Officials of Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series have announced that their combined 2014 series will be known as United SportsCar Racing. The new name, revealed in a March 14 press conference in Sebring, was developed by Grand-Am, ALMS, and SME Branding from a submission to the series’ “Name the Future” contest by Louis Satterlee of Cocoa, Florida.
ALMS President and CEO Scott Atherton announced that IMSA, the International Motor Sports Association, will be retained as the new series’ sanctioning body. IMSA will sanction United SportsCar Racing and all support series, including the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, Ferrari Challenge, the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama Series, the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda Series, the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin and the just- announced Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo spec series.
Grand-Am President and CEO Ed Bennett announced the names for the combined series’ classes. They will be: The 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; and GX, the new class launched by Grand-Am in 2013.
BMW currently runs in the Daytona Prototype class with the Ganassi Racing and Team Sahlen Riley-BMWs, in the ALMS GT class with the new Z4 GTE, and in the Grand-Am GT class with Turner Motorsport’s M3s.
Equivalences within the combined classes, including the Prototype and GT Daytona classes, are a work in progress.
The 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona will be the first race for the new series. The complete 2014 schedule is under development. In response to a question at today’s press conference in Sebring, Scott Atherton confirmed that Watkins Glen would be on the schedule; it was already clear that the series would run at Daytona, Sebring, and Road Atlanta.—Brian S. Morgan
