5 is “quite a special number” for Antonio Garcia and Dane Cameron, who both scored their record-extending fifth IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship class titles in Saturday’s season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans.

Garcia & Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports co-driver Alexander Sims delivered the first-ever championship for the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in global competition, sweeping the drivers’, teams’ and manufacturer titles the GTD Pro class in the process.

Cameron, meanwhile, picked up his fifth different WeatherTech Championship class title, which remarkably came in five different classes and with four different teams.

He teamed with PJ Hyett to claim AO Racing’s first LMP2 championship, one year after the Gunnar Jeannette-led team scored its maiden class title in GTD Pro, the same year Cameron won the GTP championship with Porsche Penske Motorsport.

For Garcia, who also has the 2013 American Le Mans Series GT title to his credit, which came pre-merger, the Spaniard has remarkably achieved all of his IMSA championships with the same team Pratt Miller Motorsports.

“I think it’s consistency,” he said. “Not only the year consistency, but also keeping the key elements of the team as long as you can, basically.

“If you go around the whole Corvette crew and members, there are quite a few that have been there for a long time. When that happens, everything runs very, very smooth.

“Obviously you are taking new members once in a while for sure. You need to keep the ball rolling, but I think that consistency and be loyal to every single member of the team, that’s what it takes, because I think it’s a real family.”

Garcia, who was one of the car’s primary development drivers, and Sims also gave the Pratt Miller-built Z06 GT3.R its first WeatherTech Championship victory last year at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

“It’s just another proof of that pretty much every car that Corvette Racing, Team Chevy builds is capable of winning,” he said.

“I was very lucky to win with many versions of the Corvette, but again, with the same key members, which is Pratt Miller, so everything stays pretty much the same, even if we all evolve, the cars evolve.”

Cameron’s previous WeatherTech Championship titles came in 2014 (Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3, GT), 2016 (Action Express Racing Corvette DP, Prototype), 2019 (Team Penske Acura ARX-05, DPi) and last year (Penske Porsche 963, GTP).

The 36-year-old can now add a LMP2 class title with AO to his ever-growing resume.

“That’s obviously the goal when you start the year, and [we] believed in the project and the pieces that were there that it had this potential to bring a championship,” said Cameron on his ‘drive for five’ IMSA titles.

“[We] just needed a little glue to hold everything all together and elevate things a little bit more.
“Just grateful [and] thankful that PJ and Gunnar thought that I could be the guy. I thought there was some potential there to do it.

“The mission was to get some wins for ‘Spike’ after a tough year for them last year. Of course, the moon shot is to get the championship. That all came together.
“[It was a] difficult year in certain parts and a very strong, consistent year in other parts.

“I think of all the years that I’ve won the championship. This is probably the longest ten hours that I’ve spent here. It was a pretty long, stressful day, and it looked like it was kind of going to slip away there at a couple of points.

“Honestly, [it’s] pretty incredible. Five is quite a special number.”