Touring Car Racing Coming to North America
Forbidden fruit: Touring Car Racing finally coming to U.S. shores.
Touring Car Racing, the TCR series, is coming to the United States for 2018. In conjunction with the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), TCR will become a class competing in the 2018 IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge (CTSCC) series. TCR will run alongside the Grand Sport (GS) and Street Tuner (ST) classes on track.
IMSA CEO, Ed Bennett had this to say about TCR:
“We began our due diligence process on the potential introduction of the TCR platform more than a year ago, and formally announced that we were exploring the concept last year. We engaged our automotive partners and teams throughout the discovery process and determined that TCR would be an attractive addition to the Continental Tire Challenge. We are pleased to work together with WSC CEO Marcello Lotti and Sporting and Series Director Nunzia Corvino to introduce what we believe will be a popular class to IMSA fans and participants.”
IMSA will use this first season as a feeler for TCR’s potential in the market. Depending on the result, TCR may be in the future be separated into TCR USA and TCR Canada. TCR specifications are used across multiple sanctioning bodies. The team running TCR definitely wants to see it grow.
Marcello Lotti, CEO of World Sporting Consulting LTD, rights holder for TCR:
“TCR has quickly become the standard global Touring Car platform,” said Lotti. “Our goal was to once again create a base for Touring Car racing. The crucial part about it was to keep the costs for the cars low to ensure equality of opportunity. In North America, we believed IMSA was the most professional partner available in the market and we could not be more pleased to establish this partnership together.”
Sounds like racers and race fans will get to look forward to cars like the Civic Type R touring car hitting American race tracks soon. I, for one, welcome our TCR overlords.
