Information AboutGrand-am |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT GRAND-AM | |
| sports car racing | |
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OVERVIEW Part-owned by the principals of NASCAR , Grand-Am currently sanctions four separate series. The premier Rolex Sports Car Series featuring Daytona Prototype and GT endurance events, the Grand-Am Cup featuring street-stock production cars, the Cooper Tires Championship Series featuring light Formula Cars powered by 2.0 litre four-cylinder Ford Zetec Engine s, and the Ferrari Challenge featuring race versions of the Ferrari 360 and historic Ferrari race cars. In the Rolex Sports Car Series, two classes compete for victories - Daytona Prototypes and Grand Touring. The Daytona Prototypes are purpose built chassis powered by stock-block production engines from Lexus , Pontiac , Porsche , BMW , Infiniti and Ford , in the interest of keeping operating costs low and attempting to ensure equality through the field. Approved chassis are built by Riley Technologies , Fabcar , Crawford , Doran , Picchio , Multimatic and Chase . The class as a whole by rule has less powerful motors and less aerodynamic designs than Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) built to ACO rules. The rule limitations are a desire to maintain safer speeds at the series' fastest track, Daytona International Speedway, as well as maintain close competition. Daytona International Speedway hosts two premier events in the series, the Rolex 24 At Daytona and a 250 mile sprint on the same weekend as NASCAR's Pepsi 400. Another important benefit of the Daytona Prototype class is that the chassis feature less-sophisticated construction (steel tube chassis instead of a carbon fiber tub). Not only does this reduce initial acquisition costs - bare rolling chassis cost in the neighborhood of $375,000 and a ready-to-race example, around $600,000 - but operational costs are also much lower than those for ACO spec LMPs. This relative affordability has sparked tremendous growth in field size, and in 2005 upwards of 20 DPs regularly campaign in the series. For 2005, the Grand Touring (GT) and Super Grand Sport (SGS) classes were consolidated into a single GT class, which features high-tech sports car models approved by Grand-Am like the Chevrolet Corvette , Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, Ferrari 360 Modena , and BMW M3 . However, new rules, commonly referred to as Prep2, introduced in 2005, allow for the introduction of tube-frame, purpose-built cars into the class. The first examples of these are Pontiac GTOs campaigned by Horizon Motorsports and The Racer's Group. The Grand-Am Cup is a production based racing series, separated into two classes. Grand Sport (GS) includes sports cars, and Street Tuner (ST) consists of four-door sedans and sport coupes. Grand-Am Cup events are usually support events for Rolex Sports Car events. The crown jewel of the Rolex Sports Car Series season is the Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona , which is the first race of the year. HISTORY Grand-Am was founded in 1999 out of the ashes of the defunct Sports Car Club Of America -sanctioned United States Road Racing Championship, or USRRC, which itself had been formed in 1998 as a competitor protest against perceived corruption and bias in the Professional SportsCar series, formerly known as IMSA , then operated by Andy Evans. The sanctioning body was backed by a diverse group of racing businessmen, including Skip Barber , Roger Penske and Rob Dyson , but was primarily owned by Jim France, who also holds a stake in NASCAR . Organizational headquarters were established next door to NASCAR's complex in Daytona Beach, Florida , further cementing in the eyes of many the link between the two groups. TEAMS
2006 RACE SCHEDULE
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