Lime Rock gets a race
IMSA, now the sanctioning body for the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series, has announced a 2014 schedule that begins in Daytona in January and ends in Atlanta in October.
Many BMWs run in the popular series for street-based cars; the M3 runs in the Grand Sport class, where it competes with Mustangs, Camaros, Porsches, and Aston Martins, while the 328i and 128i run in Street Tuner, competing against Mazda MX-5s and Mazda Speed 3s, Honda Civics, and VW GTIs, among other cars.
Terry Borcheller and Mike LaMarra piloted a Burton Racing 128i to the series drivers’ championship in 2013, and won a team title for Burton. Their finishes, along with those of teams like BimmerWorld and RACE EPIC/Murillo, earned BMW the 2013 manufacturers’ title in the class.
In Grand Sport, Fall-Line and Turner Motorsport have been the most prominent BMW teams in recent seasons.
The series, which ran ten races in 2013, runs twelve in 2014. Eleven events will be run with the new Tudor United SportsCar Championship series, and a stand-alone event will be run at Lime Rock on May 24. If there is a notable omission from the schedule it is Mid-Ohio; the circuit has hosted ALMS, Grand-Am and CTSCC races for a munber of years. The schedule is as follows:
Date Venue
Jan 24 Daytona International Speedway
Mar 14 Sebring International Raceway
May 3 Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
May 24 Lime Rock Park
Jun 7 Kansas Speedway
Jun 28 Watkins Glen International
Jul 12 Canadian Tire Motorsport Park
Jul 25 Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Aug 9 Road America
Aug 23 Virginia International Raceway
Sep 20 Circuit of The Americas
Oct 3 Road Atlanta
The June 7 Kansas date is new to the USCC schedule; it was announced on October 12 that the Prototype Challenge class would run there as part of a shakeup to the calendar. See the full report here.
The Lime Rock CTSCC date is a win for the track. Lime Rock, which has hosted both the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am for some time, does not have a race in the new USCC series that replaces ALMS and Grand-Am. The May 24 event represents a return to the old date for CTSCC at Lime Rock; the series ran there on Memorial Day Weekend from 2006 to 2011 before switching to September as part of the Grand-Am season finale weekend in both 2012 and 2013.
The CTSCC Lime Rock race is also a win for BMW. BMW NA considers the picturesque circuit, nestled in the northwest corner of Connecticut, to be its home track, and the tight course, which favors handling, has always been good for BMW racers.—Brian S. Morgan
