The Pontiac Firebird is an American automobile built and produced by Pontiac from the 1967 to 2002 model years. Designed as a pony car to compete with the Ford Mustang, it was introduced on February 23, 1967, five months after GM's Chevrolet division's platform-sharing Camaro. This also coincided with the release of the 1967 Mercury Cougar, Ford's upscale, platform-sharing version of the Mustang. The name "Firebird" was also previously used by GM for the General Motors Firebird series of concept cars in the 1950s.
The Trans-Am Series presented by Pirelli is a sports car racing series held in North America. Founded in 1966, it is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Primarily based in the United States, the series competes on a variety of track types including road courses and street circuits. Trans-Am is split into the TA and TA2 classes for silhouette racing cars, while its production classes are the GT, SGT, and XGT.
Tommy Archer is an American professional racing driver. He has competed in International Motor Sports Association, Sports Car Club of America, Trans-Am Series, 24 Hours of Le Mans and National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing events.
Road Atlanta is a 2.540 mi (4.088 km) road course located just north of Braselton, Georgia, United States. The facility is utilized for a wide variety of events, including professional and amateur sports car and motorcycle races, racing and driving schools, corporate programs and testing for motorsports teams. The track has 12 turns, including the famous "esses" between turns three and five; and Turn 12, a downhill, diving turn. The track is owned by IMSA Holdings, LLC through its subsidiary Road Atlanta, LLC, and is the home to the Petit Le Mans, as well as AMA motorcycle racing, and smaller events throughout the year. Michelin acquired naming rights to the facility in 2018.
Portland International Raceway (PIR) is a motorsport facility in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is part of the Delta Park complex on the former site of Vanport, just south of the Columbia River. It lies west of the Delta Park/Vanport light rail station and less than a mile west of Interstate 5.
Tommy Kendall is an American race car driver and television broadcaster. He is best known for his IMSA GT Championship and SCCA Trans-Am Series career.
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is a road course auto racing facility located in Troy Township, Morrow County, Ohio, United States, just outside the village of Lexington. It hosts a number of racing series such as IndyCar, IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, along with other club events such has SCCA and National Auto Sport Association.
American Transportation Corporation was an American manufacturer of school bus bodies. Tracing its roots to Ward Body Works, AmTran was formed in 1980 following the 1979 bankruptcy of Ward to continue bus production. In 1991, the company became a subsidiary of Navistar International, leading to a series of acquisitions of school bus body manufacturers by chassis suppliers during the 1990s.
Wallace Paul Dallenbach is an American former racing driver. He competed in the NASCAR Cup Series, and is known for his prowess as a road racer. In addition to NASCAR, Dallenbach has raced in SCCA Trans-Am, IMSA Camel GT, CART, and the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
The streets of Detroit, in the U.S. state of Michigan, hosted Formula One racing, and later Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) racing, between the 1982 and 1991 seasons. The street circuit course was set up near the Renaissance Center and the Cobo Arena, also including a small part of the M-1 highway, also known as Woodward Avenue. It is a flat circuit, with elevation ranging from 577–604 ft (176–184 m) above sea level.
Dorsey Alan Schroeder is an American race car driver. Since August 2015, he has served as Race Director for the Pirelli World Challenge series and since 2018 Race Director for the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli SCCA Pro Racing. Over the course of his career in Sports car racing, he has won 40 professional races in 242 starts, including seventeen Trans-Am series wins. He also oversees the competition on-track at HSR events and enjoys racing vintage cars.
Peter Holden Gregg was an American race car driver during the golden age of the Trans-Am Series and a five-time winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona. He was also the owner of Brumos, a Jacksonville, Florida, car dealership and racing team.
William Theodore Ribbs Jr. is a retired American race car driver, racing owner, and sport shooter known for being the first African-American man to have tested a Formula One car and to compete in the Indianapolis 500. Ribbs competed in many forms of auto racing, including the Trans-Am Series, IndyCar, Champ Car, IMSA, and the NASCAR Cup Series and Gander Outdoors Truck Series. After retiring, he became a sport shooter in the National Sporting Clays Association.
Westwood Motorsport Park was a 1.800 mi (2.897 km) 8-turn motorsport race track located in Coquitlam, British Columbia on the southern slopes of Eagle Mountain.
The Circuit Trois-Rivières is a street circuit in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada. The circuit has been the home of the annual Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières, the longest-running street race in North America, since 1967. The circuit is located on the Terrain de l'Exposition (fairgrounds) and is unusual in that it passes through Porte Duplessis, the narrow concrete gateway of the grounds at turn 3.
John Schneider is a former American sports car racing driver.
SCCA Pro Racing is the pro racing division of the Sports Car Club of America. SCCA Pro Racing was formed in 1963; the company is a fully owned subsidiary of SCCA.
The 1986 Trans-Am Series was the 21st running of the Sports Car Club of America's premier series. Mercury saw its final Trans Am victories in 1986, not counting the Merkur brand which would continue to dominate the series for a few years thereafter.
The 1988 SCCA Escort Trans-Am Championship was the 23rd running of the Sports Car Club of America's premier series. 1988 would mark the end of the "GT era", in which the series had been the support series, and often the lesser classes, of the more popular IMSA GT Championship, which had overtaken Trans Am as the most popular road racing series in the United States beginning in 1973 after the decline of muscle cars and the 1973 Oil Crisis. This led to an increase in competitiveness from foreign manufacturers.
James Joyce Fitzgerald was an American racing driver. He is the winningest driver in Sports Car Club of America history, with over 350 career wins. Fitzgerald was also at one time the oldest driver to run a NASCAR Winston Cup Series race, being 65 years old when he ran in the 1987 Budweiser 400 at Riverside International Raceway for Hendrick Motorsports.
Scott Pruett