Pirelli World Challenge

The Pirelli World Challenge is a North American auto racing series that is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Founded in 1985, it consists of four classes: grand touring, touring car, a "GTS" class since 2010, and a "touring car B-spec" since 2012. The series holds races at several IndyCar Series and American Le Mans Series event weekends.

History

The SCCA created a "showroom stock" class for amateur club racing in 1972.^[1] In 1984, following the success of the Longest Day of Nelson^[2] and another 24-hour race at Mid-Ohio, the SCCA combined existing races into a manufacturer's championship. For 1985, the series became a 6-race professional championship with sponsorship from Playboy magazine. Escort radar detectors sponsored the series from 1986 until 1989.^[1]

In 1990, the series was restructured to adopt rules similar to the European Group A for homologated production cars. The higher-cost "sports" classes were dropped after 1996, leaving the class format as it would stand until 2010. Television network Speedvision began sponsoring the series in 1999. With fields growing, the series began separate races for the GT and Touring classes in 2000, which would remain until 2010. In 2010, Speed TV dropped their sponsorship, prompting a move to Versus (now NBC Sports Network) for coverage. The series moved existing touring cars into a new GTS class, while changing the rules for the touring car class to reduce costs and keep cars closer to stock.^[3]

In 2011, the series acquired a sponsorship from Pirelli tires. At one of the races that season, the series was compared to the Trans Am Series, also sanctioned by SCCA.

Format

Each season consists of around 10 rounds. Each round uses a standing start, as opposed to a rolling start as seen other sports car racing series. Each race has a 50 minute time limit. Rewards weight is added to successful cars based on finishing position at the previous round. Maximum rewards weight is 200 pounds (91 kg) for GT and 150 pounds (68 kg) for GTS and TC.^[4]

Classes

Grand Touring

Grand Touring (GT) includes a variety of production displacements with no maximum. Forced induction is permitted, and is used to equalize individual models. Sedans, coupes, roadsters, and two-seaters are permitted. The cars can be rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. Class horsepower range is 425 - 525 bhp.^[3] (317-391 kW). A majority of the vehicles used in this class are comparable to those used in the American Le Mans Series GT classes.

GTS

A new "GTS" class was added for 2010.^[5] It features a combination of sports cars, touring cars built prior to 2010, and FIA GT4 cars.^[6] In particular, vehicles previously ineligible for the World Challenge are included.^[7] This group is essentially the old touring car class, which until 2010 had become a BMW-Acura-Mazda affair.

Touring Car (TC)

For 2010, the Touring Car class was altered to place more restrictions on engine, drivetrain, and aerodynamic modifications.^[8] Cars are still allowed aftermarket racing shock absorbers, swaybars and springs. This came out of the merger with the Touring Car 2 class, which was established in 2009 but failed to take off.^[7] All vehicles from before 2010 were moved to the GTS class. Essentially, this class is comparable to the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge's Grand Sport class.

Touring Car B-Spec

Debuting for 2012 is a new "touring car B-spec" class. This class will be comparable to the Continental Challenge's Street Tuner class, featuring the Fiat 500, Ford Fiesta, Mazda 2, Chevrolet Sonic, Honda Fit, Kia Rio, and Nissan Versa.^[9]

Older World Challenge Cars

Starting in 2009, older World Challenge cars became eligible (with minor modifications) for competition in SCCA racing. Under the SCCA's General Competition Rules (GCR), the Super Touring category allows World Challenge GTs to compete in STO and Touring cars to compete in STU.

Television

Speed Channel televised the World Challenge starting in 1996, with the series being called the Speed World Challenge until 2010.

In recent years, the World Challenge has been broadcast on weekdays as opposed to the traditional weekends. For 2009, the races were combined into an hour-long block.^[10]

On January 4, 2010, Versus (now NBC Sports Network) announced they would televise 90-minute broadcasts beginning in the 2010 season.^[5] Each broadcast featured all the races from each round. The entire 2010 season was shown on the channel. The series later returned to weekend telecasts.^[11]

The series has established a new website providing race videos, posted shortly after each telecast.^[12] The website currently has coverage from as far back as 2008.

Tires

On October 4, 2010, the series announced that Pirelli would replace longtime partner Toyo Tires as the exclusive tire supplier for the series.^[13] For the first time in series history, teams competed on racing slicks (Pirelli P Zero) rather than the DOT competition tires in use for much of its history.

Champions

• Source:^[14]
• From 1986 to 1989 the series consisted of endurance races where co-drivers were used, often resulting in co-champions.
• From 1986 to 1996 a variety of prior classification systems were used. Class winners are placed under the heading (GT or TC) of the most similar modern class.

References

External links

• Official Website