Starworks skips COTA amid plans for P2 future

IMSA's thin PC field has become smaller with the absence of Peter Baron's Starworks Motorsport team. The defending WeatherTech SportsCar Championship PC champions took part in the first two races of the year at Daytona and Sebring, but chose to skip Circuit of The Americas as declining interest in the class – one that will be deleted at the end of season – continues to conspire against its popularity.

"Selling PC programs right now is hard; it's like selling VCR repair services or payphone repair services," a laughing Baron told RACER. "The time for the PC is almost gone, so that makes it tough to get people in for all the races. I think we could have the cars out again at the endurance races, and maybe some of the other races where there's regional interest, but I don't see a full season happening."

With Starworks' pedigree in the category, Baron says he would prefer to skip races where he's unable to field a competitive lineup. An intended move into IMSA's Prototype class has also shaped his decision to sit out some PC events.

"We've won a championship, won the most races in the PC class, and don't want to just turning up to run around for the sake of it," he added. "Five months from now, I won't have a car that's eligible for anything, so it's smarter to put most of our work on making the next program with a new P2 come together. That's what's consumed most of my time lately."

There was a slim chance of entering at least one PC car at COTA, but when that fell through, Baron said continuing on his path towards entering P2 later this year – possibly as early as June – was the obvious default.

"We tried to run a PC program for someone at COTA, but that fell through at the last minute," he revealed. "I'm working mostly on the P2 program right now, we have three sponsors, and it's getting closer to going forward. It's the famous 95 percent deal where getting that far is easy and getting the other five percent is the hardest."