The sands of the WEC Hypercar and IMSA GTP classes are shifting, with JOTA and Andretti moving to Cadillac, Meyer Shank returning to Acura, and Chip Ganassi Racing pushing to find a new home. World-class service providers are in demand right now, and their value is only increasing with the promise of Genesis joining the WEC and IMSA, Alpine exploring GTP and other major manufacturers, like McLaren, still evaluating future programs. So, who is still out there capable of stepping up when the next wave of manufacturers arrives?
In the past, the FIA WEC’s LMP2 class proved to be a breeding ground for private teams looking to showcase their abilities to OEMs. Team WRT, JOTA, Prema (via Iron Lynx), and Signatech have graduated since the category was dropped at the end of 2023 and make up the core of the LMDh programs in Hypercar that we see today. But there weren’t enough seats for everyone to claim in the game of musical chairs that ensued when the GTP and Hypercar classes first took off, meaning a handful of teams were left to explore other options.
One of those was United Autosports, a team that came achingly close, on multiple occasions, to joining Hypercar. Richard Dean and Zak Brown’s multiple Le Mans class-winning outfit has been in talks with various OEMs about operating a factory program on and off for the past three years. But to this point, the right opportunity, at the right time, hasn’t yet come up.
However, instead of moving on to projects in other areas of the sport, United has doubled down on its goal of reaching the top end of sportscar racing. To put itself in pole position for the foreseeable future, it has scaled up its operation and added a second facility in the USA to its existing base in England.
When LMP2 was removed from the WEC, the Anglo-American outfit moved its flagship prototype effort Stateside in time for the 2024 Rolex 24, and has had to adapt to life in the IMSA paddock quickly. However, with a win already under its belt, a podium in Sebring and a front-row qualification at almost every race this season, the team already looks at home in the WeatherTech field and appears to be in a strong position heading into its second campaign in 2025.
United has made quick progress since the current season began, in part because it wasn’t entirely new to racing in IMSA. But the switch was never going to be completely seamless, as the logistical, financial and competitive differences between running a partial and full-season campaign in IMSA is stark. That’s why setting itself up in Mooresville, North Carolina, made sense.
To help hit the ground running, it shifted it U.S. operation from a small facility in Florida to the spacious shop in North Carolina, which previously housed JR III’s IMSA effort. And it’s a decision that is beginning to pay dividends.
United Autosports USA now finds itself reaping the rewards that come with having permanent homes on both sides of the Atlantic and expertise on tap from its USA general manager Billy Glavin, who was appointed ahead of the 2024 season. Not only is it set up for success in IMSA’s LMP2 class going forward, but it now has two facilities, in two key locations, to run a GTP and/or a Hypercar program out of.
“As soon as LMP2 was coming out of WEC, we knew we were going to come full-time to the States,” Richard Dean told RACER. “Obviously, we’ve done select one-off races in IMSA before, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but to replace our WEC LMP2 program with one in IMSA was the obvious next step.
“Back in March of 2023, I started to have some trips over to look about how we were going to do it, how we’re going to approach it. To do a full-season program was going to be tricky, so I attended more races last year than I’d done before, and at the same time, I was visiting various places to see where we would be based.
”We had a little workshop from our first IMSA P2 effort back in 2017 in Florida where we parked a trailer and unloaded some stuff there, but it wasn’t really suitable to run two cars from. So I knew we needed a new and permanent U.S. space.”
The obvious candidates for a base in the USA are Indianapolis and Mooresville, as these locations house the majority of the country’s motorsport community. And after much deliberation, the latter proved to be the right fit, in part because it’s a short drive from Charlotte, a city connected to the UK by multiple direct flights each day. For a team that also operates in Europe, it’s ideal.
So why did United opt to utilize Jr III’s exiting site instead of setting up a base from scratch?
