Driven by Determination: A year inside IMSA Racing

2024: A Year Inside IMSA

I should start by introducing myself. My name is Morgan Burkhard, and I drive race cars. My addiction started 18 years ago when my Mother, with me in her belly, took a victory lap in my Father’s race car at Summit Point Motorsports Park. Ever since that day I have been absolutely obsessed with motorsports. I took my first steps on a childhood dream when I was six. The moment I sat in a kart for the first time I knew there was no turning back. I spent ten years in the karting world, going to nationals and competing out of the bed of a pickup truck. I never had a whole lot of success in karting, so remember that for later. In 2022 I acquired my Sports Car Club of America competition license at Summit Point Motorsports Park, in my dad’s ITA Honda CRX. That year I managed to earn the Washington D.C. Region’s Rookie of the Year award, which was huge for my personal confidence levels. Now, 2023 was a little different.

I ended up switching from ITA to the Spec Racer Ford Gen3 in the early stages of 2023 (which wasn’t really supposed to happen but that is a story for another time). You know how they say it’s better to be lucky than good? Well, I got lucky. By some miracle, in AprilI I met Jackson Gardner who (out of the pure good in his heart) guided me through the marketing side of motorsports. Over the summer we began to work closer and closer on all things marketing. In June, Jackson invited me to come out to New Castle Motorsports Park to coach for MPG Motorsports, a professional karting team. Needless to say I had a wonderful time (never been so excited to wake up at 5am and work until 6pm) working with so many kids who seemed to have the same fire I had when I was six.

I ended up coming back to a few more kart races throughout the year, and by doing so caught the eye of the co-owner of MPG Motorsports, Bill Vincent. For those of you who do not recognize that name, Billy was the Director of Competition for Arrow McLaren’s Indycar program for a few years (he resigned to focus on our karting program in July 2023).

I found immediate success in the spec racer and when the dust had all but settled I found myself to be a Majors Tour Champion, 17 years old, and sitting on the pole at the National Championship Runoffs. I felt ready to lead a field of 40 drivers, 9 previous national champions, and a total of 49 podiums, to the green. Unbenounced to me (probably for the best) I was the first rookie to take the pole at the Runoffs since 2003, and the first to do so in a Spec Racer since 1993 (huge shoutout to Mike Amy and Dog Gone Racing, could not have done it without him). Before I knew it, the green flag flew and the field was off to the
races. At the time I had no expectation that anyone would be watching what was happening. Long story short, I ended up running 4th, the last car in the lead pack for 12 of the 15 laps. On lap 13 I had a suspension failure entering south bend, and I exited the race from a podium position. I was absolutely gutted. Shortly after the end of the race and podium ceremony, I was introduced to someone standing in my paddock. That someone invited me to have a private conversation, and turned out to be a ‘scout’ for Hixon Motorsports (one of the best MX5 Cup teams there was). This was absolutely nuts to have not even finished the race and have a conversation about entering the future professional ranks.

The next few months were an absolute whirlwind. I was nominated for the Mazda MX5 Cup Shootout, and met with multiple teams about the 2024 Cup series. None of these avenues worked out. As of December 1st, 2023 I was not planning to compete professionally in 2024.

Now, do you remember MPG Motorsports? I ended up coming back to a few more kart races throughout the year, and by doing so caught the eye of the co-owner of MPG, Billy Vincent. For those of you who do not recognize that name, Billy was the Director of Competition for Arrow McLaren’s Indycar program for a few years (he resigned to focus on our karting program in July 2023). Billy is by far the most down to earth person I have ever met. He is literally just a guy being a dude. It is awesome. Because of this, Billy is the kind of guy that when he calls, you pick up. Even if that someone is Roger Penske. I’m dead serious. I got lucky. Stupid lucky. Billy liked what I was doing with the karting team and wanted to talk with me about what my plans were in racing long term. I told him I wanted to eventually race sports cars full time as a manufacturer driver. His first response was “thank god, so many of our kids want to race Indycar, and it’s just too expensive”. This is very true, it’s a fraction of the cost to make it to sportscars and there's triple the seats available. At this point I was starting to realize I was the guinea pig for the MPG driver development program, and I loved it. As we got into the early December time frame, Billy, Jackson, and I, got on the phone and decided to pursue the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge in TCR. Billy made a phone call to Bryan Herta, and Bryan connected us with Victor Gonzalez.

