GRAND-AM – United SportsCar Racing is coming

GRAND-AM Road Racing was established in 1999 to return stability to major league sports car road racing in North America, and began competition with the 2000 running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona.

GRAND-AM offers a product that features extremely competitive sports car racing on historic road and street circuits and in major market speedways throughout North America. GRAND-AM’s top-tier Rolex Sports Car Series has established itself as one of the most competitive professional road racing championship in North America. The Rolex Series has a three-class format.

The Daytona Prototype category that was launched as the series’ flagship class in 2003 has attracted the attention of superstar drivers and universally recognized teams through its extremely raceable and relatively affordable format.

Like the DP class that has redefined prototype sports car racing, the GT class has done the same for high-performance, production-based sports car racing. With an eye toward the cost-containment and close competition, the GT category provides a stable battleground for the world’s top automobile manufacturers. Famed European automobile builders Ferrari and Audi entered the division in 2012 with new cars built specifically for the Rolex Series.

The production-based GX class was added to feature cars and technologies not currently involved in the Rolex Series.

Last September, the organization announced a historic merger with the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón (ALMS). Both groups will run their traditional schedules in 2013, with the combined and rebranded organization debuting with the 2014 Rolex 24 At Daytona. IMSA will serve as the sanctioning body for the new series branded United SportsCar Racing.

The class structure in 2014 will comprise of:

– The lead Prototype (P) class, combining GRAND-AM’s Daytona Prototypes plus the ALMS’ P2 and DeltaWing cars;
– Prototype Challenge (PC), retained from the current ALMS class structure;
– GT Le Mans (GTLM), consisting of the ALMS’ current GT class;
– GT Daytona (GTD), consisting of GRAND-AM’s current GT class and the ALMS’ current GTC class;
– GX, coming over from the current GRAND-AM structure.

GRAND-AM and IMSA announced a license and cooperation agreement with ITR e.V. in March, 2013, with the collective goal of a North American version of DTM, the popular German touring car series.

The earliest the new series would begin would be 2015, possibly running as part of United SportsCar Racing event weekends. If realized, a North American version of DTM would join the current Europebased DTM and Japan-based Super GT platforms.

DTM - GRAND-AM - Super GT