“I’ve known of Billy for a while,” Dean explained. “We’ve run a lot of the same drivers in LMP3 cars before so there was a link. I found myself chatting to him at Watkins Glen during the IMSA weekend when I went over to his set-up to say hi to Garrett Grist. I knew Billy had a strong operation that was always well-presented, so we got chatting about the future.
“This relationship, which now sees him head up our IMSA operation on a day-to-day basis, works perfectly from both sides and came at the perfect time. We were moving LMP2 from WEC to IMSA, and JR III was looking at options for the future with LMP3 being removed from WeatherTech.
Having a base on both continents removes the ‘trans-Atlantic flight’ element from jobs like stripping down cars after a race, or preparing them for the next one. Image via United Autosports
“We kept in touch and I did my research. Everyone speaks extremely highly of Billy and his operation, so when he invited me to come see the workshop, I accepted and came down to see it with Max Gregory, our managing director, later in the year.”
Like its multistorey facility in the UK, located in Wakefield, Yorkshire, the 18,000-square-foot workshop that houses United Autosports USA is perfectly suited to hosting a multi-car program. It’s a building large enough to offer dedicated floor space for United’s LMP2 cars and JR III’s sizeable historic racing and restoration business.
“Both parties have helped each other with this,” Glavin said. “We’ve had our successes in IMSA, winning a championship and a lot of races and United was searching for expertise and a location that would ease the transition.
“We’ve had to downsize a little since this deal, as JR III no longer goes racing under its own name, but we ran pretty lean anyway, and everyone that’s moved on has moved onto other opportunities in the area. You can do that here.”
By appointing Glavin to run United Autosports USA, and retaining a group of dedicated full-time staff, Dean doesn’t need to send people across from Europe to keep the IMSA effort firing on all cylinders. If United wants to go testing, the USA team can take a car out without the need for anyone from Yorkshire to get on a plane. If United wants to attend a meeting in the States, Glavin and his team can hop in a car or take a short-haul flight. If United needs specific parts for a race car that aren’t readily available in Europe, Glavin and take a walk down the road and visit local suppliers in minutes.
“Now we have fully-established United Autosports USA, I don’t know how you’d do this properly from Europe without a set-up like ours,” Dean admitted.
“It’s such a benefit to be able to load our cars into trucks after a race and send them to a proper workshop where they can be stripped down, re-built and inspected between races and not need to spend our lives on trans-Atlantic flights to service, transport and prep cars.
“I’m glad we aren’t parachuting in and out. You could, if you wanted to, make some more money and do this cheaper, but over the course of a season you’ll miss out on good performances.”
Now United is winning races in IMSA, Dean and Glavin are looking to the future with sky-high ambitions. This was never going to be a one-year deal, as United has always seen its foray into WeatherTech full-time as a long-term shift to running major programs in the USA alongside its efforts in the FIA WEC and European Le Mans Series. And with results now coming in all three championships at once, everyone involved can afford to look further ahead.
The coming year is poised to be hugely successful and significant. United has already had its pair of LMP2 entries accepted for the WeatherTech season, and is finalizing its driver line-ups as we speak. Beyond that, it is expected to return to the WEC and ELMS and challenge for titles in both.
Lest we forget too that Dean and Brown still have aspirations to move into the top class of either the WEC or IMSA. As Hypercar and GTP continue to grow, they have positioned their team as a headline candidate for the manufacturers currently circling. United now has the resources and capacity to run a factory program in either championship, or both at the same time if required to do so.
It has major race wins and titles under its belt. It has the expertise. It has the floor space on two continents to run a major program from, too. All it needs is the right deal at the right time to compete at the top end of the sport. And United is pushing to take the next step.
“We came to the USA because we wanted to grow, we wanted to establish something permanently here. And we found common ground because Billy is exactly like Zak and myself. He’s a winner, and he just wants to race. We see this as a big opportunity to put ourselves in the running for GTP as well as Hypercar,” Dean teased.
“Will it happen? We’re working on it!”
