As anyone in the world of motorsport knows, the path into racing is rarely a conventional one. This has certainly been the case for Chicago Performance and Tuning Co. as they made the step into GT World Challenge America competition this year.
The Chicago-based operation has been around for over two decades, building its reputation in club racing, the vintage scene, and high-performance tuning. But over the past few years, the organization has increasingly turned its attention toward professional motorsport, taking its first steps into SRO competition with a KTM X-BOW GT2 in GT America powered by AWS in 2023 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway before returning with a Pirelli GT4 America program in 2025.
This season, that progression has taken the team into GT3 competition with the No. 64 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO, shared by Mads Siljehaug and Nicolai Elghanayan. The program is a partial-season effort, with Sonoma, Road America and the Indianapolis 8 Hour making up its 2026 schedule.
Team Manager Christopher Lester explained that it came together in the most traditional of motorsport fashions: quickly.
“For this program specifically, it's a very typical kind of motorsport story,” Lester said. “We had a gap, and Lamborghini had a gap. Erik Skirmants, the Senior Manager for Motorsport at Automobili Lamborghini America, and I had worked together at Porsche Motorsport North America, and we'd always kept in touch.
“We had a really cool GT4 program, but they had some things come up and decided to take a break from racing this year. Erik basically said, ‘I actually have a gap too, and I need a team to run a Lamborghini in SRO. Can you guys put a budget together and make it happen, even if it's a partial season?’”
The result was a three-event schedule, with Sonoma serving as the team's GT3 debut, with Road America and Indianapolis set to take place in the back half of the season. But getting to Sonoma was already an accomplishment in itself.
“We had five weeks to build it from the ground up,” Lester shared. “It was essentially a bare tub when we got the car, with a pile of parts. It's like the world's most complicated Lego set. Going through and figuring that out, there were lots of people from other teams as well, which we're super grateful for, that came over to help us build the car out. It was a real Herculean effort to get the car done and in the trailer for Sonoma.”
Once the team arrived in California, another challenge emerged. While Siljehaug brought prior GT3 experience to the lineup, including involvement with Reiter Engineering and development of the previous-generation Lamborghini Gallardo GT3, Sonoma marked Elghanayan's first time in a GT3 car.
The team responded by leaning heavily on preparation and manufacturer support, which included Elghanayan completing extensive simulator work with the engineering group ahead of the event, while Lamborghini factory driver Loris Spinelli was made available to the team during the test sessions.
“Loris stayed the entire weekend to work with us and the team,” Lester explained. “He was constantly helping us with the driver feedback and the setup direction of the car.”
The team's simulator, which is normally carried in its transporter, became another important tool. Spinelli and Elghanayan worked together whenever Elghanayan was out of the car, helping accelerate the learning process.
The Sonoma weekend therefore served several purposes. Beyond trying to learn a new car and establish itself in GT3 competition, the team also viewed the program as an opportunity to be a proud representative of Lamborghini within the paddock.
“For us, the main impetus behind the program, aside from us wanting to race on a personal front, is to represent Lamborghini in SRO America and remind people that that brand is active in the SRO space, that it can be competitive and that it can be a solution for teams if they're looking for options in the future,” Lester shared. “We want to do the best job possible to showcase what Lamborghini is capable of.”
“Luckily we were able to walk away from Sonoma with zero mechanical issues with a car that was built from the ground up in an accelerated timeframe,” he continued. “We were super pleased with ourselves for that and proud of what we were able to accomplish.”
Yet the weekend also left the team convinced there was more available. The pace of the Lamborghini suggested a stronger result was possible, but little errors during the pit stop and driver changes cost valuable time. Chicago Performance and Tuning Co. ultimately finished eighth in class and 12th overall, a result Lester described as bittersweet given the potential he believed the team had demonstrated.
The months between Sonoma and Road America have consequently been about much more about refining and fine tuning their processes rather than simply maintaining the car. The team has used the summer break to examine virtually every aspect of its operation, from the Lamborghini itself to the way the group communicates, structures its paddock setup and approaches race weekends.
“It's all a game of marginal gains,” Lester said. “It's been a lot of really small stuff, and we're hoping that a thousand small things will add up to something greater.”
That philosophy extends well beyond setup changes. Following each race weekend, the team conducts detailed debriefs covering both performance and operations. Problems are documented regardless of whether they involve the car, internal communication, organization or even the physical layout of their space.
As they are feeling more and more prepared heading into the upcoming round, Road America offers the team another motivation, too. Although technically located across the Wisconsin state line, the legendary circuit is only about two hours from Chicago Performance and Tuning Co.'s shop, making the event a genuine home race for the organization.
“We were lucky enough when we competed last year with our Supra in GT4 America that we had that home-race kind of feel again,” Lester smiled. “Just knowing that there's familial support for everybody there, I think means a lot.”
Road America is a regular destination for the team's club and vintage racing activities, but competing there as part of SRO's professional paddock provides a different kind of opportunity. The excitement within the team has been building throughout the summer, with communication among the crew having increased dramatically as the weekend approaches, with team members regularly checking in on the status of the car and organizing meetings.
However, rather than setting an arbitrary finishing position as its only measure of success, Lester is more interested in determining how much of the Lamborghini's potential the team can extract.
“There's going to be an apparent ceiling to the car from a performance potential in the data after the first few sessions of us running and seeing where we're at,” he said. “As long as we're getting close to that potential and we're extracting everything that we can out of our collective package, I'll walk away from that event happy. On a personal note, for sure I want to improve from our results at Sonoma. I want to be knocking on the door of a top five and seeing if we can pick up some hardware.”
The longer-term objective is perhaps even more important to him and the wider group. The three-race program was never intended to be a one-off experiment. Chicago Performance and Tuning Co. has already been working on the commercial side of the organization, developing sponsor packages and building the infrastructure necessary to establish a sustained presence in SRO for years to come.
But first, Road America represents the next step. It is a home event for a team that has spent years building its foundation in the Midwest. It is another opportunity to demonstrate what a Lamborghini GT3 program can accomplish, and it is part of a broader effort to turn a partial-season opportunity into a lasting place within professional GT racing.
To see Chicago Performance and Tuning Co. return to the field and continue their GT World Challenge America journey, get your GT Road America tickets now!
