With two events remaining on the 2025 Porsche Carrera Cup North America calendar, Riley Dickinson is gearing up for a late-season lunge at the championship – starting with Wednesday’s practice at Road Atlanta.
The former series champion, who sits 10 points behind Pro class title leader Ryan Yardley, posted the quickest time of the day amongst Porsche 992 GT3 Cup cars at one minute, 22.470 seconds. Dickinson’s time was fastest in the morning session with the Kellymoss team, while Yardley was hot on his heels in the afternoon session with a chart-topping time of 1:22.695.
“(Road Atlanta) is quite special,” said Dickinson. “Ever since my first lap that I turned here in 2019, it’s been a nice place to drive, and obviously, the Petit Le Mans event is absolutely special. It’s one of the best events all year long with the IMSA weekends.
“It’s cool to see that there’s already a lot of fans around the track, so it looks to be quite nice and a good weekend.
“At the moment, it’s one session at a time. At the end of the day, the results are going to be what they’re going to be. Just focus on ourselves and keep working on everything that we can and continue to chip away at it. We’ll see where the chips fall at the end at (Circuit of The Americas).”
Yardley followed, “It’s definitely tough out there. We didn’t have the luxury of testing last week like most teams did, so it’s completely different track conditions from when I last drove, which was the Porsche Sprint Challenge enduro (in September).
“It’s taking a bit for us to catch up and find some speed, but it seems to be okay in Practice 2. But there’s still a lot of hard work to do before qualifying tomorrow.”
In the Solairus Aviation Pro-Am category, Alan Metni was quickest in both sessions at Atlanta, and the longtime Porsche driver posted his best time in the afternoon at 1:23.770. That lap was just .007 seconds faster than his quickest in the morning, and also sets up the Kellymoss driver well for a run at the class championship towards the end of the season.
Metni – who won at Road Atlanta last month in the Sprint Challenge North America GT3 Cup Am class and USA West Pro-Am class – is 38 points in arrears of title leader JP Martinez. Martinez placed fourth in both sessions on Wednesday behind Marco Cirone and Patrick Mulcahy, who swapped second- and third-place positions throughout the day.
Scott Blind, meanwhile, has wrapped up the Solairus Aviation Masters class championship with his Ruckus Racing team and also clocked the quickest time of the day in Practice 1 at 1:24.143.
Blind looks to extend his three-race winning streak at Atlanta, but must fend off Practice 2 leader Joel Johnson and the remaining Masters field of seven 992 GT3 Cup cars.
“It was a surprise,” said Johnson of his lap time, coming from Sprint Challenge to Carrera Cup. “I’m just out there trying to learn the track and trying to get comfortable with these guys. Some of them are really fast.
“It was really nice to be here two or three weeks ago (with Sprint Challenge). I made a few mistakes there, so I got that out of my system. Hopefully, we’ll have a great weekend.”
Thursday’s activity at Road Atlanta starts early for Porsche Carrera Cup North America, as qualifying is scheduled for 8:35 a.m. ET. Race 1 follows in the afternoon at 5:05 p.m., followed by Race 2 on Friday at 10:40 a.m.
All Carrera Cup races, including replays from Road Atlanta, will be shown live on IMSA and Porsche Motorsport North America YouTube Channels, IMSA TV, Peacock, and the Porsche Motorsport North America social channels on Facebook, Linkedin, Threads and X.
PRACTICE 1
Pro:
- #91 Riley Dickinson
- #24 Aaron Jeansonne
- #9 Zachary Vanier
Pro-Am:
- #99 Alan Metni
- #84 Marco Cirone
- #54 Patrick Mulcahy
Masters:
- #45 Scott Blind
- #18 Richard Edge
- #70 Joel Johnson
PRACTICE 2
Pro:
- #78 Ryan Yardley
- #77 Tyler Maxson
- #91 Riley Dickinson
Pro-Am:
- #99 Alan Metni
- #54 Patrick Mulcahy
- #84 Marco Cirone
Masters:
- #70 Joel Johnson
- #45 Scott Blind
- #18 Richard Edge
