add a Prototype class program in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2017 with an ORECA 07 LMP2 car, as part of its current IMSA programs.
Team co-owner John Church confirmed today that the Minneapolis-based squad will be on the grid with a 2017-spec ORECA 07 Gibson-powered LMP2 car in 2017.
JDC-Miller MotorSports currently fields the # 85 PC entry in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship along with the #54 ST car in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Series. JDC MotorSports also operates a very successful multi-car entry in the IMSA Mazda Prototype Lites Series. The team won the season opening Rolex24 Hours of Daytona and the Long Beach Grand Prix in the PC class, and currently sits 3rd in the driver’s championship.
JDC-Miller will continue to run its current Prototype Challenge car in 2017 with the driver lineups for both programs to be finalized in the coming weeks. Current JDC-Miller MotorSports regulars Misha Goikhberg, Stephen Simpson and Chris Miller will remain with the team, but firm commitments to either program have not been confirmed.
“All of our current drivers will be part of the new LMP2 program in some form in 2017 and beyond. Additionally, we obviously have great talents in our Mazda Prototype Lites program with Austin Versteeg and Clark Toppe who we would love to move into our recently announced P3 (PC1 class) program for 2017.” Church explained. “We have also had several conversations with a number of other potential drivers for the 2017 LMP2 program.”
With the confirmation for the LMP2 Prototype class program in 2017 and the recent announcement to field LMP3 spec Prototypes in the newly branded 2017 IMSA Prototype Challenge championship, JDC MotorSports and JDC Miller MotorSports will run programs in all IMSA Prototype classes in 2017.
“This is a very exciting program for 2017 and we felt this was the right time to move into the P2 class. We are confident in Oreca and feel they share our vision and goals. We have had a very strong relationship with them over the past 3 years.” Church explained. “Clearly our long-term goal is to become part of a DPi manufacturer program in the future”, Church explained.
“We are delighted by the commitment of JDC-Miller MotorSports with the new ORECA 07 LM P2. We have a strong link with the team since several years and it is great to continue our cooperation with this new challenge. The team is involved in all the different classes of the endurance racing ladder, so it is a logical but important step. We will bring our experience to support JDC-Miller MotorSports and help them to fight at the front. It is an excising multiple-years project and we are glad to be part of it. We can’t wait to see the new ORECA 07 at Daytona.” ORECA Group president Hugues de Chaunac added.
JDC-Miller MotorSports is the first American team to announce its plan to run the new ORECA 07 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The target is to make the first U.S. test during the Daytona series test in December before continuing with private testing leading up to the Roar Daytona test in January.
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In 2023, Joan Mir joins Marc Marquez in the Repsol Honda team and with the MotoGP season a little more than 11 weeks away, he gave his first interview as a rider competing with his new manufacturer, saying “every rider has imagined himself with these colors.”
In only his second campaign in the senior series, Mir had his greatest success. He finished second in his fourth start in the Austrian GP and then slowly built an advantage by following his first career podium with five more in the next seven races. His first victory came in the European Grand Prix and with that momentum built a sizable lead in the points over the Fabio Quartararo, who would go on to win the championship the following year.
Mir finished third in 2021 on the strength of six podium finishes. None of these were a victory.
After finishing outside of the top five in the first two rounds of 2022 and learning in May that his current Team Ecstar Suzuki would leave the series, he never got up to full speed, missing the podium in 16 starts and four races altogether to injury.
SOPHOMORE SUCCESS: Joan Mir captures his first MotoGP championship
Mir’s elevation to the top series came quickly. Two seasons in Moto3 resulted in a championship in 2017 and fifth place in the standings in 2016. He spent only one year in Moto2 and finished sixth in the points.
Now, just four years into his MotoGP career, he has top-three points’ results in half his campaigns. But last year was his worst season; he finished 15th overall with a career-low 77 points.
Mir believes his move to Honda will reinvigorate his career.
“My feelings when I joined a team like this one were unbelievable,” Mir said at MotoGP.com. “I think that every rider has imagined himself with these colors, so being a part of this makes me really proud to arrive in such a sweet moment in my career. I think that I am in a sweet moment and I’m also young to try to repeat again what we’ve done in the past. So, let’s see what we can do.
“Of course, to be a part of this team means more pressure, because only winning is a good result here. We know that we arrive at a difficult moment, but the approach to racing has to be the same one: Try to be as fast as we can to bring these colors to where they deserve.”
“Every rider has imagined himself with these colours”@JoanMirOfficial shares his thoughts about becoming a Repsol Honda Team rider and what he thought of the Valencia Test.
📄 https://t.co/Ebv3y9xqJq pic.twitter.com/IXlWap1kfc
— Repsol Honda Team (@HRC_MotoGP) January 3, 2023

Pressure in 2023 will also come in the form of comparison to Marquez, who gave Honda six championships in seven seasons from his rookie year of 2013 through 2019. Injuries began plaguing the champion in 2020 and it remains to be seen if that has taken anything from the 59-time winner, whose last victories came in back-to-back races in the 2021 United States and Romagna Grands Prix.
“To share the box with Marc is a true challenge because he’s the best rider on the grid and the one with the most titles,” Mir said. “This is something that can be really good in one way and probably more difficult in another. You can share some data with him and you can learn a lot from the inside, but if you don’t perform in the way that you want, you always have a tough rider on the other side of the garage.
“He knows how this bike works perfectly. He’s able to ride in a way that the bike asks for: going really fast into the corner, which is probably faster than the bikes that I have tried in the past.”
For more of the interview with Mir, click here.

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