Introduction of GRIDLIFE GT Highlights Competition News Heading into GRIDLIFE Festival
Kal Fortner’s Mercedes AMG GTS will once again compete in the TrackBattle Time Attack Championship at Midwest Festival.
South Haven, MI - GRIDLIFE’s first and largest event, Midwest Festival, is on track to deliver action to tens of thousands of fans with drift, TrackBattle Time Attack, and three unique racing series at GingerMan Raceway next week. Since 2019, the Eibach GRIDLIFE Touring Cup Championship has been GRIDLIFE’s premiere wheel-to-wheel racing product, targeted for cars making roughly 190 to 250 horsepower. In 2024, the GRIDLIFE RUSH Series was added to the schedule, utilizing the RUSH Auto Works SR and now SRX for multi-class competition. The 2025 Midwest Festival marks the debut of GRIDLIFE’s newest offering, GRIDLIFE GT, with a ruleset that plays off the strengths of Eibach GLTC, but with more power. For drivers in all of GRIDLIFE’s series, Midwest Festival might as well be the grassroots racing equivalent of Le Mans - the biggest, most competitive grid of the year, and a track packed with fans.
GRIDLIFE GT (GLGT) Brings More Power to a Tried & True Formula
GRIDLIFE’s new wheel-to-wheel series, GRIDLIFE GT (GLGT), will feature over a dozen cars for its debut grid, but what makes this field interesting is the entry list. Though the category is open to home-brew vehicles similar to those in Eibach GLTC, the ruleset catches several pro racing homologations. Spectators will be treated to at least two of these cars on the GLGT grid - a Honda Civic Type R TCR, driven by James Houghton, and a Toyota GR Supra GT4, driven by Allen Patten. Though Houghton’s Honda is new to him and his K-Tuned team, Patten’s Supra has been in the stable for years now, with its most recent running including a winning trip to the top of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, wheeled by his Thunder Bunny Racing teammate Laura Hayes. Other entrants include drivers like David Calzada, James Forbis, and Tony Barber, all GRIDLIFE veterans, and some new to the community, like AJ Hartman, Jordan Wisely, and Anthony Pearson. The new series will run an identical format to Eibach GLTC - four sprint races following practice and qualifying. All of the sessions for GRIDLIFE GT will be streamed live on the GRIDLIFE broadcast beginning on Friday.
AJ Hartman’s Ford Mustang tested at Carolina Motorsports Park in TrackBattle, but will compete in GRIDLIFE GT at GingerMan Raceway.
Eibach GLTC Championship Storms into Midwest
In the Eibach GRIDLIFE Touring Cup Championship, Eric Kutil leads Matan Rosenberg by just one point, with the two trading blows at the season’s first two events in South Carolina and Georgia. Seven of the eight races so far have been won by either Kutil’s #82 Honda Civic (3) or Matan Rosenberg’s #484 Chevrolet Corvette (4). James Houghton’s #41 Acura TSX stole a win in the most recent race at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Eric Kutil leads Matan Rosenberg by just one point - the same margin that he lost the weekend title by to Rosenberg last year at Midwest Festival.
GingerMan Raceway has long been a battleground for Eibach GLTC, hosting two events annually for four years before returning to a once-per-season visit in 2023. Though nearly a dozen drivers won races in the series last year, it was the aforementioned trio of Kutil, Rosenberg, and Houghton that won all four races at Midwest Festival last season. Last year though, it was Rosenberg that edged Kutil by one point, scoring two wins, a third, and a fourth, to Kutil’s two seconds, a win, and third, with the winning points for Rosenberg coming from qualifying.
Joining the field from the West Coast will be Jonathan Lugod, Jack Wischmeyer, Michael Hillo, and Daniel Giraldo, all drivers who competed in last year’s FCP Euro Pacific Championship. They’ll be making the trek across the country to compete alongside dozens of other drivers, including Michigander Paul Darling, who recently tested his BMW M3 at GingerMan Raceway to ensure its solidity after mechanical issues last August. Also present will be Andy Smedegard, team boss at ASM, with his FA24-swapped Scion FR-S. He’ll be supporting Matt Waldbaum in his #90 Honda S2000, Lena Chin in her #917 Honda S2000, and Dai Nguyen in his #888 Subaru BRZ as well. Aryton Grim, who scored his first top five in his CRP Racing MX-5 Miata at Road Atlanta, is on the entry list as well. The current Eibach GLTC entry list sports nearly 50 entrants, with too many other notable drivers returning to list.
