Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Sports car racing is one of the main types of circuit auto racing, alongside open-wheel racing, touring car racing and stock car racing. Sports car races are often, though not always, endurance races that are run over particularly long distances or large amounts of time, resulting in a larger emphasis on the reliability and efficiency of the car and its drivers as opposed to outright car performance or driver skills. The FIA World Endurance Championship is an example of a sports car racing series. In the high-stakes world of sports car racing, drivers don specialized fire-resistant, aerodynamic racing suits, ensuring both comfort and safety during the demanding endurance races, as exemplified by the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Watkins Glen International, nicknamed "The Glen", is an automobile race track located in the town of Dix just southwest of the village of Watkins Glen, New York, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. It was long known around the world as the home of the Formula One United States Grand Prix, which it hosted for twenty consecutive years (1961–1980). In addition, the site has also been home to road racing of nearly every class, including the World Sportscar Championship, Trans-Am, Can-Am, NASCAR Cup Series, the International Motor Sports Association and the IndyCar Series. The facility is currently owned by NASCAR.
Canadian Tire Motorsport Park is a multi-track motorsport venue located north of Bowmanville, in Ontario, Canada, 64-kilometre (40 mi) east of Toronto. The facility features a 3.957 km (2.459 mi), 10-turn road course; a 2.9 km (1.8 mi) advance driver and race driver training facility with a 0.402 km (0.250 mi) skid pad and a 1.5 km (0.93 mi) kart track. The name "Mosport", a portmanteau of Motor Sport, came from the enterprise formed to build the track.
The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a North American sports car racing sanctioning body based in Daytona Beach, Florida under the jurisdiction of the ACCUS arm of the FIA. It was started by John Bishop, a former executive director of SCCA, and his wife Peggy in 1969 with help from Bill France Sr. of NASCAR. Beginning in 2014, IMSA is the sanctioning body of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the premier series resulting from the merger of Grand-Am Road Racing and the American Le Mans Series. IMSA is owned by NASCAR, as a division of the company.
Prodrive is a British motorsport and advanced engineering group based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. It designs, constructs and races cars for companies and teams such as Aston Martin, Bahrain Raid Xtreme and Team X44. Its advanced technology division applies this motorsport engineering approach to deliver engineering solutions into automotive OEMs, aerospace, defence, marine and other sectors, which now represents more than half its turnover. Prodrive also has a specialist composite division based in Milton Keynes where it manufactures lightweight carbon composite CFRP and visual carbon components for many supercars and increasingly for the luxury automotive, aerospace and marine sectors.
Grand-Am Road Racing or Grand-Am was an auto racing sanctioning body that was established in 1999 to organize road racing competitions in North America. Its primary focus was the Rolex Sports Car Series, an endurance racing championship series. It sanctioned five auto racing series. The series announced in September 2012 that it would be merging with the American Le Mans Series, which had been Grand-Am's main US competitor since its inception. The two series fully merged in 2014 under the banner of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, with the International Motor Sports Association.
The GT World Challenge America is a North American auto racing series launched in 1990 by the Sports Car Club of America. It has been managed by the Stephane Ratel Organisation since 2018, and has been sanctioned by the United States Auto Club since 2017.
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.
The Grand Prix of Minnesota was an auto racing event held from 1996 until 1998 on an Alan Wilson-designed temporary street circuit in Minneapolis, Minnesota near the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. It was known as the Children's Grand Prix of Minneapolis in 1996, changing its name to The Sprint PCS Grand Prix of Minneapolis for its final two years.
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.
The Six Hours of Watkins Glen is a sports car endurance race held annually at Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, New York. The race dates from 1948, and has been a part of the SCCA National Sports Car Championship, United States Road Racing Championship, World Sportscar Championship, IMSA GT Championship, Rolex Sports Car Series and currently the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Summit Racing Equipment is an automotive parts retailer with four retail stores and distribution centers located in Tallmadge, Ohio; Sparks, Nevada; McDonough, Georgia; and Arlington, Texas. Summit Racing Equipment is also involved in motorsports and other events as a sponsor.
The 1986 SCCA/Escort Endurance Championship season was the second year of the SCCA Endurance Championship. It was the first season of title sponsorship by Escort, replacing title sponsor Playboy Magazine from the previous season. The class structure was also modified, adding the Super Sports (SS) class and combining the C class of the previous year into the B class. The per race purse was set to US$28,000 and the year-end points fund grew to $80,000 - to be split among the four classes.
Peter "P.D." Cunningham is an American race car driver and owner of RealTime R&L, Inc., based in Saukville, Wisconsin and currently competing in the Pirelli World Challenge GT Championship. His name and his team, RealTime Racing, have become synonymous with the Honda and Acura brands. Through 2013, he has claimed 91 professional race wins across 12 different North American road racing series and holds numerous World Challenge records.
The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup powered by AWS, formerly for sponsorship reasons the Blancpain Endurance Series from 2011 to 2015 and Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup from 2016 to 2019, is a sports car racing series developed by SRO Motorsports Group and the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium (RACB) with approval from the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It features grand tourer racing cars modified from production road cars complying with the FIA's GT3 regulations. The series's goal is to be an endurance racing championship for GT3 cars, similar to the FIA World Endurance Championship which uses GTE cars and Le Mans Prototypes. The series was primarily sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Blancpain, and the company's Lamborghini Super Trofeo series serve as support races. In 2019, SRO announced that their sponsorship deal with Blancpain had been discontinued and the series was renamed the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup for the 2020 season.
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 1991 SCCA Escort World Challenge was the second running of the Sports Car Club of America's World Challenge series. It was the final year under sponsorship from Escort radar detectors. The series would not find another corporate sponsor until television network SpeedVision bought the series in 1999. The race in Mexico would be their final race outside of North America until their race in Puerto Rico twelve years later. The series also added a Super Sport group alongside its World Challenge and Super Production groups. The series would also adopt a 24-hour race at Mosport Park.
The Shelby Can-Am is a sports car that had its own racing class in the United States between 1991 and 1996. Some of the models were shipped off to South Africa to race there, where they continued to be campaigned until about 2015.
Ken Murillo is a former racing driver from Santa Rosa, California. Murillo won the 1987 Barber Saab Pro Series and the 1988 Formula Super Vee USA Robert Bosch/Valvoline Championship. Murillow currently co-owns Michelin Pilot Challenge team Murillo Racing.
Claudio Burtin is an American entrepreneur, chemist, and race car driver. He is the founder of LINE-X truck bed liners and is credited with the original formulations trademarking LINE-X. Claudio was born in Argentina and moved to the US in the summer of 1963. He attended Our Lady of the Valley Catholic elementary school located in the Los Angeles school district in southern California. He began working for his father at Chemetics Systems Inc. in Compton, CA at the age of fifteen while attending Servite High School in Anaheim. He apprenticed polyurethane chemistry from his father Carlos Burtin, a licensed chemist.
Shawn Hendricks
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