Tanner Foust to make sports car racing debut in Porsche Endurance Challenge at COTA

Tanner Foust will try his hand at sports car racing for the first time in November when he runs the Porsche Endurance Challenge North America‘s season finale at Circuit of the Americas. He will share the #98 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport with Patrick Dempsey and Patrick Long, competing for Dempsey-Wright Motorsports.

Foust has excelled in a multitude of disciplines on both pavement and off-road as a multi-time Formula DRIFT and rallycross champion, while also competing in disciplines like Extreme E, desert racing, and short course. Since departing Extreme E at the end of 2023, he has been focusing on being a brand ambassador for various companies and doing Nitrocross.

Before Nitrocross paused its 2024/25 season after two weekends, Foust was fifth in the Group E standings with a best run of fourth in the second Utah race day.

Sports cars marks a change of pace for Foust. He is certainly no stranger to such vehicles as a stunt driver and host of various motoring shows, though the Porsche Endurance Challenge will mark his first time racing competitively.

“It’s an incredible honour to be invited as the third driver for this powerhouse motorsports duo,” said Foust. “Pat Long and Patrick Dempsey are two of my personal heroes. They are both extremely inspirational on and off the track. To top it off, we’re hitting the iconic COTA circuit in a Wright Motorsports-prepped Porsche GT4; it doesn’t get much better than that.

“What makes this even more special is that, after more than 25 years in racing, this will be my official début in an officially sanctioned sports car race.”

The Porsche Endurance Challenge North America is a single-make series created in 2024 by Porsche Motorsport North America for the Porsche 911 GT3 and 718 Cayman GT4, both of which are eligible for the Porsche Sprint Challenge. The series made its début at COTA in May.

Long and Dempsey are second in the Cayman GT4 standings with 138 points each. While Dempsey is best known for his acting career, he has regularly competed in sports cars for over a decade; he and Long did the 224 Hours of Le Mans together from 2013 to 2015 before reuniting for the new series.

The weekend will consist of three sixty-minute races that culminate in a six-hour endurance race on 24 November.

“I’m absolutely blown away that Tanner is going to be racing with us,” Dempsey commented. “He has such an incredible range as a driver. It’s remarkable that he’s not done any endurance racing, so to have him on board with us is really exciting and inspiring. Not only is he a talented driver, but he’s also such a great human being highly intelligent, great sense of humor and so kind and down to earth and just wonderful to be around.”