While it’s easy to see the SCCA Pro Racing-sanctioned Trans Am Presented by Pirelli series as tube-frame cars sporting loud V-8s, there’s way more to the series. In there, three classes (GT, SGT, and XGT) battle at some of the nation’s best tracks. Thanks to these GT classes, fans witness slick production-based race cars driven by top-rung talent – and this year in one particular class, fans got to witness the future.
Possibly the brightest star of the trio of GT classes in 2024 was the young Kaylee Bryson, who came from USAC Midget racing to battle for wins and the overall championship in SGT. But the XGT battle was no cake walk for Danny Lowry, who marched through the season to claim his third championship title. And then there was GT, where Chris Coffey managed to make a difficult year look easy.
Want to know more? Read on.
Kaylee Bryson: From USAC Midgets to SGT Crown
She first made a name for herself with success as a Toyota-backed driver in USAC Midget racing. Now, Oklahoman Kaylee Bryson’s horizons have been stretched to include road racing via veteran open-wheel racer Aaron Pierce's driver development program and the LSI Racing/Sam Pierce Chevrolet Trans Am team.
And has greatly enhanced her reputation.
Less than two years following her first foray on a road course, the 23-year-old laid claim to the 2024 SCCA Pro Racing-sanctioned Trans Am Presented by Pirelli SGT-class championship.
“, my Toyota deal was coming to an end, and I was looking to do something a little bit more with my career,” Bryson remembers. "I got a message on Facebook from Aaron Pierce who runs in USAC Silver Crown, and he was like, 'Hey, do you want to come drive our car?’”
That question has turned into support for Silver Crown and Trans Am efforts that will wrap up its third full year at the 2025 Chili Bowl Nationals in January.
Pierce is tight with Logical Systems Inc. (LSI) Trans Am team crew chief, Chris Santucci, who attended a few of the Silver Crown races that summer.
“We got along really well,” Bryson explains. "He asked if I might want to run one of his , and I was like, ‘Heck yeah, that, that sounds like a blast! And that kind of snowballed into a full season deal.”
Bryson and Pierce each qualified an SGT LSI Racing Corvette in the 2023 Trans Am season opener at Sebring, and though she DNF’d with mechanical issues, she wanted more.
(Kaylee Bryson collects her season-long Trans Am trophies at the series' year-end banquet.)
After a second Silver Crown season, she got more, in part thanks to a Parella Motorsports Holdings (PMH) Powering Diversity Scholarship award. That in hand, Bryson committed to a full Trans Am season in an LSI/Sam Pierce Chevrolet/AP Driver Development SGT Corvette.
“We went into the [2024 Trans Am] season wanting to get Rookie of the Year,” she says, “But then we clicked off a win [in the third race] at NOLA and really took a liking to it. I feel like I was really competitive right out the gate. So we put our eyes on a different goal.”
Separating Bryson and her new goal, though, were a quartet of SGT challengers, veterans all – fellow Corvette driver Richard Forsythe, winner at Road Atlanta, PittRace, and Mid-Ohio; former SGT champ Lee Saunders, victor at Sebring, Road America, and Watkins Glen; vastly experienced Porsche driver Milton Grant; and Joshua Carlson, who won the season finale at COTA and wound up second in the SGT championship.
Cruelly, Forsythe, SGT points leader at the time, passed away just weeks after winning at Mid-Ohio and just before the Watkins Glen eighth round of the championship.
With wins at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and VIR (the latter in dramatic fashion, with a last-lap pass), Bryson took over the points lead and pushed on to the SGT championship in her first full season of road racing.
“I started racing when I was 9,” Kaylee says. “I started in dirt go-karts, just a fun-type deal – my grandparents bought karts for me and my cousin – that kind of snowballed into more. We stepped up from the dirt go-karts to 600cc Micro Sprints, did that for a while. Won some championships and some big races.
“And then got the Toyota deal for the Midgets with Keith Kunz. Ran there for three years, had a lot of fun. Got to know a little bit more about what you have to do to make a racing career.
“I did a little bit of Late Model stuff in there two – I did six starts and won three of them. But that didn't really turn into anything. And then we got the deal with Aaron, went to Silver Crown Racing, won the first race this year, which was really cool.”
Bryson says her favorite Trans Am race this summer was VIRginia International Raceway.
“We went into the race really not thinking we had a chance to win because there was some pretty tough competition. Eric Foss was there, and he was quicker than me in all the practice sessions and qualifying. But come the end of the race, we pulled a really good move to make the pass, and I was able to keep him behind to grab the win.”
Bryson is hard at work on 2025. She’ll wrap up 2024 on the West Coast at the Chili Bowl in early January and plans on doing select Silver Crown races.
“I'm sure we'll make an appearance at some Trans Am races,” she adds. “I'd really love to get in a TA car, and we’re putting our focus there because they’re so much quicker. I think it’d be a lot of fun to go that fast.
A bright future on whichever road she chooses.
Danny Lowry: A Master Class of a XGT Title
True XGT cars were thin on the ground in the 2024 SCCA Pro Racing-sanctioned Trans Am Presented by Pirelli series, but that takes nothing away from Masters-class driver Danny Lowry winning his third consecutive XGT title.
The South Carolina trucking services magnate – Bridgehaul, a Trans Am supporting sponsor, is his company – ran an abbreviated six-race schedule, winning two races, at Sebring International Raceway and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, and always battling the handful of well-driven XGT cars around him as well as some of the much more powerful TA-class cars.
“It's been very busy at work, so I wasn't able to make the full season,” Lowry says. “But I certainly enjoyed the races I did make, and I tried to race hard. There are a lot of really talented young guys floating through the class. They gave me some good competition, that's for sure.
“My favorite track in the whole country is Watkins Glen,” he says. “It has been since the first time I drove it, and I really enjoyed Watkins.
“I also really enjoyed [VIRginia International Raceway] this year. I got some good coaching and I got better there, although I got outrun by a very talented guy off the West Coast – Brian Lock. He was a pro and [his Porsche] was perfect. They had all the data to get the car set up properly from their IMSA operation – not an excuse on my part, it's just the way it was. The dude driving it was very talented, and he was a really nice guy; I enjoyed racing with him.”
As he did last year, Lowry focused full time on his AMG Mercedes in 2024, loaning the Audi A8 he raced en route to his first XGT title in 2022 to Georgian teammate Ricky Sanders, the owner of sponsor PitBoxes.
(The Mercedes performed admirably, allowing Danny Lowry to win the overall XGT Trans Am championship title.)
The Mercedes was a personal choice rather than a performance advantage, Lowry explains.
“The driving technique is very different. The Audi has a rear mid-engine, and the AMG has a front mid-engine [which means] a different technique entering and exiting the corners. I personally like the front mid-engine because you don't have to think so much about the back of the car. You can focus on the front more, which is a more natural thing for me.
“It’s all personal preference,” he continues. “I raced against guys in [XGT] Audis, Porsches, and Lamborghinis this year, and they were fantastic. Those guys really wheeled those cars. And I think you can be fast in any of them.”
A handful of those drivers elected to compete for the Trans Am’s unique “Pick Six” title so were ineligible for National points. Sanders, the winner at Lime Rock, Pittsburgh International Race Complex, and Road America, took the XGT Pick Six title while Lamborghini driver David Hodge, who won at Watkins Glen, took second.
Other XGT race winners were, as mentioned, Brian Lock (Porsche) who won at VIR, and Will Rodgers, who notched victory in the COTA finale driving one of the potent, tubeframe Chris Evans Camaros (which will get their own class in 2025).
Also in the Pick Six group was Billy Griffin, the two-time Trans Am GT-class champion who raced Lowry’s spare Mercedes at VIR.
Lowry claims that at age 61, “I’m a little long in the tooth, and you know how life is – you kind of have to juggle family and business responsibilities. But my plan is to go out there and give it another shot [in 2025], see what happens.”
Chris Coffey: Winning GT in Style
Texan Chris Coffey made it look easy, breezing to the 2024 SCCA Pro Racing-sanctioned Trans Am Presented by Pirelli GT-class championship with eight wins and two seconds – a spectacular record in just his first full season in the SCCA Pro Racing-sanctioned series.
