Rebel Rock Racing began a new era of competition in the GT World Challenge America at COTA, Texas, on Sunday as the team finished their debut GT3 race.
Drivers Frank DePew and Robin Liddell completed a gruelling three-hour race in their Aston Martin Vantage GT3; the duo learning plenty along the way as they adapted to life with their new race car.
The team from DeLand, FL, have switched to GT3 machinery part-way through the 2026 season after DePew, Liddell and Andrew Davis won the season-opening Daytona round of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge - their home for the past five years – with a Vantage GT4.
The GT World Challenge America pits crews against each other in a series of three-hour enduros at some of the USA’s most iconic sportscar venues; the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) having achieved its status as a modern classic since its inception in 2010.
Braking and gearbox issues led to the team missing each of the first two 60-minute free practice sessions and left them with just 30 minutes of track time ahead of Sunday morning’s crucial qualifying sessions. This left the drivers and crew with an uphill task having such a short amount of running time to get up to speed with the GT3 car and the 20-turn, 3,426 mile home of the US Grand Prix.
As always, the Rebel Rock team, supported by Aston Martin Racing engineering expertise, delved hard into the data accrued from that final practice and worked to ensure both Frank – who was making his GT3 debut – and Robin, who had not raced such a car for nine years, had a well-handling car for the final day.
Their combined efforts netted them a starting position of 14th in the Pro-Am category, from which Frank made a calm getaway and immediately set about creating a rhythm.
This proved difficult due to two Full-Course Yellow (FCY) periods inside the race’s first 30 minutes, but Frank – a nine-time race winner in the IMPC – proved more than equal to the task.
With the Rebel Rock pitwall strategists opting to keep Frank on track while others pitted during the FCY period, the Virginia-born racer reached eighth place overall – and fifth in Pro-Am – before making his first stop.
With Pro racer Robin taking over driving duties just before the one-hour mark, the #71 Vantage continued its ultra-consistent run. With the target of executing an effective strategy and finishing the race foremost in the Scotsman’s mind, the aim was achieved.
Further stints from both drivers resulted in Robin crossing the line 12th in class and taking many learnings into the next round of the series at Sebring, FL, in two weeks’ time.
Frank DePew said: We went into this race with a mindset of simply finishing with the car in one piece and acquiring as much data as possible. Unfortunately, the gearbox let go at the beginning of Friday, snapped the driveshaft and created a lot of damage. The team worked tirelessly into the evening on Friday. We were quite fortunate that the car worked well on Saturday morning, however, we lost a lot of track time. The GT3 car is much quicker than the GT4 car and has more aerodynamic downforce, and to compete you need to be able to use all of those tools. I am still learning about this car and COTA, which of course is a great track!
Robin Liddell said: Overall it was a challenging debut but we certainly learned a lot about the car over the weekend. We have raced and won against a lot of the teams and drivers in this paddock in the past so we know we can compete but this is a new ball game to us and no doubt it's going to take us a little time to settle in. The crew did a great job rebuilding the car after our issues on Friday and it ran faultlessly after that, but inevitably we felt a little on the back foot for the rest of the weekend. The car was a lot of fun to drive though and everyone at SRO was super welcoming so we are looking forward to being back on home turf at Sebring where hopefully we can give a better account of ourselves and see where we stack up.