Victor has had a long career in motorsports. He left Puerto Rico in 1996 and arrived in the states to pursue NASCAR, Indycar, sportscars, etc. He has done it all. In our initial meeting with Victor, we knew it was going to be a good fit. We both shared the core value of wanting to provide opportunity for up and coming young drivers. On December 13th, we signed with the Victor Gonzalez Racing Team in a Hyundai Elantra N TCR. Now, there wasn’t really time to develop any sponsorship for 2024, so my family and I had the very difficult conversation about how we were going to make this work. We decided to bite the bullet and use my inheritance, and some, to foot the bill for the 2024 season. I am incredibly grateful for the sacrifices that were made and where they have put me in my career to date.

Backstory over, now we get to the fun part! The first race was one month from the day I signed, at Daytona. Up to this point, the biggest event I had ever been to was the Runoffs. I was in for a rude awakening. On Friday (our race day) there were 180,000 people at the race track. During the grid walk, you could not even see the cars it was that packed. It was a wonderful constant buzz of excitement from every single person there. This was not the only new thing though, just about everything there was to do was something brand new. Driver changes, fuel saving, tire saving, a car weighing more than a ton, a car with more than 300 horsepower, the list goes on. All of those are the obvious bits that are talked about often. There were a lot of other topics I had never really thought about. Something like autographs. I had never signed anything other than my paperwork for highschool. This was a very difficult (for me) concept to grasp as I couldn’t fathom why people wanted my chicken scratch signature.

The off track portion of going straight to the ‘other side’ was absolutely incredible. Every single driver/mechanic/team owner was extremely open and wonderful. I had no grasp on the sheer amount of things I did not know. Then the on track activities started. As a driver, you can only do so much preparation before it is go time. Getting on track for the first time was a bit of a wakeup call. First of all, Daytona is huge. I know that seems obvious, but good lord. The towering grand stands and fences coated in spectators were incredibly intimidating.

I once again lucked out, this time with my teammate. Victor made a couple of phone calls and he had reigned in Julian Santero to drive with me for round 1. Santero is a household name in Argentina, and as far as driving skills go, an absolute cheat code. It was extremely beneficial to have Julian’s data to compare against so I could develop my own skills. I developed quickly throughout the practice sessions and felt prepared to enter the first race of the season.

Our plan was for Julian to start and finish our 4 hour race, and I would take the middle 2 and a bit hours. Julian took the green and found himself 2nd less than 30 minutes in. Unfortunately, this is where our luck ran out. Our car went behind the wall for mechanical repairs at the hour mark. After about 45 minutes, we were back in business, 20 odd laps down. Looking back on it, this was one of the better things that could have happened. Once I got in the car it was just a 2 hour test session to get my feet under me. All things considered, my first professional experience was incredible.

The first half of our season was one plagued with bad luck. At Sebring I teamed up with Billy’s MPG business partner, Chase Jones. Chase previously had experience racing dirt sprint cars, karts, and Mazda’s. We had previously worked together at the karting events, so we already had a good relationship to build off of. Chase did an incredible job in his first stint and brought the car into the pit lane in 7th with 80 minutes (of our 120 minute race) to go. When I got it, it was my second time in the car in a race scenario. Shortly after taking the wheel my engineer came over the radio and asked something I thought was impossible. He asked me to make 60 minutes worth of fuel last 80. This entails saving 14% extra fuel each lap. Needless to say, we ended up crossing the line in second, just 2 seconds off the leader. If I had missed the 14% mark even once, I wouldn’t have made it. There was about a half a lap left in the tank, just enough for a fuel sample. Our bad luck continued though, as we lost the podium to a minor splitter height infringement post race. It was heartbreaking for everyone involved to lose our first podium in only our second race.

