The GLTC Champion Will Be Crowned This Weekend

I've been watching GLTC for four years, have been involved for three years, and have been racing in the series for two years. In that time, I’ve seen incredible drives and heartbreaking DNFs, but never before has it felt like the championship has come down to the wire. This year, though, feels different. The title fight has my full attention.

How The Championship Points Work

Back in 2023, the championship was decided based on your five best weekend finishes. Weekends consisted of four races each, but only your overall weekend result contributed to the championship points accrual.

For 2024 and 2025, the format changed: the championship chase is now decided by your best 14 finishes of the regular season (from the 32 possible races, not overall weekend results) plus all four races from the final event at PittRace. You can't drop any of your race results from PittRace. [You also can't drop any regular-season races that resulted in a technical infraction, DQ, or an on-track incident that resulted in a loss of finishing positions, to encourage clean and fair racing.]

Recent Champions

Jeremy Swenson won in 2023, and by a fairly substantial margin, as he won four weekends. Comparatively, Luke McGrew, in second place, won only once, while James Houghton, in third, won twice.

In 2024, Luke McGrew had all but secured the championship, but in a shocking move, he sold his race car and stepped away from W2W racing about a month before the PittRace season finale. He had such a commanding lead that even though he sat out the finale, where all four races counted towards season points and could not be dropped, he still finished third in the championship.

Matan Rosenberg ultimately secured the overall championship win in 2024, with James Houghton finishing second and Luke McGrew in third.

The Aspiring 2025 Champs

Most of the names mentioned above have since retired from GLTC: Jeremy Swenson, Luke McGrew, and James Houghton have all moved on. This year, three players have been vying for the championship, with fourth place trailing relatively far behind in the chase.

Matan Rosenberg / 330 points (Leader)

The reigning champ came out swinging this year, with a strong performance in the first half of the season, with nine wins within the first 20 races of the year. His dominance was only building as he dialed in his new 8L90 automatic transmission swap at Mid-Ohio, culminating at Road America, where he won three of the four races quite handily.

This dominance was not without controversy. Following what was loosely described as "data discrepancies" from Road America, the 8L90 transmission was banned from GLTC, and a harsh punishment was handed down to Matan, only to be quickly rescinded. Very little has been shared publicly about the data, the circumstances, and how the decisions were reached, so we won't speculate on what transpired.

That said, since returning to Lime Rock Park with an H-pattern gearbox, Matan's championship charge has cooled down a bit. Lime Rock saw a P10 best finish, followed by a P3 at Autobahn.

Following Autobahn, Eric Kutil briefly moved into the championship lead. However, Matan was the only contender to travel out to Laguna Seca, where he secured one win and two seconds (in a somewhat shallower GLTC field), allowing him to move back into the lead by 8 points.

Eric Kutil / 322 points (-8)

Eric has been around since the beginning of GLTC, and like Matan, is a previous champion. If you follow GLTC at all, you are likely aware of Eric and Matan. They are both highly visible within Gridlife and are very hard-working, capable builders, and skilled drivers.

After totaling his previous race car in 2021, he took 2022 off to build his new Civic. He spent 2023 and 2024 really dialing it in, as well as fighting some reliability gremlins that took him out of contention for the victory in 2024.

This season, he has achieved an incredible statistic that attests to his consistency: an average finishing position of 2.3. With 24 starts, he has 7 wins, and only 5 races that did not result in a podium, with his worst finish being P5. This consistency has put him well within striking distance of Matan heading into PittRace this weekend.

Eric Magnussen / 288 points (-42)

EMag is a multiple-time NASA national champion that joined GLTC two years ago. He had a strong 'rookie' season, but has really hit his stride this year. Eric has four race wins this year, and with an average finish of 4.8, you can never count him out of contention.

While it may be a long shot for him to win the overall, he is more or less guaranteed a season podium position, since P4 is 64 points behind him. That said, there is a high likelihood that EMag will be fighting for podiums this weekend, which could easily shake up the battle between Matan and Eric Kutil.

The Eager Foils

Numerous drivers have been contending for wins this year, and many names that cycled in and out of the Top 3 and Top 5 positions will have chances to play the foil this weekend. Racers like Nick Barbato, Paul Darling, Matt Waldbaum, Andy Smedgard, Lena Chin, Erik Meadows, and Tony Marchev all have legitimate chances at placing near or ahead of the championship contenders at PittRace.

How Will It Shake Out?

With plenty of points up for grabs this weekend at Pitt, there is no guessing who is going to come out on top. To qualify P1 and win every race equals 103 points, and to qualify P2 and get 2nd every race equals 86 points, so you can see that it will be very easy for the championship lead to swing between Matan and Eric throughout the weekend.

PittRace is a balanced track where both handling and straight-line speed are equally important. At 2.8 miles and with lap times just under 2 minutes, the track requires a little bit of everything, and it doesn't favor one car more than another.

Late-season momentum and consistency are in Kutil's favor, but Matan is certainly not going to go down without a fight. Every session could swing the championship. From a racer’s perspective, that’s exactly how it should be: a true fight to the final checkered flag. I'm eager to see the outcome.

Watch The Streams

Friday, Oct. 17th

Qualifying: 4:35 PM EDT

Saturday, Oct. 18th

Race 1: 10:10 AM EDT
Race 2: 2:40 PM EDT

Sunday, Oct. 19th

Race 3: 9:55 AM EDT
Race 4: 12:45 PM EDT