United Sports Car Championship (USCC)

minimark · Sep 11, 2013

Looking forward to seeing ALMS as it is now at VIR Oct 5th!!

Steve · Sep 12, 2013

I guess I need to rename this thread. Best summation of today's announcement of a new "entitlement" sponsor, from Autoweek:

United SportsCar Racing, we hardly knew ye, because now it's the Tudor United SportsCar Championship. The five-year deal with Tudor, â€œan innovative and retro-chic brand,â€ we're told, matches the series with â€œa premium Swiss watchmaking brand ...â€

Read more: Tudor to sponsor new United SportsCar Racing series - Autoweek
Follow us: @AutoweekUSA on Twitter | AutoweekUSA on Facebook
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So, now it's the USCC.....

Steve · Sep 13, 2013

The list in post #34 is still speculation, no official announcement yet.

But Baltimore is officially a no go.

Grand Prix of Baltimore Canceled (sportscar365.net)

by John Dagys | 13 September 2013

Sports cars or Indy cars will not be returning to Charm City next year, as event promoter Race On LLC announced Friday the cancelation of the Grand Prix of Baltimore.

According to Race On, a date for the popular street race, which drew more than 150,000 spectators this year, could not be found.

The race was held on Labor Day weekend for the last three years, but a college football game at the adjacent M&T Bank Stadium, scheduled for that weekend in 2014, forced organizers to explore other dates.

Ultimately, a date could not be found to accommodate both the IndyCar Series and local authorities. Race On confirmed the event would not return until 2016 at the earliest.

â€œRace On will not be able to participate in hosting the race going forward,â€ J.P. Grant, a partner in Race On LLC, told the Baltimore Business Journal. â€œEveryone involved in this matter has worked diligently and of good faith to make it happen. We explored every possible option.â€

The event had come under fire this year for the use of a controversial front-stretch chicane, which contributed to a massive accident at the start of the American Le Mans Series event, resulting in a shortened race and reportedly more than $1.5 million in accident damage.

While IndyCar had intentions of returning to Baltimore, itâ€™s unclear if the newly named Tudor United SportsCar Championship would have also been on the bill, although itâ€™s understood preliminary negotiations had at least taken place.
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Nathan · Sep 13, 2013

I can't say that the news that Baltimore has been cut from the schedule is a bad thing.

minirab · Sep 15, 2013

Nathan said: ↑

I can't say that the news that Baltimore has been cut from the schedule is a bad thing.
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And I'm from Maryland..dump it, what a terrible venue!

Steve · Sep 20, 2013

IMSA Announces 2014 Tudor United SportsCar Championship schedule (autoweek.com)

Left off the schedule are Lime Rock, Barber Motorsports Park, Mid-Ohio, Kansas Speedway

By: Steven Cole Smith on September 20, 2013

Good news and bad news for tracks across North America: IMSA, the sanctioning body for the new combined Tudor United SportsCar Championship, on Friday announced a 12-race schedule for the debut season of the series. Separately, Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series raced at 22 events at 17 venues, so combined, the schedule was trimmed considerably, to 12 races as expected. There were no surprises.

Here's the 2014 schedule:

--Jan. 25-26, Daytona International Speedway: The 52nd running of the Rolex 24 will be perhaps the most significant sports-car race in the history of North America, as the new championship's debut event. “The momentum and excitement surrounding the Rolex 24 At Daytona continues to grow every year,” Daytona International Speedway president Joie Chitwood III said. “With the 2014 edition of the Rolex 24, we will begin a new era in North American sports car racing and race fans will want to witness in-person the first event for the Tudor United SportsCar Championship.”

--March 15, Sebring International Raceway: The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring fueled by Fresh From Florida -- North America's oldest sports-car race -- will run for the 62nd time. For the first time since 1998, the Daytona and Sebring endurance classics will be part of the same series and under the same sanctioning body (IMSA).

--April 12, Long Beach, Calif.: Longtime ALMS street race again in conjunction with the Izod IndyCar Series. Prototype and GT Le Mans classes will compete in one of the largest and most important consumer markets.

--May 4, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca: Historic Monterey, Calif., circuit considered hallowed ground for sports-car racing.

--May 31, Detroit Belle Isle: Also a companion street-race event to IndyCar. Will feature Prototype, Prototype Challenge and GT Daytona classes. It’s too close to the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the GT Le Mans cars to participate.

--June 29, Watkins Glen International: The Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen endurance event in Watkins Glen, New York has been a staple on the Rolex Series schedule. The event started in 1968 and for many years was part of IMSA's former Camel GT Series.

--July 13, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (Mosport): Historic Bowmanville, Ontario, circuit -- currently amid a massive renovation project -- is retained from the ALMS schedule.

--July 25, Indianapolis Motor Speedway: The Brickyard Grand Prix will again join the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series weekend for third consecutive year, with a Friday-at-dusk finish. “Sports car racing is entering a new era that will provide even more excitement for fans,” said J. Douglas Boles, Indianapolis Motor Speedway president. “We think the wide array of high-performance cars in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship will produce great action and are very happy that the Brickyard Grand Prix will remain as one of the marquee events in the North American sports car schedule.”

--Aug. 10, Road America: The Elkhart Lake, Wis., track has been on both ALMS and Rolex Series schedules.

--Aug. 24, Virginia International Raceway: The Danville, Va., track has a fervent fan following and an ALMS race next month. The event will have a combined GT Le Mans/GT Daytona race and another race featuring the Prototype Challenge class. If there is a surprise on the schedule, it’s VIR, but likely its inclusion was part of an agreement ALMS had in advance.

--Sept. 20, Circuit of the Americas: This spectacular year-old road-racing facility in Austin, Texas, hosted the Rolex Series in the spring this season and is hosting the ALMS and FIA World Endurance Championship this weekend.

--Oct. 4, Road Atlanta: The Petit Le Mans, the traditional 10-hour-or-1,000-mile ALMS season finale at the storied Braselton, Ga., road course. The event will retain its status as a link with the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

With three circuits (Long Beach, Detroit Belle Isle and Virginia International Raceway) on the 2014 schedule not having all four USCC classes competing, each class (Prototype, Prototype Challenge, GT Le Mans and GT Daytona) will race 11 times next season.

Tracks that had either an ALMS or Rolex Series race in 2013, but don't in 2014: Lime Rock Park, Barber Motorsports Park, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Kansas Speedway and the Grand Prix of Baltimore (now cancelled entirely).

“We have created a premium schedule for sports-car fans, taking our new championship to some of the best road racing facilities in North America,” said IMSA CEO Ed Bennett. “The 'best of both worlds' approach, our shared guidepost throughout the merger process, is certainly evident when you look at the 2014 schedule.

“We had many interested parties but for 2014, we only considered facilities from our 2013 Rolex Series and ALMS schedules,” Bennett said. “That was in fairness to our existing track partners, who have been such strong supporters of both series. The first Tudor United SportsCar Championship season will feature iconic tracks deeply rich in history. We are very proud of this group of 12 facilities which have been selected for the inaugural season.”

“This is, without a doubt, the best sports-car schedule in the history of North America,” said IMSA President and COO Scott Atherton. “When we announced the merger plans last year, we immediately envisioned a dream schedule, one that our industry and, most importantly, our fans would embrace.”

The 2014 lineup features four racetracks currently on the Rolex Series schedule, four that are on the current ALMS schedule and four that are on both series' 2013 slates.

In addition, preseason test sessions have been set for Nov. 16-17 at Sebring International Raceway and Nov. 19-20 at Daytona International Speedway. The test sessions will be open to all four classes of cars that will compete in the new championship. Session schedules will be announced in the near future.

So far, the manufacturers seen relatively pleased with the schedule. “The schedule represents the best venues,” said John Doonan, director of Mazda Motorsports USA. “For us, it’s about the market and where we can engage with dealers and customers, and there’s a race in every single one of our key market areas.” Doonan said that fans who miss venues like Lime Rock could well see that track back on the schedule as the teams get used to the extra demands that some longer races will put on their people and pocketbooks.
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Crashton · Sep 20, 2013

Can't believe Mid-Ohio, Barber & Lime Rock don't have races. Sad news to this old fart. :frown2:

CHKMINI · Sep 21, 2013

Me too but it's not just us. I've been reading the comments on the Grand Am, Mid-Ohio and Lime Rock sites and there is an overwhelming opinion that they have screwed the pooch on next years schedule. The merger isn't sitting well with true sports car racing fans now. I'm saying bye-bye to VIP Season tickets at Mid-Ohio and will just buy a weekend pass to the Vintage Races and a Saturday ticket to Indy Cars unless they surprise us with another race weekend worth attending. A sad situation indeed.