Aryton Grim will be competing in both Eibach GLTC and in the GRIDLIFE RUSH Series next weekend.
GRIDLIFE RUSH Series Heads to GRIDLIFE’s Home Track for the First Time
The GRIDLIFE RUSH Series debuted at Laguna Seca in 2023, but joined GRIDLIFE for select rounds in 2024. Fully part of GRIDLIFE’s travelling tour of series for 2025, the RUSH Series will entertain fans trackside at GingerMan Raceway for the first time next week. The entry list has over thirty cars, with a mix of the 150-horsepower RUSH SR and 230-horsepower RUSH SRX, a car that launched in competition just weeks ago at Road Atlanta. Joining the field will again be points leader Ryan Leach, who remains undefeated in 2025 across eight races, much to the dismay of championship runner-up in the SR category, Andy Voelkel, who has scored 7 second places and a sixth. Ethan Alexander, third in the championship, also joins for round 3, as does Aryton Grim, who will be running his second event in a RUSH SR car after a strong round at Lime Rock Park last year.
The GRIDLIFE RUSH Series races at GingerMan Raceway will be the first time GRIDLIFE has ever broadcast a multi-class race - fans can look for the SRX field to be highlighted in red, while the SR cars will be highlighted in blue. The RUSH SRX is unique in that the car has both a drag reduction system (DRS) and push-to-pass, where drivers can selectively reduce their drag and engage extra power strategically throughout the race.
Nearly 100-Car TrackBattle Field Set to Chase GRIDLIFE’s Most Coveted Records
Last season, seven GRIDLIFE TrackBattle drivetrain records fell in front of thousands of fans as part of the intense competition at GingerMan Raceway. Many drivers in the grassroots racing community consider Midwest Festival to be one of the most competitive time attack events in the country, with the size of the crowd and the broadcast just amping up the energy. The field of time attackers will once again near 100 cars spread across 7 classes, as drivers chase to not only break records but qualify for the Podium Sprint, where the top 5 in each class compete for trophies over a three-lap dash.
The record that may be most at risk is the Track Mod category - Jason Kanakry’s lightning quick 1:30.934 set in 2023 in his McLaren 720S might just fall to Allen Patten, a driver pulling double duty in TrackBattle and GRIDLIFE GT. Patten’s thunderous C7 Chevrolet Corvette, built by Louis Gigliotti, is on a path to destroy every record in its path in 2025. He reset the Street Mod record last season at GingerMan Raceway, with a time of 1:31.254 that Dewey DeWitt, Mike Aumick, and Kal Fortner have their sights set on defeating. While James Houghton reset the GingerMan Raceway Falken ClubTR record twice last season, he will be unable to defend it while he runs in GRIDLIFE GT, opening up opportunity for class leaders like Mario Mirone, Peter Granberg, Stan Fayngold, and Jerami Bailey.
Peter Granberg is back to chase a Falken Club TR title in his #511 Subaru BRZ.
In Street class, Luca Barberis will try to defend his record set last season, a 1:35.651, against Spaz Miller and other class hopefuls. After a double podium at Road Atlanta, Ryan Mathews is prepped to repeat his successes in two separate Chevrolet Corvettes in Street Mod and Street GT. The record he’ll chase in the latter category is Andy Voelkel’s lightning quick 1:33.881, set in a C8 Corvette Stingray last season. On opposite ends of the class speed spectrum, the Unlimited record sits at a 1:23.227, set by Feras Qartoumy in 2023, and Falken Club SC remains 1:51.162 from the same year, set by James Smith.
GRIDLIFE Midwest Festival is approaching quickly, and with so much to watch and cover, the GRIDLIFE broadcast will stream all three days of action, beginning at 11:00 AM ET on Friday with GRIDLIFE GT practice. All GRIDLIFE broadcasts can be viewed live and for free on the GRIDLIFE YouTube channel. Tickets to the festival are still available, and after the last checker falls on each day, fans can head to the newly relocated festival grounds on Spectator Hill, to see sets from Levity, Dr. Fresch, Rossy, Super Future, OkayJake, and more (Friday) and Sullivan King, Nghtmre, Zayz, Chyl, Dennett, and more (on Saturday).
