Patrick Wilmot: Can an all-volunteer team podium in IMSA? Yes. | Articles

What Brought Everyone Together

The roots of the team go back to a bunch of racing buddies drinking beer and enjoying themselves during a race weekend. That group included Jimmy Scott, Adam Thomas and Rob Farley.

“We got to talking, ‘One of these days, let’s go figure out how we can pro race,’” says team owner Jimmy Scott. “We were just going to do one race. It would just be us, and we were going to figure out how to make it happen.”

The three had met through track days, and Rob served as its nucleus.

“Rob’s one of those people that, when you meet him, you’re immediately friends with him,” explains Adam, the team’s engineer.

Jimmy had discovered track days later in life and bought a Nissan GT-R, which Rob had worked on.

“Once I met Rob, I wanted to spend time with this guy,” says Jimmy. “He was so helpful, so forgiving. I knew nothing about driving. I came up the ladder system in NASA, and he was there all the way.”

Most conversations about racing in the pros are pipe dreams and nothing more. Not for these guys.

“We started looking for a car,” Jimmy says. “I sold the GT-R so I would have money to put toward a full race car.”

In 2014, Adam stopped by Rob’s shop in Cleveland, Tennessee, to assist him and his helper Davis Gregor with a clutch replacement in a C6 Corvette Z06. Adam was headed to the Rolex 24 At Daytona after that.

“I told Rob, ‘Hey, I’ll buy you guys tickets. Come down with me. We’ll finish this up next week,’” recalls Adam. “Rob said, ‘No, we got to get this done. We’re going to stay here.’”

While at Daytona watching the Michelin Pilot Challenge, Adam received several calls from the owner of the Corvette.

“I thought he was frustrated because he didn’t have the car back,” Adam remembers. “Finally, he texted me, saying, ‘It’s an emergency. I need you to call me.’ I went behind the grandstands so I could hear him when I called him. He said, ‘Rob and Davis are dead.’”

The two had taken the Corvette for a test drive. They lost control of the car and hit a tree. Rob was 35, Davis just 19.

“It was tough for everybody,” says Adam. “Riding back on the tram in NASCAR [Turns] 3 and 4, a half a dozen of us were in tears.”

Davis Gregor and Rob Farley. Photo courtesy Split Decision Motorsports.

The Next Step

After Rob’s death, Jimmy, Adam and friends continued progressing through the ranks. They found their niche in endurance racing. They first competed in ChampCar and then moved into WRL. They connected with Patrick in 2017. That’s when the WRL asked the team if they could provide a spot for an up-and-coming pro driver. They agreed and quickly gelled with Patrick.

“He was awesome,” Jimmy says. “He coached every one of us. He would pack and unpack the trailer, worked on the car. I’m like, ‘Wow, this is a pro driver?’ He’s doing every job and not complaining. He’s not getting paid to be here–he’s getting experience and getting his name out there.”

Patrick Wilmot at Sebring in 2023. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

Patrick knew the value of hard work. He started relatively late in the sport at the age of 17 in indoor karts.

“When I was 19, we bought a crappy little Mustang and went to race SCCA for a few years until my parents went broke, essentially,” Patrick recalls. “I was on my own to try to figure it out from there.”

Patrick’s career trajectory did not go as planned. He went to college, but it wasn’t for him, so he left his studies at age 22. At the time he was earning a living building karts.

“I always wanted to be a young guy coming into the sport, but it’s hard to do that when you don’t have financial backing,” Patrick says. “I knew I needed to try to become a coach and do it on a professional level. I begged Skip Barber to coach with them. They denied me multiple times until they finally needed somebody. Then I got hired by Porsche at Barber.”

Patrick kept coaching, hoping for a lucky break. He received his first professional opportunity to race at age 27, in 2016, competing in a Mini in the World Challenge. The next year, MX-5 Cup. In 2018, an opportunity came to race a TCR car at Road Atlanta, again in 2020 at Daytona and Atlanta, and again at Daytona in 2021. At the end of 2022, Jimmy, Adam and crew started having crazy ideas.

Let’s Go IMSA, for Real

“After long endurance days, you sit around, have a few beers, and you start throwing things out into the ether,” Jimmy says. “We had our fill of [WRL]–we’d done it for five years. We were like, ‘What are we going to do next?’ Somebody around the campfire said, ‘Well, we never did that pro race thing.’”

IMSA had just introduced the VP Racing SportsCar Challenge for 2023. Jimmy felt the Michelin Pilot Challenge was a bit too much for an all-volunteer crew, but the VP series was maybe just the right fit.