Steve · Sep 23, 2013

The 2014 United SportsCar Championship schedule is about compromises (roadandtrack.com)

Cram two big families together, and sacrifices have to be made.

By Marshall Pruett September 22, 2013 / Photos by Marshall Pruett

Think merging two big families is easy? It's not. The 2014 Tudor United Sports Car Championship, which combines the American Le Mans Series, created in 1999, and the Grand-Am Rolex Series, continues to experience growing pains as the two entirely different houses come together under a single roof, Brady Bunch-style.

Things like the schedule, rules (or lack thereof, to be more specific) and the types of cars competing in the USCC have come under intense scrutiny from fans and media alike.

USCC unveiled its schedule last week, and as expected, it left a number of people unhappy. The 2014 calendar pares the 20 total events contested by ALMS and Grand-Am in 2013 down to just 12 rounds next year.

Thereâ€™s no Lime Rock, which I donâ€™t mind, and no Mid-Ohio, which is unfortunate. The rest of the events that made the cut qualify as either keystone endurance races, an ode to tradition, or have some sort of extracurricular value to consider.

Hereâ€™s my take on the events that made the cut for 2014.

Races I LOVE on the USCC calendar

Round 1, Jan. 25-26 at Daytona International Speedway: The 24 Hours of Daytona. â€˜Nuff said.
Round 2, March 15 at Sebring International Raceway: The 12 Hours of Sebring. This creates a brilliant 1-2 punch to open the season.
Round 5, May 31, Detroit Belle Isle: The amenities are few, but the racing is downright brutal.
Round 6, June 29, Watkins Glen: Hard to argue with this awesome New York staple remaining on the calendar.
Round 7, July 13, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park: Same goes for the Track Formerly Known As Mosport. Itâ€™s one of the wildest rides on the planet.
Round 9, Aug. 10, Road America: Hard to beat the track layout or the food. As close to a spiritual home for sports cars as youâ€™ll find in the western hemisphere.
Round 11, Sept. 20, Circuit of The Americas: Oozes extravagance, and COTA is one hell of a challenging track.
Round 12, Oct. 4, Road Atlanta: Delivers a perfect end to the season with Petit Le Mans.

Races I like on the USCC calendar:

Round 3, April 12, Long Beach: Less an outright race than a strategy battle among teams. The results are often spectacular, but everything leading up to the final 10 minutes can be a procession, to a degree.
Round 4, May 4, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca: Itâ€™s my home circuit, and I love the place, but the lack of grip makes passing a serious challenge. This invites lots of dumb moves that turn into cautions.
Round 10, Aug. 24, Virginia International Raceway: Meh. Itâ€™s a blast to drive, but the facility is ancient.

The race I donâ€™t like on the USCC calendar:

Round 8, July 25, Indianapolis Motor Speedway: Indy is awesome. Its road course is not.

Overall, the USCCâ€™s inaugural race calendar is a balancing act; a mix of races that its teams can afford and venues that fans love.

Does that mean everyoneâ€™s going to be happy? Nope. Smash two big families together into one house, and unfortunately, some of their stuffâ€™s going to get left out on the curb.
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Steve · Sep 23, 2013

The schedule pissed off a lot of people and they're having to justify themselves. I imagine they expected this long before they published it.

Here's a snip of another, longer article (full article linked below).

Q&A: Scott Atherton on the USCC schedule decisions (racer.com)

Marshall Pruett | September 21, 2013

IMSA President Scott Atherton sits down with Marshall Pruett to explain the decision-making process behind the creation of the inaugural slate of races for the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship

MARSHALL PRUETT: Combining two series and consolidating 22 races obviously posed a challenge in putting together the USCC schedule. Two criticisms have risen to the top since the announcement â€“ the omission of Lime Rock and the absence of Mid-Ohio from the calendar, but do you feel this is the best that calendar that could have been assembled for Year One?

