Pirelli World Challenge

The Pirelli World Challenge is a North American auto racing series that is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Founded in 1985, it consists of three classes: grand touring, touring car, and starting with the 2010 season, a "GTS" class. The series holds races at several IndyCar Series and American Le Mans Series event weekends.

History

The SCCA created a "showroom stock" class for amateur club racing in 1972. In 1984, following the success of the Longest Day of Nelson and another 24-hour race at Mid-Ohio, the SCCA combined existing races into a manufacturer's championship. For 1985, the series became a 6-race professional championship with sponsorship from Playboy magazine. Escort radar detectors sponsored the series from 1986 until 1989.

In 1990, the series was restructured to adopt rules similar to the European Group A for homologated production cars. The higher-cost "sports" classes were dropped after 1996, leaving the class format as it would stand until 2010. Television network Speedvision began sponsoring the series in 1999. With fields growing, the series began separate races for the GT and Touring classes in 2000, which would remain until 2010. In 2010, Speed TV dropped their sponsorship, prompting a move to the Versus network for coverage. The series moved existing touring cars into a new GTS class,...
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