Jimmy Scott at Sebring in 2023. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

“I said, ‘Look here, boys. We said something and IMSA created a race series just for us,’” Jimmy says jokingly. “So, we got to give it a try.”

Then they found a car, an F82-chassis BMW GT4. One catch: It was in Germany. The car started its life as a show car for BMW Motorsport, competed in a few races in Belgium, and then was used as a display piece for an aftermarket company. It was fully homologated.

“I buy it sight unseen,” Jimmy says. “I wire a lot of money to a guy in Germany that I had to just run on faith. BMW told me they were good people and have been around a long time. I picked the car up at Charleston, South Carolina, and dropped it off at the shop 28 days before the race.”

The aftermarket front bumper, splitter, hood and doors had to be replaced with the homologated parts that came with the purchase. They also updated the electronics and some of the safety equipment. The team finished the electronics 4 minutes before the first practice at Daytona.

“We did all that while working full-time jobs,” Adam reminds us. Adam works as an engineer for the Tennessee Valley Authority, while Jimmy runs a sales organization for a software company.

“It was unbelievable,” says Jimmy. “We had a buddy who had just built a shop and had room for our car. People would just show up and help Adam work on the car.”

The team tapped Patrick as their driver, and getting to Daytona was an achievement. Of the 15 cars that came to compete in the GSX class, the team’s crossed the line third.

“We had zero test days and Patrick had never driven an F82 before,” Jimmy says. “We were ecstatic. We were all on the radios crying with each other.”

Patrick Wilmot at Daytona in 2023. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

However, their dream race ended with a DQ. Jimmy repeatedly asked the seller about the car’s non-homologated parts. The one thing they failed to mention were the springs.

“We had never worked on F82s,” Jimmy says. “We didn’t know the springs were supposed to be blue. It was obvious that the springs were black.”

While the color may not seem like a huge difference, the springs had a different rate than the homologated parts. That night, they replaced the springs with the proper ones and competed in the weekend’s second race the next day.

“Pat goes out and drives to P2 and is catching P1,” Jimmy says. “We were moving.”

Patrick Wilmot at Daytona in 2023. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

Unfortunately, a lapped car overreacted and made contact with Split Decision’s BMW, knocking the toe out of the rear and ending that run. Nevertheless, Daytona changed the team’s plans.

“We thought we would get to another race somewhere down the season,” Jimmy says. “Once we knew we could compete … I looked at my finances. My wife, Louise, and I sat down, ‘Do we want to try to ride this out?’ I’m like, ‘Hell yeah, I want to try to ride this out.’”

The Race to Raise Funds

Racing the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge requires money.

“We picked up some small sponsors along the way,” says Jimmy. “[Crewmember] Steven Bunnell brought us a sponsor for one race. Anything helps at that point. Going to write me a $50 check? I’ll take it.”

“The Jzilla community were awesome,” Adam says. “Those guys would pitch in $50 or $100. You get a lot of people doing that and then you have a few thousand dollars.”

“They’d post on their Facebook page, ‘Hey, Patrick needs our help getting to the next race,” says Jimmy. “Then, all of a sudden, a $100 check. Venmo $50. Venmo $100. The next thing you know, you got $3, $4, $5000. A set and a half of tires.”

Patrick Wilmot at Sebring in 2023. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

That effort got them to Sebring, where they got their first podium, a third, in the second race of the weekend. Then, they continued to find ways to make races.

“We were running in front of the [newer BMW] G82s–until the back half of the year, when they started to figure them out,” Jimmy says. “The day the G82 came out, I put my name on the list to buy one. Never got a phone call. At Mosport, somebody said, ‘Hey, there are some guys here from BMW and they want to talk with you.’ It was the director of North American motorsports. He said, ‘We’re really proud of what you’re doing. We want to allocate a G82 for you guys.’ So we knew we would have G82 at the end of the year, which I had no idea how we were going to pay for it. But I said, ‘Yes, please, allocate me one.’”

Enter luck. A good friend of Patrick’s, Joseph Bernstein, had been wanting to work for a company that would partner with him.

“Ever since we left high school, he’s been telling me, ‘One day, there’s going to be a company I’m going to work for and we’re going to sponsor you,’” says Patrick. “Over the course of my career, I’ve heard that conversation a hundred times.”

Joseph started working for The Genie Company, which builds garage door opening systems. What do many racers have? Garages. What do those garages typically have? Doors.