Coffey is the Race & Restoration Manager at the renowned Norwood Auto Italia Ferrari and Maserati specialty shop in Carrollton, TX, and he did much of his own work on the No. 97 Maserati MC GT4 that was all but unbeatable in the GT class.
As the record shows, when it comes to prepping a potent street car for 100-mile-long road races, Coffey clearly knows what he’s doing outside the cockpit as well as in it.
Adding to the team's Trans Am GT-class laurels, a similar Coffey-prepped, NAI Racing-entered Maserati also claimed the GT-class Pick-Six Championship in the hands of the experienced Colin Cohen, 2023 Maranello Cup (International GT) champion and Ferrari Challenge Series regular.
"Norwood Auto Italia specializes in Italian cars, primarily Ferrari Challenge,” Coffey noted in a pre-season press release. "We love that we’ve found the perfect home [in Trans Am] to run and support Maserati’s GT4 cars.
“We were honored to carry the flag as the only Maserati in professional racing worldwide last year. As the GT-class ranks grow, I’m certain we’ll see more of these cars come out of the woodwork, and we hope to grow our own team as some of our Ferrari Challenge clientele sees our success with Trans Am."
Coffey made his Trans Am debut in the last race of the 2022 season at Circuit of The Americas, claiming a first-time-out victory over GT champ Billy Griffin. Buoyed by the immediate success, he entered six Pro-Am GT-class races in 2023 and won four of them – at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Watkins Glen, VIRginia International Raceway, and COTA – en route to the title.
(Chris Coffey says he wasn't one of a few pro racers competing in a Maserati for 2024 – he was the only one in the world.)
For 2024, Coffey embarked on a full schedule with Cohen’s encouragement and backing, and in the opener at Sebring, he picked up right where he’d left off – winning. It was his fifth consecutive GT victory (the record stretching back to Mid-Ohio 2023), but it wasn’t an easy win as Coffey, Joey DaSilva (Toyota Supra), and Jeff Lindstrom (in former GT champ Billy Griffin’s Ford Mustang) all spent time in the lead.
“ feels amazing,” Coffey exclaimed after the race. “I have to thank this gentleman here, [third-place finisher] Colin Cohen. I absolutely couldn't be here without him. He signed me up to run a full season this year, so I'm looking forward to the next race already.
"And this guy [race runner-up DaSilva]: Super clean racing. He pushed me from the green flag. I mean, we changed positions, and then the Mustang got out in front of both of us. It was an absolute battle to the end.”
Regrettably, DaSilva would make only two more 2024 appearances, heading Coffey home at Lime Rock and finishing second to him at Watkins Glen. His three podium finishes, though, were enough to lock up the 2024 GT Rookie of the Year title.
Only twice in 2024 was Coffey knocked off the top step of the podium, as after Sebring, he rolled on to notch class victories at Road Atlanta, NOLA, Pitt Race, Road America, Watkins Glen, VIR, and COTA.
Having earlier clinched the title, the Texan wrapped up his dominant season with a flourish in the COTA finale, leading every lap on way to his eighth victory.
COTA was a battle, though, both at the start of the race and on the several restarts, between Coffey’s Maserati and Trans Am Western GT champ David Hampton’s Porsche. Hampton, the GT winner at Mid-Ohio in June and the only other driver besides DaSilva to beat Coffey’s fleet Maserati, finished second in the finale.
“It was incredible,” Coffey exclaimed to Trans Am series publicist Jessica Trippy. “ gave me a run right there at the start. It was a long race and I was biting my fingernails at these restarts with him right behind me.
"But the first person I have to thank up here is Colin . Without Colin, I couldn't be here – I couldn't even be at the track right now. Hats off to him and thank you for everything that you do for me and for keeping me on the racetrack.
"Morgan, my wife, and my son, Sam, came to support me this weekend,” Coffey continued. "I couldn't be happier to have them here this weekend. It was picturesque. I mean, just absolute best days of my life right now.
“It was awesome!”
Photos courtesy Trans Am
