The Trans-Am Series, Rolex Sports Car Series, and American Le Mans Series have all held races in the Miami area.
The Trans-Am Series, Rolex Sports Car Series, and American Le Mans Series have all held races in the Miami area.
Promoter Ralph Sanchez brought auto racing to the Miami area in 1983. A course at Bayfront Park featured the IMSA GT Championship and the inaugural Grand Prix of Miami. A 1.85-mile (2.98 km) circuit was laid out on the park roads and Biscayne Boulevard. The 1983 event was a failure both competitively and financially. A severe rainstorm flooded the circuit, and stopped the race after less than one-sixth of the distance was completed. Despite not being obligated to, Sanchez decided to pay the entire purse to the competitors, absorbing a $1.3 million loss but earning great respect from the racing fraternity.
A year later, the event returned, and grew into a huge success.
IMSA races were held at the first Bayfront Circuit from 1983 until 1985. For 1986, the event moved to a new layout at nearby Bicentennial Park. The Bicentennial Park circuit was a semi-permanent layout which featured purpose-built roads in the park area, along with a temporary segment taking it out on Biscayne Boulevard near the entrance to the Port of Miami. The event continued through 1993, at which time IMSA itself was experiencing a period of decline and reorganization.
For 1994, the event at Bicentennial Park switched to the SCCA Trans-Am Series. This event lasted only one year. In 1995, the CART series utilized the course for one race, then the course was partially razed for the construction of American Airlines Arena.
| Year | Date | Winning Driver | Car | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | March 5 |  Tommy Kendall | Ford Mustang | Roush Racing |
The ALMS and Champ Car held a joint race on a new circuit at Bayfront Park. The event took place in 2002 and 2003.
For 2002, a 1.387-mile (2.232 km) circuit utilized park roads and extended onto Biscayne Boulevard and 3rd and 4th Streets. In 2003, the layout was changed to drop the 3rd/4th Street loop and add a section on Biscayne Boulevard along the north end of the park.
| Year | Date | Race name | Winner(s) | Entrant | Car |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | October 5 | Cadillac American Le Mans Challenge |  Frank Biela  Emanuele Pirro | Audi Sport North America | Audi R8 |
| 2003 | September 27 | Grand Prix Americas |  Johnny Herbert  JJ Lehto | ADT Champion Racing | Audi R8 |
The Rolex Sports Car Series held a race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida. The event was first held in 1998 as a part of the United States Road Racing Championship, but following the cancelation of that series the FIA GT Championship took over the 1999 event. Grand-Am revived the event in 2000. The race took place on the combined road course layout.
For 2002-2009, the race was held in conjunction with the Indycar race. In 2009, it moved to October and served as the Grand Am season finale. In 2010, the Indycar race was dropped, and the Grand Am race returned to the spring as a stand-alone event. It was not scheduled for 2013.
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), but 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.
Sonoma Raceway is a road course and dragstrip located at Sears Point in the southern Sonoma Mountains of Sonoma, California, United States. The road course features 12 turns on a hilly course with 160 feet (49 m) of total elevation change. It is host to one of the seven NASCAR Cup Series races each year that are run on road courses. It has also played host to the IndyCar Series, the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series, and several other auto races and motorcycle races such as the American Federation of Motorcyclists series. Sonoma Raceway continues to host amateur, or club racing events with some open to the public. The largest such car club is the Sports Car Club of America. The track is 30 miles north of San Francisco and Oakland.
Canadian Tire Motorsport Park is a multi-track motorsport venue located north of Bowmanville, in Ontario, Canada, 64 km (40 mi) east of Toronto. The facility features a 3.957-kilometre (2.459 mi), 10-turn road course; a 2.9-kilometre (1.8 mi) advance driver and race driver training facility with a 0.40-kilometre skid pad and a 1.5-kilometre (0.93 mi) kart track. The name "Mosport", a portmanteau of Motor Sport, came from the enterprise formed to build the track.
Homestead–Miami Speedway is a motor racing track located in Homestead, Florida. The track, which has several configurations, has promoted several series of racing, including NASCAR, the IndyCar Series, the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series, and the Championship Cup Series.
Lime Rock Park is a natural-terrain motorsport road racing venue located in Lakeville, Connecticut, United States, a hamlet in the town of Salisbury, in the state's northwest corner. Built in 1956, it is the nation's third oldest continuously operating road racing venue, behind Road America (1955) and Willow Springs International Motorsports Park (1953). The track is owned by Skip Barber, a former race car driver who started the Skip Barber Racing School in 1975. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Road Atlanta is a 2.54-mile (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.
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. Mid-Ohio has also colloquially become a term for the entire north-central region of the state, from south of Sandusky to the north of Columbus. It hosts a number of racing series such as IndyCar, IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, and the NASCAR Xfinity Series, along with other club events such has SCCA and National Auto Sport Association.
