Coffee? On A Race Car?

Those of you who have been with us from the beginning know that our brand has deep roots in surf, skate, moto and car culture, so when we were presented with the opportunity to sponsor a race car, we jumped on it. The more we work with the VDSR team, the more parallels become apparent between racing and coffee.

For us, a tremendous amount of detail goes into fine-tuning our blends to bring you that perfect morning cup, not unlike the amount of planning, strategy, wrenching and behind the scenes work that goes into grabbing a spot on the podium on race weekend. The other big similarity we found with VDSR, and possibly the main reason we think we make a great team, is that they are a family team competing against all the big car manufacturers.

If you haven't done so already, now would be a good time to pour yourself a cup of coffee and we'll dive further into some history of the sport and get you up to speed with where we stand in the championship points. 

What is IMSA?

The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a sports car racing sanctioning body in North America with a long history so we've put together a brief timeline for you:

• 1969
  John Bishop, a former executive director of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), and his wife Peggy, with help from NASCAR's Bill France Sr., founded IMSA. The first IMSA-sanctioned race was a Formula Ford and Formula Vee event held at Pocono International Raceway in Pennsylvania. Jim Clarke won the first Formula Ford race. 
  
  
• 1971
  The first IMSA GT race, the Danville 300, was held at Virginia International Raceway. Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood won the race in their Brumos Porsche 914/6. 
  
  
• 2014
  IMSA became the sanctioning body for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which was created by merging the Grand-Am Road Racing and American Le Mans Series. 
  
  
• 2019 NBC Sports began exclusively covering the IMSA series in the United States.

How many different racing series are there?

IMSA is responsible for a number of racing series, but the three main ones are: 

• IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (we are in this series)
  A premier series that was created by merging the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Road Racing. The series is currently sponsored by WeatherTech. 

• IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge
  A multi-class sprint racing series that debuted in 2023. The series includes the LMP3 class, which features entry-level prototype race cars, and the GSX class, which uses production-based race cars. 

• IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge
  A series that showcases high-performance sports cars, coupes, hatchbacks, and sedans. The series includes two classes: Grand Sport (GS) and Touring Car Racing (TCR). 

Where does the ACE x VDSR Team stand in points this season?

As we mentioned before, the Van Der Steur racing team is one of the only family run teams in the paddock, where most other teams are run by big corporations. While being a smaller team arguably comes with a lot more obstacles to overcome, the close knit group of drivers, managers and engineers is second to none and we've got the results to prove it. With two races left to go this season we're currently sitting in third place in the Weathertech Sportscar Championship with 2201points, 185 points behind the leader. We got unlucky last race and got taken while on track for podium, so claiming the championship title will be pretty hard but not impossible. After all, its racing and anything can happen.. 

What was the inspiration for the wrap of the car?

When we sat down to design the wrap for the car, we wanted to make something bold that stood out, while also paying homage to the past and still somehow tied into our coffee. We looked to old classic liveries for inspiration and recognized that often simple is better. The outcome was a dark base, with lines of color using the same color palettes that you see on our coffee bags. We're stoked on the result which seemed to be the consensus amongst fans during the fan walk as well! 

 Checkout or recap from the last race, and tune in for the next two races:

• Sep 19 - Sep 22 @ Indianapolis Motor Speedway
• Oct 9 - Oct 12 @ Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta