SPEED World Challenge

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The SPEED World Challenge is an American auto racing series that is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America. It consists of two classes: touring car and grand touring.

The series was founded in 1972, and was called "showroom stock." A revised version of the series came about in 1984. In 1985, the series got an odd title sponsor — the magazine Playboy. Escort radar detectors also sponsored the series from 1986 — 1989.

Each season usually consists of 10 rounds, with each class running a race at separate times. Each round is started from a standing start, as opposed to a rolling start as seen in NASCAR or the American Le Mans Series.

The lower performance SPEED Touring Car class includes the Acura RSX and TSX, Mazda6, BMW 3-series, Volvo S40, Dodge SRT-4, and VW Jetta. The higher performance SPEED GT cars include the Chevrolet Corvette C6 and Z06, Ford Mustang Cobra, Subaru WRX STi, Dodge Viper GTS-R, Porsche 911 GT3, Mitsubishi Evolution, Lotus Exige, and Cadillac CTS-V.

The series is named for the network that broadcasts it: SPEED Channel. When SPEED Channel was SpeedVision, it was called the SpeedVision World Challenge. SPEED Channel commentator Leigh Diffey was the voice of the series until the end of 2004. Beginning in 2005, Diffey was replaced by Greg Creamer.

A rival series organized by IMSA, the Firestone Firehawk Racing Series, also featured two similar classes of competition and existed in the 1980s and 90s.

Each race has a 1 hour time limit.

[edit] 2008 Schedule

Date	Location	Classes	GT Winner(s)	Touring Car winner(s)
March 14	Sebring Raceway	both	Randy Pobst	Pierre Kleinubing
April 20	Long Beach	GT only	Brandon Davis
April 27	Virginia International Raceway	Touring Car only		Kuno Wittmer
May 18	Miller Motorsports Park	both	Tommy Archer	Jason Saini
May 24	Lime Rock Park	Touring Car only		Kuno Wittmer
May 26	Lime Rock Park	Touring Car only		Chip Herr
June 8	Watkins Glen International	both	Randy Pobst	Michael Galati
July 20	Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course	both
August 10	Road America	both
August 24	Mosport	both
August 30	Belle Isle	GT only
September 28	New Jersey Motorsports Park	GT only
October 3	Road Atlanta	both