IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge

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IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge
File:The logo of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.jpg
Category Grand touring
Touring car
Country  United States
 Canada
Inaugural season 1997
Drivers' champion GS: United States Andrew Davis
United Kingdom Robbin Liddel
ST: United Kingdom Stevan McAleer
United States Chad McCumbee
Teams' champion GS: Stevenson Motorsports
ST: CJ Wilson Racing
Makes' champion GS: United States Chevrolet
ST: Germany Porsche
Official website [1]
Motorsport current event.svg Current season
Competitors in the KONI Challenge on a pre-grid at New Jersey Motorsports Park in 2008

The IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge is a grand touring and touring car racing series run by the International Motor Sports Association. Originating from the Canadian Motorola Cup, the series was taken over by Grand-Am in 2001 to become the Grand-Am Cup following the demise of rival IMSA's Firehawk series of similar rules in the US. KONI became series sponsor for the start of the 2007 season when the series became known as the KONI Challenge Series, before renaming once more prior to the start of the 2009 season as the KONI Sports Car Challenge. The series name was once again changed for the 2010 season.

The Continental Challenge was the support series for Grand-Am's premier offering, the Rolex Sports Car Series. In 2014, the series became the support series for the United SportsCar Championship upon the merger of the Rolex Series and the American Le Mans Series. The series was renamed the IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.

Races

In traditional sports car racing format, the races are often run with both GS and ST classes on track simultaneously, which is known as a "combined" race. Occasionally the races will be run in "split classes", with separate races for both classes. This is especially common for shorter venues such as Lime Rock Park. Currently the races are 2 hours 30 minutes in length with a required driver change.

Telecasts

  • All telecasts are exclusive to Fox Sports 1, formerly Speed Channel. All telecasts are uploaded to the series website after their initial airing.

Vehicles

The series uses two classes in each race:

  • The Grand Sport (GS) class features large-displacement 6-cylinder, 8-cylinder, 10-cylinder or 12-cylinder sports cars as well as small displacement 4-cylinder forced induction or wankel sports cars.
  • The Street Tuner (ST) class is for smaller 4-cylinder, 5-cylinder or 6-cylinder sedans, hatchbacks, coupes or convertibles.

All vehicles have fewer modifications than most series, using a "showroom stock" format.[1]

The format is reminiscent of the original Trans-Am Series, combining conventional sports cars and touring cars, though the Trans-Am Series usually had a single driver per car, unlike the Continental Challenge, which has two drivers per car. Some vehicles in the Continental Challenge have actually been painted to resemble the original Trans Am cars, such as the Boss 302 Mustangs of George Follmer and Parnelli Jones or the original Sunoco Camaro. Several vehicles in ST have also competed in the SCCA's Pirelli World Challenge touring car class.

Champions

Season GS Champion Car ST Champion Car
2004[2] United States Craig Stanton
United States Terry Borcheller
Cadillac CTS-V United States David Haskell
Canada Sylvain Tremblay
Mazda RX-8
2005[3] Canada David Empringham
Canada Scott Maxwell
Ford Mustang United States David Haskell
Canada Sylvain Tremblay
Mazda RX-8
2006[4] Sweden Anders Hainer
United States Boris Said
BMW M3 United States Don Salama
United States Will Turner
BMW 330i
2007[5] United States Jeff Segal
United States Jep Thornton
BMW M3 United States Trevor Hopwood
United States Adam Burrows
BMW 330i
2008[6] United States Joe Foster
Canada Scott Maxwell
Ford Mustang Canada Jamie Holtom Chevrolet Cobalt SS
2009[7] Canada Kenny Wilden Ford Mustang United States Christian Miller Honda Civic Si
2010[8] United States Charles Espenlaub
United States Charles Putman
BMW M3 United States David Thilenius1
United States Lawson Aschenbach1
Honda Civic Si
2011[9] Canada Paul Dalla Lana BMW M3 Sweden Nic Jönsson Kia Forte Koup
2012[10] Canada John Farano2
Canada David Empringham2
Porsche 997 Brazil Pierre Kleinubing
Canada Jason Clunie
Mazdaspeed3
2013[11] United States Nick Longhi
United States Matt Plumb
Porsche 997 United States Terry Borcheller
United States Mike LaMarra
BMW 128i
2014[12] United States Trent Hindman BMW M3 Coupe United States Eric Foss BMW 328i
Porsche Cayman
2015[13] United States Andrew Davis
United Kingdom Robbin Liddel
Chevrolet Camaro United Kingdom Stevan McAleer
United States Chad McCumbee
Mazda MX-5

1The Bimmerworld 328i of Bill Heumann and Seth Thomas and the Compass360 Civic of Thilenius and Aschenbach finished the 2010 season tied in ST points. As both teams had the same amount of wins and second place finishes, Thilenius and Aschenbach won the title by virtue of having more third place finishes.
2Matt Plumb was victorious in the final race and was the presumed champion, but upon official review he was determined to have been illegally entered in multiple cars, and thus received no points, handing the championship to Farano and Empringham.

References

External links