Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge

Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge

Category	Grand touring Touring car
Country	United States  Canada
Inaugural season	1997
Drivers' champion	GS: Andrew Davis Robin Liddell ST: Stevan McAleer Chad McCumbee
Teams' champion	GS: Stevenson Motorsports ST: CJ Wilson Racing
Makes' champion	GS: Chevrolet ST: Porsche
Official website
Current season

Competitors in the KONI Challenge on a pre-grid at New Jersey Motorsports Park in 2008

The IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar 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]	Craig Stanton Terry Borcheller	Cadillac CTS-V	David Haskell Sylvain Tremblay	Mazda RX-8
2005[3]	David Empringham Scott Maxwell	Ford Mustang	David Haskell Sylvain Tremblay	Mazda RX-8
2006[4]	Anders Hainer Boris Said	BMW M3	Don Salama Will Turner	BMW 330i
2007[5]	Jeff Segal Jep Thornton	BMW M3	Trevor Hopwood Adam Burrows	BMW 330i
2008[6]	Joe Foster Scott Maxwell	Ford Mustang	Jamie Holtom	Chevrolet Cobalt SS
2009[7]	Kenny Wilden	Ford Mustang	Chris Miller	Honda Civic Si
2010[8]	Charles Espenlaub Charlie Putman	BMW M3	David Thilenius1 Lawson Aschenbach1	Honda Civic Si
2011[9]	Paul Dalla Lana	BMW M3	Niclas Jönsson	Kia Forte Koup
2012[10]	John Farano2 David Empringham2	Porsche 997	Pierre Kleinubing Jason Clunie	Mazdaspeed3
2013[11]	Nick Longhi Matt Plumb	Porsche 997	Terry Borcheller Mike LaMarra	BMW 128i
2014[12]	Trent Hindman	BMW M3 Coupe	Eric Foss	BMW 328i Porsche Cayman
2015[13]	Andrew Davis Robin Liddell	Chevrolet Camaro	Stevan McAleer 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

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grand-Am Cup.

• Official website