Maurice A. Ferré Park is a 30-acre (0.12 km2) public, urban park in downtown Miami, Florida. The park opened in 1976 on the site of several slips served by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. It was originally named "Bicentennial Park" to celebrate the bicentennial of the United States in that same year. Today, the park is maintained by the Bayfront Park Management Trust. The park is bordered on the north by I-395, Metromover, and the former Miami Herald headquarters, on the south by the American Airlines Arena and Bayside Marketplace, on the west by Biscayne Boulevard and on the east by Biscayne Bay.
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 United SportsCar Championship.
The Lime Rock Grand Prix is a sports car race held at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, United States on the Memorial Day weekend. It had been a part of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, SCCA National Sports Car Championship, USAC Road Racing Championship, IMSA GT Championship and United States Road Racing Championship. The revived version in 2017 is for the United States Auto Club Pirelli World Challenge.
A street circuit is a motorsport racing circuit composed of temporarily closed-off public roads of a city, town or village, used in motor races. Facilities such as the paddock, pit boxes, fences and grandstands are usually placed temporarily and removed soon after the race is over but in modern times the pits, race control and main grandstands are sometimes permanently constructed in the area. Since the track surface is originally planned for normal speeds, race drivers often find street circuits bumpy and lacking grip. Run-off areas may be non-existent, which makes driving mistakes more expensive than in purpose-built circuits with wider run-off areas. Racing on a street circuit is also called "legal street racing".
The Grand Prix of Charlotte is a sports car race held at the infield road course of the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. The race was held sporadically in the 1970s by the IMSA GT Championship and also the revamped Can-Am series. IMSA held five straight races beginning in 1982. The race was revived in 2000 by the American Le Mans Series for one year.
The 2013 Rolex Sports Car Series season was the fourteenth and final season of the Grand American Road Racing Association's premier series, before merging up with the American Le Mans Series in 2014. It began on January 26, with the 51st running of the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Bayfront Park is a 32-acre (13 ha) public, urban park in Downtown Miami, Florida on Biscayne Bay. The Chairman to the trust is Ary Shaeban. Located in the park is a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus sculpted by Count Vittorio di Colbertaldo of Verona, one of Benito Mussolini’s hand picked ceremonial bodyguards known as the “Black Musketeers.”
The Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix is an annual IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race held every July or August at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. The race originated in 1975 and is currently a two hour and forty minute race in order to fit the event into a television-friendly package. Previous editions of the Grand Prix were part of the World Sportscar Championship, the American Le Mans Series and the IMSA GT Championship.
The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is an IndyCar Series race held in St. Petersburg, Florida. Since 2009, the race has served as the season opener, with the exception of 2010, when it was the second race of the season, 2020, when the race instead served as the final race of the season, and 2021 when it was the second race of the season. The race is held annually in the spring, currently in March.
The Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America is a sports car race held at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The event began in 1950, and in 1951 was added to the SCCA National Sports Car Championship. Following a spectator death at the 1952 Watkins Glen Grand Prix, racing on open roads was discouraged, and the race went into hiatus until 1955, when a permanent circuit was opened. In 1963, the race shifted to the new United States Road Racing Championship, until the USRRC's demise in 1968. After an 11-year hiatus, the IMSA GT Championship revived the event in 1979. In 1988, IMSA shortened the race to 500 kilometres (310 mi), and again in 1991 to 300 kilometres (190 mi). The race was shortened to 2 hours in 1992. After a return to a 500-km distance, the race was cancelled in 1994. It was revived once again in 2000, by the Grand American Road Racing Championship, to a 500-mile distance. The race was an American Le Mans Series event from 2002 until 2013, run at varying race distances of either 2 hours and 45 minutes or 4 hours. In 2014 the race joined the schedule of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship after the merger of the American Le Mans Series and the Rolex Sports Car Series.
The Grand Prix of Miami refers to an intermittent series of American open wheel races held in South Florida dating back to 1926. AAA held one board track race in 1926, and then the facility was destroyed by a hurricane. The popular CART IndyCar World Series debuted in the Miami area in the mid-1980s with a street circuit at Tamiami Park, then returned to race at Bicentennial Park in 1995.
Scuderia Corsa is an American automotive racing team with teams competing in the IMSA SportsCar Championship, Pirelli World Challenge and Ferrari Challenge in North America. Founded in 2012 by Giacomo Mattioli and Art Zafiropoulo, the team has the main purpose of supporting the racing needs of Ferrari clients, starting from customizable track-day events to the Ferrari Challenge Series to the most prestigious GT endurance racing such as the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. Scuderia Corsa is the racing arm of Mattioli Automotive Group, inclusive of Ferrari Beverly Hills, Ferrari Silicon Valley, Ferrari South Bay and Ferrari Westlake.
The 2021 EchoPark Texas Grand Prix was a NASCAR Cup Series race that was held on May 23, 2021, at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Originally scheduled for 68 laps on the 3.426-mile road course, the race was shortened to 54 laps by heavy rain. It was the 14th race of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season.
