Headed into the stretch run of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship, Nick Tandy is in a good place.
He’s contesting the championship in GTD Pro on board AO Racing’s “Rexy,” the nickname for its popular 911 R GT3 with a dinosaur-themed livery. Coming off two straight podiums with co-driver Harry King, this weekend Tandy returns to GT-class-only racing at VIRginia International Raceway, where he scored three victories in the GTLM era on board Porsches.
More than that, the author of the “Tandy Slam” is happy to be out of the pressure cooker that is GTP racing and back to the GT basics after three seasons with Porsche Penske Motorsport.
“It was time for a change,” said Tandy. “I had three years in GTP. And we had great results. We had championship wins. We had Sebring and Daytona wins. We had lots of wins. But something just wasn’t right for me. I needed to change to better the rest of my life.”
Tandy clinched his “Slam” of 24-hour race victories at last year’s Rolex 24 in the Porsche 963, which followed 24-hour victories at Le Mans, the Nürburgring and Spa over a 10-year span. The 2025 run continued with a co-drive to victory at Sebring and then Long Beach. But thereafter, the wheels fell off with crashes and one costly penalty. Once Porsche elected to stop racing in the World Endurance Championship, the veteran Tandy’s fate in GTP was sealed with so many drivers under factory contracts.
“We had lots of wins. But something just wasn’t right for me. I needed to change to better the rest of my life.”
To get to AO Racing, Tandy in effect swapped seats with rising GTP star Lauren Heinrich. Ironically, Heinrich has been the only Porsche driver to stay close in this year’s GTP championship after splitting time with Porsche Penske and JDC-Miller Motorsports.
For Tandy, the team and class change means he finds himself in the thick of the GTD Pro title chase. With three races remaining starting with the Michelin GT Challenge sprint race at VIR on Sunday, Tandy and King are third and within 21 points of leaders Neil Verhagen and Connor De Phillippi, drivers of the Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO. Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg, drivers of the No. 4 Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R hold second, 15 points behind the leaders.
“If you’d have asked me in July last year, what I would like to race next year, it probably would have been a pro level, factory-backed, GT class because the racing is just so good,” said Tandy, who continues as a factory driver and has returned to his more happy-go-lucky ways absent the intensity of the GTP class and its computer-centric cars. He doesn’t miss a two-car operation, either, with the inevitable team orders and politics compared with the single-car team at AO.
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“I get to race against top drivers,” he said “I get to race with a proper professional team of absolute, ultimate experts in their field. I guess I still work with the manufacturer on developing their car. It’s all the fun bits of being a factory driver. And I get to enjoy life outside of racing, as well. It was a lucky sequence of events that happened.”
AO racing brings not only top-flight equipment from dot.com millionaire PJ Hyett and expert race management from veteran Gunnar Jeannette, plus a young co-driver in King who is fully versed in GT3 racing. AO’s fanciful liveries and car names for the green snaggle-toothed “Rexy” and the pink “Roxy” Porsche make it one of the most popular teams in the IMSA paddock, especially among families and younger fans.
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Because of the Porsche connection, Tandy was already familiar with the AO team back to the days of the crew members who transferred to it from CORE Autosport at the startup. “They struck me as a team that looks after their employees,” said Tandy. “That keeps them happy, so everybody wants to go and work to their full ability and enjoy themselves, and work as a team together. But also, they know when stuff has to get serious, when decisions have to be made, and there is instances where decisions have to be made for the good of the result. That’s exactly what happens. It shows that they can compete with anyone out there.”
The only thing missing from this year’s resume is a victory, which would add another gold tooth to “Rexy.” But Tandy is focused on the long run. “If you ask me now, would I take a championship with three second places in the run to Atlanta, then absolutely. You know AO and Porsche, myself and Harry, and the team are there to try to not only win races, but win championships. This is the key aim at the start of the season every year.”
As long as Tandy is GT class racing in IMSA, it’s highly unlikely he’ll be able to add to his Tandy Slam record of overall 24-hour victories, although he co-drove a Porsche RSR to overall victory in the Petit Le Mans in the rain versus the DP class in 2015. (Since it was the same year as his Le Mans victory in a 919 Hybrid prototype, perhaps the Tandy Petit Slam?)
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Despite last year’s turmoil on the heels of his early season co-drives to victory, Tandy says his unofficial Slam title is far from a curse. “It can’t be anything but a blessing,” he said, laughing. “You go racing every weekend to try to win. Sometimes you win a major, let’s say, and you know if you win enough of these things, eventually they all add up, and somebody coins a phrase. I’m sure someone will do it again. But to be the first person in history is something special. It happened over 12 months ago and we’re still talking about it, so it’s a very good thing.”
On to the championship chase.