“He called me: ‘I’ve ran it past the company’s VP. They’re really interested,’” recalls Patrick. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure. Joey, we’ve had this conversation before.’ Then he called about a month later [and said], ‘No, seriously, we’re going to really do something.’”

The timing of the deal couldn’t have been better. It occurred at the end of 2023. The team did its best to put Patrick to the front, but their best finish after Sebring was fifth in class the next event at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Every event following, they finished toward the back. It was clear they needed to upgrade their BMW.

Patrick Wilmot at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 2023. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

“[Genie] wrote us a check for half of this [2024] season,” Jimmy says. “We decided, ‘Let’s go buy this [new G82] car. We’ve got half the season paid for–we’ll figure out the other half as we go. By the end of the [2024] year, we pretty much had all the races sponsored.”

A New Car, a New Year, a New Opportunity

Patrick Wilmot at Daytona in 2024. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

The new GT4 car and the backing from The Genie Company, among others, seemed to be just what the team needed.

Split Decision Motorsports started off at Daytona with a pair of fifth-place finishes. After that, a pair of fourths came at Mid-Ohio. Then, at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, they podiumed with a third, starting a string of five consecutive podium finishes, including two runner-ups, with one at VIR and the other at Road Atlanta. That late-season push to the front resulted in Patrick Wilmot and team finishing second in the final points championship. For Patrick, this was an overnight success 18 years in the making.

“It means a lot,” Patrick says of the achievement. “It’s given me validation on my abilities. I’ve always been in question of that. Am I really good enough to do this? Why am I not making it? If we had the proper resources, there’s no doubt in my mind that we would be winning races. I hope it means a lot to these guys.”

The Split Decision Motorsports team during the 2024 IMSA banquet. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

It does. For Jimmy, Adam and crew, they still remember the catalyst behind this crazy idea of racing in the pros: their late friend Rob Farley.

“This is what he always wanted,” says Adam. “He’d have so much fun.”

The story of Split Decision Motorsports success in IMSA involved many instances of being in the right place at the right time, where Adam says “dumb luck” certainly helped. Or perhaps there’s another element at play.

“The spirit of people remains,” says Jimmy. “People that have left such an impact on your life, that doesn’t leave. So whether you believe that’s Rob standing there or just the fact that he was able to put such enough of an impression on you that the rest of your life carries that impression, that’s what I believe. So is he here? Yes, because of the impression he made–whatever form that is.”

There’s no question that Rob showed Adam what he needs to do to find success in the sport.

“I feel like a second-rate fill-in for Rob Farley,” Adam admits. “He was the best damn mechanic I’ve ever seen. He’d work so hard on all those details. I’ve seen him corner-weight a car by grinding off the tail of a coil spring. He’d take a spring off, take a 1/16 inch off [each time], and put it back into the car. He was that guy. I was never that guy. That’s why he was more successful. But when we decided we were going to do this, I decided I was going to work like Rob worked. I could not be satisfied in a world that did not have Rob’s work ethic.

Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

While the team honors Rob by placing his name on their race car and carrying same number Davis ran, 317, their focus has adjusted in the past two years.

“As much as our journey has been about the guys who had passed, it became our passion for people to recognize Pat,” Jimmy says. “This is a talented race car driver who doesn’t have a million dollars behind him. But he’s that good. How many of these drivers can you put in that car and do what he has done?”

Adam echoed Jimmy’s sentiments that Pat is the biggest cause of their success.

“For anybody that’s paying attention and knows what we’re dragging around here, they know that we’re not giving [Patrick] the sharpest weapon in the field,” says Adam. “He’s done more with less than anybody in IMSA the last two seasons. That kid needs a ride.”

Adam Thomas and Patrick Wilmot during the 2024 IMSA banquet. Photo by Tyler Keller/Split Decision Motorsports.

For 2025, the team has one goal: “Get Pat a ride,” says Jimmy. “All the sponsorship money we’ve collected and can push forward, it is his to go to a fully professional full-time team. If that happens, and if there’s no money left and no people left, we’ve succeeded.

“If another sponsor walks up and says, ‘You have the greatest story in IMSA right now, and I would love to be a part of you continuing it,” then I have a number for that person and if they can meet that number, we will be back,” Jimmy continues. “We can put an Evo package on this car … I can buy one of the new Evos coming, but there’s a clock ticking on that.”

Jimmy, Adam and much of the crew may be ready to return to track days and going to events like Daytona and Petit Le Mans as fans, where they can drink beer and have a good time. They might be out of crazy ideas (probably not), but there’s no question who they want to cheer for. The only question is who will see what they do in Patrick Wilmot and take him to the next level.