Patrick Gallagher on Racing With His Best Friend, Part-Time Xfinity Gigs

Patrick Gallagher is full time in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GTD class with Turner Motorsport. He’s also made starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Gallagher sat down with Frontstretch at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course to discuss his NASCAR adventures, racing with his best friend and more.

Phil Allaway, Frontstretch: You’re currently second in GTD points with a couple of second-place finishes. How would you describe your season?

Patrick Gallagher: It’s been very good. We’ve been consistent. Obviously, at Daytona, we had a very rough start to the season, but we got into our groove in Long Beach and Laguna Seca. Even Sebring, we had a solid day. We’re just trying to continue that.

The car in front of us [from Winward Racing] has won three races, which is going to make it tough to catch them, but there’s still a long way to go. We’re certainly in the fight. We have reliable BMWs, so we just have to keep plugging away and see where we end up come Road Atlanta.

Allaway: This is your second year with [Turner Motorsport]. How would you describe the experience of working with the Turner guys?

Gallagher: Will [Turner’s] put together the best group of guys that I’ve worked with collectively as a whole. These guys have been here a long time. Most of them are full-time guys that have been with the team forever. Just a really good group of guys that Will has put together.

To be a part of it for me is a dream come true. I’ve seen these cars run around [tracks] since I was a kid, so to get to climb into one, the WeatherTech car and now the GT4 car, and make a home over here, is something that I wanted to do. Just happy to be a part of everything that they’ve had going on for so long.

Allaway: Your teammate is Robby Foley, who raced for a number of years in GT3 and GT4 equipment in various series. What’s it like to work with him?

Gallagher: I don’t know how many people know this, but Robby and I have been friends for a long, long time. Back to when we were both racing MX-5 Cup in 2013 or so.

We lived together at Monticello Motor Club, worked there together. We’ve been best friends for a really long time. It’s not by accident that we ended up working together. We’ve wanted to do it for a long time and were finally able to put the pieces together and get it going.

It’s been awesome. [Foley’s] a true pro, a really good teammate and a good friend. Really good at what he does.

Allaway: At this level of racing, it’s not very often that you get to have your best friend as your teammate.

Gallagher: It’s a unique situation.

Allaway: Does that make communication easier than it would be otherwise?

Gallagher: Certainly. We know each other well enough that we can speak freely. There is no ego, no “he was faster, I was faster, he got new tires, I got new tires,” [explanations] that you get a lot in these multiple driver formats.

I know that whatever [Foley] tells me is correct and vice versa. We both understand that it takes both of us pushing the ball in the same direction to roll it downhill. I think that working with someone that you know really helps.

Allaway: When you first moved up to WeatherTech last year, it was your first full-time experience in GT3 racing. How was the transition to the more downforce-laden M4 GT3?

Gallagher: It was a bit of a transition [for me]. My average pace throughout the season got better. Where I struggled even through the end of last season was qualifying, getting the peak lap time out of the tires and the peak downforce of the GT3 car.

Starting my second year at [Turner Motorsport], I think you’ll see that my qualifying results have gotten better.

As of Aug. 5, his qualifying average is 6.71, slightly better than the 7.2 he had last year.

There are always little nuances in GT3 cars that add up to a half a tenth [of a second] here, a half a tenth there. It’s just more magnified at the GT3 level. So it was an adjustment. I’m steadily getting better as time goes on as I get more experience in the car.

Allaway: In addition to your IMSA commitments, you’ve run in a couple of NASCAR Xfinity Series races for JD Motorsports, most recently at Portland. How did that experience come together for you?

Gallagher: Johnny Davis is a great guy. One of my friends, Andy Lally couldn’t make it. He put a couple of sports car guys’ names in a hat. Honestly, I think I got the gig because I was the closest to the shop and could do a seat fit.

Johnny Davis called me, and we went to COTA [Circuit of the Americas] to try to get in the show, and we did. He called me to do Portland last week. Asked me to do Sonoma this week, but I had this conflict, so they got another kid who’s fast in the car (Thomas Annunziata).

I love doing NASCAR races. They’re so much fun.

Allaway: You’ve done [eight] of them?

Gallagher: I did one for BJ McLeod, a few for the Siegs and two for Johnny.

Allaway: How would you describe your NASCAR experiences?

Gallagher: It’s so much fun. It’s a full-contact sport, anything goes. The cars are really fun to drive, tons of horsepower, car doesn’t stop, doesn’t turn, goes really fast down the straightaway. The tire sidewalls are eight inches tall, so they flex. You can pick the inside front tire up off the ground, and it’s just a lot of fun to drive.

I always say that it’s like we went down to the rental car place, got the insurance, 700 horsepower rental cars and just ripped around for a couple of hours and brought them back. It’s some of the most fun racing I’ve ever done.

I certainly want to get into some front-running equipment over there and see where I stack up on the stock car side. But, [I’m] grateful to have opportunities from guys like BJ, the Siegs and Johnny Davis to jump in and get experience so that if I ever get that opportunity.

There’s no pit-speed limiter, the pit stops are very different. I have that experience so that if I get in a good car hopefully, [I wouldn’t have to] learn those things on the fly.

Allaway: These days, there are a lot more full-time drivers in the Xfinity Series. That makes it harder to get into top-elite equipment for these races as there just aren’t as many rides available.

Gallagher: The cars that those teams are bringing to the track are really good. There are a lot of really good cars in the Xfinity Series. That hasn’t always been the case.

When I started there in 2019, it wasn’t so hard to run in the top 20 in the race and qualify in the top 25. Now, there’s 25 lease-motor A cars [on the grid]. They’re not all Gibbs or JRM, but they have really good stuff. It’s really, really tough for guys like BJ or Johnny, who are doing all they can with what little they have to keep going.

All those guys over there, they do a lot with a little. Every time I show up to the racetrack, they put the best piece they can on the track with what they’ve got. They do a good job.

Allaway: We’re coming off of Portland, where you finished 24th in a rough-and-tumble race. How would you describe your day?

Gallagher: I kind of rode around the whole time. I didn’t have a third gear; it broke on the first lap of the race. So I didn’t really race anybody. I just ran it [as an] attrition race until the last two or three laps, when I got past two or three cars.

But it looked like it was pretty wild in the midfield. They were knocking each other out of the way, which is fine by me.

Allaway: Do you have any more Xfinity races planned for this year?

Gallagher: I don’t have anything else planned for this year. Johnny’s always looking for sponsorship, and I’ve had calls from other teams. Depending on whether they sell the race or not, they’ll put me in. If someone comes in and buys [the race], then so be it.

It’s really fluid. I have a seat, and it’s all fitted and ready to go. Living [in Charlotte], it’s really easy if they call you Monday. Put some seat rails in the car and make it work.

Allaway: Have you looked into potentially trying ovals in NASCAR?

Gallagher: I’d like to. I’ve talked to Wayne [Auton], who runs the Xfinity Series and go run Martinsville and Richmond, then work my way up to intermediates. They certainly have a way that you gotta do it. It just comes down to sponsorship and opportunities.

Allaway: What do you think will be necessary to usurp Winward Racing and win this title?

Gallagher: Just have solid days and control what we can control. Not get caught up in “this pays this many points.” We need solid days and no bad days. If you limit your bad races, run in the top-five every week and bring good race cars, I think we’ll be in the hunt come Petit Le Mans.

Since this interview, Gallagher and Foley have done more or less what Gallagher said that they have to do. They have finished no worse than fifth since then. That includes their first victory of 2024 in the IMSA SportsCar Weekend race at Road America on Aug. 4. It is the team’s first WeatherTech victory in two years.

They remain second in GTD points, 268 points behind Winward Racing’s Philip Ellis and Russell Ward. They’re also 258 points ahead of Vasser Sullivan’s Parker Thompson in third with three races remaining.