3R Racing pursuing opportunities in PWC, IMSA

With the 2015 season right around the corner, Bob Raub finds his championship-winning 3R Racing Pirelli World Challenge team in an unfamiliar position. The recent departure of longtime partner K-PAX Racing, which moved its PWC program from 3R’s base in Colorado to a new establishment in California, has Raub searching for opportunities to keep the storied outfit on the grid next year.

The veteran sports car team has been a staple in PWC paddock since 2000, leading customer programs to four driver championships, three manufacturer titles, 50 pole positions and 40 wins in everything from factory-supplied Dodges, McLarens, and Porsches, to Volvos designed and built in 3R’s Englewood shop.

PWC is set for unprecedented growth next year in its GT class and with the creation of a new Porsche Cup category, and as Raub told RACER, he hopes the influx of entries and interest will lead to 3R’s continued presence in the PWC paddock.

“We’ve been in the series for 15 years now and won just about everything there is to win for our clients, and we’d hate to see that change,” said Raub. “We’ve had a successful run in Pirelli World Challenge, and I’d like to stay there, but I’d also be interested in taking 3R into endurance racing if that’s where a customer wants us to go.

“We’re in the business of running cars for people, or building cars from scratch and putting a whole program together, and that means we’re able to race wherever they want, but it also means we’re dependent on the drivers and manufacturers that come to us to keep going.”

Raub’s team won its first PWC GT title in 2004 with Tommy Archer in the Dodge Viper Competition Coupe 3R developed extensively (LEFT), then earned back-to-back GT championships with Randy Pobst in a Porsche 996- and 997-based 911s (BELOW), and captured one more with Pobst behind the wheel of 3R’s AWD Volvo S60.

The three titles for Pobst came under the K-PAX Racing banner, and with the Volvo effort winding down at the end of 2013, K-PAX owner Jim Haughey replaced the fire-breathing 5-cylinder turbos with McLaren 12C GT3s. K-PAX and 3R ended their relationship on a high as Robert Thorne scored a win for the team in his McLaren at the PWC season finale in September, and Raub is confident 3R can continue winning in the future.

“We’re very proud of what we did with Jim [Haughey], and we know he’s proud of the championships we won and all the victories we put together,” he added. “I think some folks might have forgotten the 3R name a little bit because we ran as K-PAX Racing, but the same people – me, my son Dax, all of our crew, our fabricators, you name it – are here and ready to go forward.

“We’re used to being up to our elbows getting ready for next season at this point of the year, and I have a team of hungry guys who want to go racing.”

In the absence of a PWC program, Raub says the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship could be a new market for 3R to explore.

“Sprint racing has been our forte, and I think everybody knows that, but we’re sports car guys above anything else, GT guys, and I think every team – every team owner like myself – looks at the famous races like Daytona, the Sebring 12 Hours, Petit Le Mans, and wishes they were racing there. There’s a lot of cars and a lot of growth in sports car racing here in the USA right now, and that means going where the market wants to take you,” he noted.

“I’d love to have cars in both series if I could. But if someone prefers one over the other, that’s where we’ll go, and since we’re sitting here without a program, we aren’t going to limit our options. At the end of the day, we know we can deliver a championship-caliber program [in PWC], and I’m confident we can bring our customers a winning experience in TUDOR.”