For the third straight year, I went to Indianapolis Indiana to watch the IMSA Battle On The Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the Buckeye Chapter of the BMW Car Club of America.  I drove to Indianapolis on Thursday night so I could spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the track.

Perhaps one of the best places to stay in the downtown Indianapolis area is the JW Marriott:

I’ve stayed in several of the Marriott properties in the Indianapolis area, but not the JW.  Marriott also maintains very nice Courtyard that’s behind the JW Marriott, which is where I stayed for this trip:

Thanks to my status, I was put in a 15th floor, suite – their nicest room on property.

As previously mentioned, in past Battle On The Bricks weekends,  I’d gone just Saturday and Sunday.  But this time I went a day earlier partially so I could spend Friday morning I once again visiting Robert’s Camera in downtown Indianapolis and met with their team – I hope to announce some interesting news from that trip in the near future.

After my visit to Roberts Camera, I headed to Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the BMW Performance Center which the Buckeye chapter of the BMW car club uses for the entire weekend.  There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you drive into the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway:

I had won a club contest that afforded me reserved front row parking for the entire weekend:

After grabbing a nice lunch at the Performance Center Building, the club members were shuttled over to our first Meet & Greet of the weekend with the Paul Miller Racing Team.

Paul Miller Racing arrived at Indianapolis with its No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, driven by Neil Verhagen and Connor De Phillippi, holding a slender 23-point championship lead over Corvette Racing’s Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner.  The team had already enjoyed considerable success in 2026, including a victory at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and a runner-up finish at Watkins Glen. However, the GTD PRO title remained the major accomplishment missing from Paul Miller Racing’s résumé.  Two weeks after Indianapolis, Paul Miller Racing would cinch the 2026 GTD PRO Team Championship at the season ending Petite LeMans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.  The 2026 GTD PRO Drivers’ Championship was also awarded to Neil Verhagen and Connor De Phillippi.  And for the third consecutive year, Paul Miller Racing won the 2026 GTD PRO Michelin Endurance Cup Championship.

After the Paul Miller Racing meet and greet, we did a tour of the recently renovated Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum:

Look for a separate article on the museum coming soon here to ThruMyLens.

After the museum tour, I had some time before dinner and did a bit of sight seeing and photo taking in the downtown Indianapolis area near my hotel:

I then got cleaned up and headed to a hosted dinner event at Harry & Izzy’s:

Harry & Izzy’s, as well as their next-door sister restaurant, St. Elmo’s Steak House are Indianapolis institutions.  Their famous for their shrimp cocktail (which I try to avoid due to the nuclear horseradish sauce).  But I had their fantastic prime rib chili followed by some excellent salmon for dinner, and their signature brownie for desert.

After the nice dinner I walked around downtown Indianapolis quite some time and tried to get some nice photos:

Saturday morning I was up early and headed back to the track.  After breakfast at the Performance Center, the morning light was excellent, and I got some fantastic shots of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo qualifying raceLamborghini Super Trofeo qualifying race:

Afterward, we saw the running of race 1 of the Mazda MX-5 Cup:

I then was shuttled to the famous Pagoda at IMS so I had an ideal shooting position to photograph the BMW Car Club members who drove parade laps as they crossed the famous IMS bricked finish line.  But first, I was able to photograph race 1 one of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America:

After I completed the photography for the parade laps, I was shuttled back to the performance center and got to catch the WeatherTech Championship qualifying laps:

We also got to see the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Saturday afternoon featuring the Grand Sport (GS) and Touring Car (TCR) class:

One of the highlights of Saturday’s Indianapolis Motor Speedway 120 was seeing veteran BMW factory driver Bill Auberlen competing in the No. 38 BMW M4 GT4 EVO for ST Racing by Random Vandals, alongside co-driver Samantha Tan. Unfortunately, the team endured a difficult race.  After Tan worked her way from 24th to as high as 15th in the Grand Sport (GS) class, an off-track incident cost the team valuable time and left Auberlen with a substantial deficit to overcome. Despite a determined recovery effort,  the pair finished 27th in class. On a personal note, seeing Auberlen race again was particularly special for me. I first met him at Laguna Seca in 2006, during the very first IMSA race I ever photographed.  Twenty years later, it was wonderful to see him still competing at such a high level, and it brought back some great memories of where my motorsports photography journey began.

We finished Saturday with a visit to BMW M Team WRT for another meet and greet.

Honestly, I was perhaps a little bitter about BMW’s decision to replace Team RLL for 2026 – a major change in its North American sports car racing program.  Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing had partnered with BMW for 17 years, including operating its two BMW M Hybrid V8 prototypes since the introduction of IMSA’s GTP class in 2023.  For 2026, BMW consolidated its factory prototype racing operations under Belgium-based Team WRT, which was already running BMW’s Hypercar program in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).  Team RLL had just started to show some promise when the decision was made to make the change.

WRT fielded two updated BMW M Hybrid V8 prototypes in 2026:  No. 24 Dries Vanthoor (Belgium) and Sheldon van der Linde (South Africa), and No. 25: Philipp Eng (Austria) and Marco Wittmann (Germany).  The team began its inaugural IMSA campaign with a podium finish at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, demonstrating that the new partnership could compete against established rivals such as Porsche, Cadillac, and Acura.

I snapped a few photos. of the Carrera Cup cars that were lined up in Gasoline Alley:

After the meet and greet, I headed back to my hotel, got cleaned up, and then went to St. Elmo’s Steakhouse for dinner:

Dinner was great, but if I had to choose, I think I would pick Harry & Izzy’s over Saint Elmo’s.  I got the steak and lobster combo. which was excellent, but not special:

After dinner I again walked round the downtown Indianapolis area and took some more photos:

Sunday morning came around and I checked out of the Courtyard after breakfast and headed back to the track.

We started the day off with our final meet and greet of the weekend with Team Turner Motorsports:

Turner Motorsport enjoyed an outstanding Sunday afternoon at the 2026 Battle on the Bricks, capturing the GTD class victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on September 20. The win was particularly meaningful because it ended a victory drought of more than two years for the longtime BMW racing team.

After the meet and greet, it was time to watch the main event for Sunday – the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship — Battle on the Bricks.  I got some candid portraits of the BMW Car Club members that were watching the race inside the BMW Performance Center:

The weather wasn’t great that afternoon, so I ended up not taking any photos during the actual race.  But the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 delivered one of the most memorable finishes of the Indianapolis weekend.  Dries Vanthoor qualified third and kept the BMW among the leaders during his opening stint. Sheldon van der Linde took over before the halfway point and gradually closed on the race-leading No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R, driven by Earl Bamber.  With approximately five and a half minutes remaining in the two-hour, 40-minute race, van der Linde made his move. As the leaders encountered slower GT traffic, he seized an opportunity approaching Turn 12, passing Bamber’s Cadillac to take the lead.  Van der Linde held on to win by 2.926 seconds, delivering both his first IMSA victory and WRT’s first overall victory in the championship.  The result was particularly meaningful because BMW had also won at Indianapolis in 2024 with Team RLL and drivers Philipp Eng and Jesse Krohn. This time, it was WRT’s opportunity to celebrate at the Brickyard.

It was a fantastic weekend, not only for the BMW teams but also for the BMW Car Club members that watched the race at the performance center.  The memories of watching these races with the other club members for the past three years will be treasured for the rest of my life.  Long live BMW!

Here’s the video: