NEWS

To say that Nick Groat was the dominant force in the Lamborghini Cup class of the North American Super Trofeo championship last year is something of an understatement.

Of the 10 races he entered [missing the end-of-year Lamborghini World Finals in Misano], he won seven of them at the wheel of his #57 One Motorsport Huracán, wrapping up the title at Indianapolis with a round to spare.

It marked the second Super Trofeo title in a row, having made his debut in the one-make series a year prior. And with a pair of LB Cup trophies in the bag, Groat is aiming for bigger and better as he readies himself for the 2026 campaign.

“Driving a Lamborghini is literally my favourite thing in the world, so I am absolutely coming back to the championship for 2026,” says Groat.

“We’re going to be moving up to the Am category, and that is one of the reasons we weren’t able to go to the World Finals in Misano, because we wanted to do a lot of testing ahead of the step up for next season.

“After winning a couple of titles in LB Cup, we definitely want to be able to keep this momentum so that we can get podiums and be right up there in Am, which is a whole different level of competition.

“So, the main goal for us as a team is to focus on ourselves during the off-season and make sure we can reach that level, to be competitive when the season begins again at Sebring in March.”

The step up is a natural process for Groat, ever the competitor, who wants to push himself and the team to new levels. This progression is also testament to the way the one-make Super Trofeo category is structured too as it is aimed at giving drivers of all abilities the chance to move up through the ranks in order to reach their ultimate potential.

Indeed, the Am title race in 2025 was one of the most hotly contested in years, with three crews heading into the final race of the year in Italy with a shot at being crowned.

In the end, Wayne Taylor Racing’s Glenn McGee and Graham Doyle came out on top by just two points over Rafa Racing Team’s Jem Hepworth and Lindsay Brewer, while Precision Performance Motorsports’ David Staab narrowly missed out after encountering bad luck.

Having achieved everything there is to achieve in the LB Cup class, Groat knows that he’ll have his work cut out against what promises to be another highly competitive Am field in 2026.

“We’re putting in the work, that’s for sure, and we’ll see where we are against those guys,” says Groat.

“Most of our testing will be taking place at Spring Mountain, that’s our home track which is just outside of Vegas. And then we’ll go to all of the tracks we’ll be racing on during the season as well.

“Testing, in my opinion, is one of the most important things for progression, so we’ll be doing all of that plus the usual off-season preparations.”

Perhaps one of the most visible aspects of an amateur driver in a one-make series such as Super Trofeo, is the year-by-year progression, both on and off the track.

For Groat, a relative racing novice who only made his car debut a year prior to his Super Trofeo bow, in 2023, his development was measured not by seasons but by races, due in no small part to his driver coaches Simon Payne and Kenton Koch.

“Our engineer Simon is the one who is getting me to understand vehicle dynamics and basically how to drive to a level that is worthy of Super Trofeo!” Groat explains.

“Then, we brought on Kenton, who is just phenomenal and my progression since he’s been working with Simon has been unbelievable. Kenton’s a really good driver in his own right, really fast, and he’s really great at helping me learn the tracks and how to be fast at each event.

“Simon, on the other hand, has a much more engineering background and he is teaching me how to understand the car, how to get the most out of the car as well. So, the two of them together cover pretty much every aspect of driving and I’m improving race by race rather than year by year; the development has been huge!”

It’s a far cry from Groat’s maiden Super Trofeo outing, at Sebring in 2024. Minimal testing prior to a difficult opening weekend may not have been the most conspicuous start, but he quickly gelled with the Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2 so much that he became the reference point in the novice class.

“The bumpiness of Sebring was one thing, but what I remembered the most about that first round was just pulling up into the paddock and just being in awe at all the trailers, all the Lambos and all the people you normally see on TV and just being part of it,” recounts Groat.

“I’ll never forget that moment, it was an incredible feeling just being there and supporting the 12 Hours was amazing.

“It was my first race, so I spun a couple of times, but even just seeing all the fans with their crazy setups in the in-field. So, even though it wasn’t the best start to my season, to see all the people there enjoying themselves made me realise what I was actually doing!”

It’s clear that Groat has a deep passion for Lamborghini and Super Trofeo North America. And don’t be surprised if he is right at the sharp end of the Am class when the 2026 season kicks off on the weekend of March 20-21 at Sebring International Raceway.