SCOTT ATHERTON: We think so. And to your point, it was an excruciating process because there's personal relationships, there's long-standing business relationships. And all of those are intertwined. It's very, very difficult decisions every step of the way. I will say there was a comprehensive process that took place here. It wasn't just: Who's going to pay the biggest sanction fee; or: What part of the country are we represented in? We pulled all of our stakeholders â€“ not all â€“ but many key decision-maker stakeholders, whether it be the OEMs that back the teams, many of the independent teams, on the track; sponsors; team owners. We all had them rank first-to-last, in terms of their prioritization.

And some of that you can see where these personal agendas are obvious, whether or not they have an official car or statuses or venue. But in the end, we believe we have come up with the best possible combination of venues and markets, and keeping a very careful eye on the impact to our teams and the sensitivity to the cost associated with this new schedule. If you measure on an hours-of-racing and you compare the 10-race American Le Mans series sponsored by Tequila Patron scheduled this year, the amount of risk that represents and what next year's TUDOR United Sports Car Championship schedule represents, it's over 50% increase in hours of racing.

Racecars are not unlike airplanes. It's by the hour in terms of the budget. If you're a Grand-Am team today, I believe the increase is somewhere in the 25 to 30% range. So the ideal schedule from many people's perspectives would be one that includes all of these tracks. Nobody left out. But that becomes economically untenable; not only for the series as a whole but for the individual teams to participate. I, individually, and we as a collective group, could not be more pleased about the schedule. We have with an asterisk at the end of that sentence that, for sure, each of us have one that we wish we were able to put on the calendar that, unfortunately, isn't there.

...
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Read the full interview here.

mrntd · Sep 24, 2013

Maybe they should have added some races to the schedule. Only 12 seems like a short schedule to me.

The only reason Detroit is on the list is to satisfy the manufacturers.

Crashton · Sep 24, 2013

The only reason Detroit is on the list is to satisfy the manufacturers.
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Yes plus it is such a mickey mouse track. :frown2:

ScottinBend · Sep 24, 2013

But it is a money maker with a big audience.

Crashton · Sep 24, 2013

Pretty sure Mid-Ohio had larger attendance numbers. If you've ever attended a street race you'd know you can't see shirt, only what is directly in front of you. This is justa my sour grapes feel free to ignore them.

Steve · Sep 24, 2013

Here's a snip of an article on IMSA extending the number of years teams will be able to use their P2 and DP cars in the USCC (link to full article below).

I like it. Assuming the mix of P2 and DP cars on track will be entertaining (a big assumption, I know, but I'm hopeful :fingerscrossed: ), I think 3 years is better than 2.

Q&A: Scot Elkins explains Prototype regulations extension (racer.com)

Marshall Pruett | September 24, 2013

Sunday's joint announcement from the ACO and the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship regarding an extension of the rules governing P2 and DP through the 2016 season did not come as a total surprise, but it wasn't necessarily the news that everyone was looking for.

Those expecting to see a new, single USCC Prototype platform for 2016 will have to wait at least another year, meaning the blended P2/DP Prototype class will run for a minimum of three seasons before entrants and fans will have a chance to see a new solution introduced to North America. There is also no guarantee the combined P2/DP platform will be changed once 2017 arrives. RACER spoke with Scot Elkins, USCC's VP of competition and technical regulations, about the reasons behind the extension and some of the other present and future-minded ramifications it could have.

...
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Full article here.

Read the official announcement here.

ScottinBend · Sep 24, 2013

I agree Crash.....Mid-Ohio is a must race. They have to bring it back.

mrntd · Sep 25, 2013

I saw posts on Autoblog whining about the P1 cars not being in the series. All I thought was "what all 3 of them" :devil:

minirab · Sep 25, 2013

Maybe we can finally say goodbye to Rob Dyson!

Crashton · Sep 25, 2013

He'll turn up again I'm sure....

minimark · Sep 25, 2013

We'll be sure to take a pic of the complete P1 field at VIR in a couple weeks and post it up here.....

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