That mid-2000s era was certainly the heyday for the SRO Championship (it was known as Speed World Challenge back then), with drivers like Randy Pobst, Peter Cunningham, Jeff Altenberg going door-to-door with manufacturer-backed teams in production-based cars in some of the best racing anywhere in the country. But in 2022, it’s still a knife fight out there in SRO’s various GT classes as GT4 teams field cars from nine different automakers through eight races ranging from Sonoma to Road America to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

This past offseason was even shorter than ever, just a tick over three months between the hauler getting back to the garage from the final ‘21 race in Indianapolis and rolling out again in February 2022 for the season opener in St. Petersburg, Florida. Making things even tougher on my Rotek crew, we switched manufacturers for 2022—we’re running the new Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport this year.

The original Cayman GT4 Clubsport has been the gold standard in SRO GT4 competition across the globe for several years and we saw that the new RS version would definitely continue that trend. The civilian Cayman GT4 RS is a true monster, promising unreal track capability straight out of the box with its 911 GT3-sourced flat-six engine, further blurring the lines between street car and race car. And yet, campaigning and maintaining the real Clubsport version is a lot more involved than hitting your local track day once a month. How much more? I’m here to show you exactly what it takes to buy, prep, and run a factory race car.