| Category | Grand touring Touring car |
|---|---|
| Country or region | United States Canada |
| Inaugural season | 2004 |
| Last Drivers' champion | Charles Espenlaub Charles Putman |
| Official website | grand-am.com |
| Current season | |
The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge is a grand toruing and touring car racing series run by the Grand American Road Racing 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 is the support series for Grand-Am's premier offering, the Rolex Sports Car Series.
Contents |
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, races will be run in "split classes", with separate races for both classes. Current races are 2 hours 30 minutes with a required driver change.
The series uses two classes in each race:
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 Koni series, 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.
| Season | GS Champion | Car | ST Champion | Car |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Craig Stanton Terry Borcheller |
Cadillac CTS-V | David Haskell Sylvain Tremblay |
Mazda RX-8 |
| 2005 | David Empringham Scott Maxwell |
Ford Mustang | David Haskell Sylvain Tremblay |
Mazda RX-8 |
| 2006 | Anders Hainer Spencer Pumpelly |
BMW M3 | Don Salama Will Turner |
BMW 3 Series |
| 2007 | Jeff Segal Jep Thornton |
BMW M3 | Trevor Hopwood Adam Burrows |
BMW 3 Series |
| 2008 | Joe Foster Scott Maxwell |
Ford Mustang | Jamie Holtom | Chevrolet Cobalt |
| 2009 | Kenny Wilden | Ford Mustang | Christian Miller | Honda Civic Si |
| 2010 | Charles Espenlaub Charles Putman |
BMW M3 | David Thilenius1 Lawson Aschenbach1 |
Honda Civic Si |
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.