Trans-Am Series
The Trans-Am Series presented by Pirelli is a sports car racing series held in North America. Founded in 1966, it is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Primarily based in the United States, the series competes on a variety of track types including road courses and street circuits. Trans-Am is split into the TA and TA2 classes for silhouette racing cars, while its production classes are the GT (grand touring), SGT (super grand touring), and XGT (extreme grand touring).
For other uses, see Trans Am (disambiguation).Category
It was known as the CRC Chemicals Trans-Am Championship (1981–1983), the SCCA Budweiser Trans-Am Championship (1983–1984), the SCCA Bendix Brakes Trans-Am Championship (1985–1987), the SCCA Escort Trans-Am Series (1988) the SCCA Liquid Tide Trans-Am Tour (1991), the SCCA Tide Trans-Am Tour (1992), the NTB Trans-Am Series (1998), the BFGoodrich Trans-Am Series (1999–2000), the Trans-Am Series for the BFGoodrich Cup (2001–2002), the Motorock Trans-Am Tour for the BFGoodrich Cup (2003), the Motorock Trans-Am Series (2004), and the Muscle Milk SCCA Trans-Am Series (2009).
Current series format[edit]
Tire suppliers and presenting sponsor[edit]
In 2017, Pirelli became the exclusive tire supplier (replacing Hoosier Racing Tire) and presenting sponsor for the Trans Am Series, and all classes use Pirelli P ZERO radial ply racing slicks.[5] The change from bias ply tires to Pirelli P ZERO radial tires has been very well received, and has resulted in faster average speeds and improved lap times in all four classes.[6]
Schedules[edit]
In late 2016, the Trans Am Race Company (TARC) announced that after a long absence, the Trans Am Series would return to the West Coast with the 2017 Trans Am West Coast Championship, partnering with the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA).[7] The West Coast Championship Series consists of a separate 3 race competition, plus one round that is shared with the Trans Am Championship Series at Circuit of the Americas. (3 permanent road courses / 1 temporary road course)
For 2017, the schedule was reorganized, with five race venues (Homestead-Miami Speedway, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, Virginia International Raceway, and New Jersey Motorsports Park) receiving new dates, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway being added, and Louisiana's NOLA Motorsports Park being dropped.
For 2018, the Brainerd, MN and New Jersey Motorsports Park races were dropped, and a race at the Pittsburgh International Race Complex was added for the TA, TA3, and TA4 classes only. There are now 12 race venues on the Trans Am Championship Series schedule (8 permanent road courses / 3 temporary road courses / 1 temporary street circuit), with the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear race[8] being open to TA2 class cars only. There are actually 13 actual races on the schedule, as the TA2 cars race twice in Detroit.
For 2018, the West Coast Championship's race at Willow Springs, CA was dropped, Sonoma, CA was added, and a shared race at INDY was added, expanding their series to a separate 3 round competition, plus two shared races (3 permanent road courses / 2 temporary road courses).
The schedule for 2019 continues to be 12 races long (including two "shared events" with the West Coast Championship Series), but the mid-April Homestead, Florida race date changes to an early May event at Weathertech Raceway, Laguna Seca, California—the first time the series has raced there since 2004. The early August Pittsburgh race was also dropped, having been replaced by the Memorial Day Motorsports Festival at Connecticut's Lime Rock Park, the first time the series will have raced there in three years, and it will be the thirtieth time overall. Additionally, the Indianapolis race weekend moves from mid-June to early August, and the "shared" Circuit of the Americas (COTA) race weekend moves from early November back to early October. The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear moves from early June to May 31—June 2, just four days after the event at Lime Rock Park ends. The season finale at Daytona International Speedway moves up one week to mid-November.
On the 2019 West Coast Championship schedule, the season is one race longer (6), and opens a couple of weeks earlier at Willows, California's Thunderhill Raceway Park. The shared event at Laguna Seca takes place in early May, with Sonoma moving from early June to mid-June, replacing the shared event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The shared event at Circuit of the Americas (CoTA) moves from early November to early October.
For 2020, the season finale at Daytona was dropped due to unresolvable scheduling conflicts, and after a two-year absence, the race at Brainerd, Minnesota was reinstated to honor the late Jed Copham, the track's co-owner and part time Trans Am Series driver. The season's grand finale in both series will now be the shared event at Circuit Of The Americas (CoTA), with that race being moved from October to November. The Indianapolis race is the only event that is open to all competitors who are registered to race in the Trans Am Championship series, or either of the regional sub-championship series. In the West Coast Championship series, the season will start one month earlier (mid-March) at Sonoma Raceway, which will for the first time ever also hold a second race in late August to make up for the Auto Club Speedway race being dropped. Other than this and minor reordering, the schedule remains at six races, with Laguna Seca as the other shared event with both series racing together.
On March 17, 2020, the Road Atlanta round was forced to be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. This was the start of a series of postponements and cancellations that lead to a revised schedule being announced on April 7, 2020. In this schedule, the Detroit round was dropped reducing the series to an 11-round championship. Unfortunately the planned restart of the series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was also postponed with a new date for the track still to be determined and the series resuming at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course instead. The rounds at Watkins Glen and Lime Rock Park were the final casualties of the outbreak with late cancellations leading to double headers at Virginia International Raceway and Road Atlanta.
In 2021, for the first time since 2017, the series will return to Homestead-Miami Speedway. Trans-Am will also be having its first ever race at the newly renovated Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval and a TA2-only round at the inaugural running of the Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville. No double-headers are scheduled to return following their appearances in 2020; however, all tracks that were featured on the preliminary 2020 calendar are scheduled for 2021 as well. For the first time in series history, Trans-Am instituted a drop-round system where competitors can choose to drop their two worst round results including non-appearances that took place before August 1.
Other series based on the format[edit]
The Trans-Am Series has used tube-frame / silhouette cars, similar to the original IMSA GT Series, since the early 1980s, with heavy emphasis on GT cars. The SCCA Pro Racing World Challenge and Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge racing series, run by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), and the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), respectively, utilize modified production-based cars, sports cars, and touring cars, similar in spirit to the Trans-Am Series since the 1980s. With the rise of these other series, Trans-Am saw decreased attention from the media, however, Speedvision did occasionally cover Trans-Am races.
Trans-Am an international series outside USA, Trans Am Australia.[28]