The twice defending World Endurance Championship (WEC) GT driver Ben Keating, 53, did not start the season with an intention to race the series this season, but he could not ignore the call of the Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
“I have been weirdly successful at COTA,” Keating told NBC Sports prior to qualification for the Lone Star Le Mans. “It’s not a track I’ve been extremely fast at. Maybe I’ve been a little lucky here. I don ‘t care; it’s the closest track to home.”
in the WEC’s single American round of the championship the track was, at best, ambivalent this time around.
As a late addition to the team, Keating took over a seat vacated by Christian Ried and did not have many expectations for the race. He qualified ninth, led briefly in the first hour during a cycle of pit stops, and handed the Ford Mustang over to his codrivers in 11th at about the two-hour. The No. 88 team eventually finished 15th in a field of 18 cars.
It may have been a disappointing race for the Native Texas on the track closest to his hometown of Victoria, Texas, but he remains excited about the trajectory of his career and results on the 3.426-mile road course in the shadow of Austin.
It all began with a Christmas present from his wife in 2005 valued at about $225.
“It turned out to be the most expensive Christmas present ever but I had more fun at that event, which I did in 2006, than I ever had,” Keating said. “I promised myself I would do it again and so in January 2007, I went to my second event. I ended up buying a racecar because I thought it was a better value than converting a street car and I wound up getting put in that race group in my third track event ever.”
Then, as now, Keating was one of the largest automotive dealers in the state. He began with one store 22 years ago and grew it to 30 currently. Keating says he moves more merchandise than anyone else in Texas, 57,000 cars across 16 brands, and that gave him the time to develop his craft.
It was also easy to find a mount in those early years.
“I took a Viper off the showroom floor and because I came to the event with it, a person at the track said there was a big Viper Group coming the next January, you should come back,” Keating continued.
Keating was the top-selling Dodge Viper dealer in the state.
While still getting his feet wet, Keating finished second in the Viper Cup in 2010 and won it the next year. He entered a few American Le Mans Series (ALMS) and Grand Am Rolex races that season. He was winning regularly within three years, an incredibly short learning curve for a man who did not start racing until he was pushing 40.
“As a Club racer and if you’re winning races, you get the elusion that you are really good and really fast,” Keating said. “The beautiful thing about endurance sports car racing is that you’re in the same car on the same track at the same time on the same tires as a bunch of other drivers - other pros.
“For me, I could be the fastest driver in that Club car and when I got to endurance sports cars and got into the car with a pro that is three seconds a lap faster, it baffled me. I felt like I was squeezing every ounce of speed out of it.”
Moving into the professional classes, Keating’s skill benefitted from seeing the data points from other teams, where they accelerated and braked, and wins became more frequent. Since 2014, he has won a class race in all but one season in the Weathertech Sportscar Series.
In the WEC, he has six wins in 27 starts.
“I’m faster today that I was when I was when I was 50 because I’ve learned so much in the last three years.” Keating said.
Keating won the LMP2 championship 2021, North American Endurance Cup in 2022 and 2023 in that same class, and the the GT championships in WEC last year as well as another LMP2 title.
But COTA has been special. Keating won the first four times he competed there and has six wins in the past 10 years.
“Clearly this track likes me.”
Included in those accomplishments is his first overall win in a 24-Hour endurance race in 2019. That took a little sting out of being disqualified from the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year for a fuel violation.
Keating still thinks he is the rightful winner of that race — and he was vindicated in 2022. After starting 19th, the team outlasted the competition and the night for the win in an Aston Martin Vantage.
Coming off the most-successful season of his career, Keating is exploring his options for 2025. While he will undoubtedly continue to add wins in the Weathertech Sportscar Championship, Keating is mulling over returning to WEC full time. That is if his wife will allow him to race on Easter when the series visits Italy for the 6 Hours of Imola.