Foley, Gallagher Victorious in GTD Class at Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS — Timing is everything in motorsports and Robby Foley benefitted the most from that in Sunday’s (Sept 20) TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

The New Jersey native made his final pit stop with just over an hour and five minutes remaining in the two hour and 40 minute race. Within a minute and a half of pitting, race control put out a full course yellow for a large piece of debris in turn 13, closing the pits and preventing any other competitors from pitting for full service.

“Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes not, and that definitely helped us out,” Foley said. “We were still running in a good position in the top three, but yeah, beating that, we didn’t know [the yellow] was going to come, obviously, so it was good, good fortune.”

The No. 96 Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 EVO rose to second in the GTD class while the rest of the class pitted under yellow. Second became the race lead as Albert Costa in the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO had to serve a stop-and-hold penalty for 60 seconds for taking more than emergency service in a closed pit.

Once Foley inherited the lead, all he needed to do was manage his BMW’s energy consumption for the race’s final hour. Foley and co-driver Patrick Gallagher were then able to celebrate their first win of the 2026 IMSA season in the penultimate round of the championship.

The victory puts Gallagher and Foley six points behind the No. 57 Winward Racing duo of Philip Ellis and Russell Ward with only Petit Le Mans left to go. Foley believes the championship is very well within reach.

“The way these things work out in racing, you know, sometimes you can win and you don’t, and we’ve always sort of been there and we finish,” Foley said. “I think Patrick and I finished second together like a ridiculous amount of times. So yeah, we needed to get that win and we’ve had a good confidence in the team that we can do the job and everybody’s been firing on all cylinders. The car’s been good. I mean, good steps this year, second year with the EVO car.

“So yeah, I think if you look at the history of the last couple years, obviously Winward’s been dominant, but they’ve won at least three races. So you want to win the championship, you’ve got to win. So hopefully we can take this momentum to Petit.”

Gallagher started the race from pole position in class before handing the car off to Foley at his pit stop at the 45-minute mark of the race. Foley handled the rest of the race to win by just over half a second from Ellis. Matt Bell finished third in class in the No. 13 13 Autosport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

With only a six-point margin, anything can happen. Even qualifying is critically important as up to 35 points will be on offer there. More than likely, whichever of Winward Racing or Turner Motorsport that finishes better will win the title. The Heart of Racing’s Eduardo Barrichello is also still in contention, 116 points back.