The bad luck continued as we marched across the country, traveling to all the bucket list racetracks. At Laguna Seca, we had an engine failure not even 20 minutes in. At Mid Ohio we ran inside the top 4 for almost all 3 hours, before a fuel rig issue let us down in the last stint. At Watkins Glen we had a brake issue that took us out of contention, again from the top 3, about an hour in (thankfully Chase was OK). At Mosport we had early contact that slowly delaminated a tire and shattered the ring and pinion in the power steering. 6 races, 6 instances of bad luck. Each and every race made myself and the team fight harder and harder. Entering Mosport the team decided to downsize to one car, due to funding. Myself and Tyler Gonzalez, another incredible driver, paired up for the remaining 5 races of the season.

Entering round 7 at Road America, there was great anticipation. When would our bad luck end? It seemed to be a good start however, I took qualifying and put the car 4th, less than 3 tenths off the pole. I was extremely pleased with this effort and in the race I took the lead after the 40 minute mark. The lead was short lived however, as we were the only car in the field that did not change front tires in the pit cycle. This was because we did not have an extra set of tires due to budgetary restrictions. Needless to say, I fell down the order like a stone and during the second cycle we stayed there. The bad luck was different now. It wasn’t outside factors causing us to have issues. It was now budget.

Moving into round 8 at VIRginia International Raceway we had very little to lose. After 7 straight rounds of being smacked around we had enough. I qualified 6th, and maintained a 7th place the entire first stint. However, during this whole period, I was massively fuel saving. This paid off to great effect when, after the first pit stop at the hour mark, I handed Tyler the car and we moved to the lead. Tyler led much of the last hour and had an absolutely titanic battle with the Montreal Motorsport Group Honda driven by Karl Wittmer. We lost the lead in the closing 3 laps to finish 2nd. A 2nd we got to keep. This was a huge reward for Tyler and I, the crew, Victor, and everyone involved. It was a real full circle moment to have such success at the same track where it graced me the year before.

The last two rounds were back to heartbreak, however we were even more commanding than we were all year. At Indianapolis I qualified 10th, due to an early red flag in the qualifying session. After just 5 laps however, I found myself in the lead. I went on to lead 18 more laps, all the way until the 45 minute mark. At the 45 minute mark I unfortunately was taken out of contention at turn 1, effectively ending our race. This was a big blow to everyone after such success at VIR. However, every single person in the paddock knew we were there. The team’s performance earned us the Michelin Move of the Race for coming from 10th to the lead, and holding it. We moved to the final race of the season with more hope than ever. Road Atlanta seemed to be kind to us, giving us another 4th place starting spot. This time, I held my ground and fuel saved while maintaining a 4th-5th place. Once again, when I came down pit lane to hand the car to Tyler, we took the lead and never looked back. Until the last lap, that is, coming to the white flag Tyler ran out of fuel and had to take a splash and go.

This ending pretty much summed up our year. Being so close to amazing success, yet ending so far from it. There were many lessons to learn from this year however. First of which is that it takes a village. It takes a village to raise a child. The child in this instance is me. There have been so many people who pitched in to help guide me through this year. Way too many to be named in fact, but to everyone who lent me a hand, you know who you are. You will not be forgotten.

Second, is that with enough like minded individuals working together, anything is possible. Regardless of budget restrictions, regardless of experience, there will always be a way. With enough hard work it can be done. To anyone wondering how they can make the jump, the answer is simple. Never stop growing, never stop learning, never stop meeting. You beat on as many doors, because eventually one might just open.

Here’s to another review in 12 months time