Michelin Pilot Challenge

The Michelin Pilot Challenge is a grand touring and touring car racing series run by the International Motor Sports Association. Originating from the Canadian Motorola Cup, the series was taken over by Grand-Am in 2001 to become the Grand-Am Cup following the demise of rival IMSA's Firehawk series of similar rules in the US. KONI became series sponsor for the start of the 2007 season when the series became known as the KONI Challenge Series, before renaming once more prior to the start of the 2009 season as the KONI Sports Car Challenge. The series name was once again changed for the 2010 season to Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge. In 2019, the series rebranded again after Michelin was selected to become the new official tire supplier of the series.[1]

Michelin Pilot Challenge
CategoryGrand touring
Touring car
Country United States
 Canada
Inaugural season1997
Drivers' championGS: Canada Kyle Marcelli
GS: United States Nate Stacy
TCR: Colombia Gabby Chaves
TCR: United States Ryan Norman
Makes' championGS: United Kingdom Aston Martin
TCR: South Korea Hyundai
Teams' championGS: United States #60 KohR Motorsports
TCR: United States #33 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian
Official websitemichelinpilotchallenge.imsa.com
Current season
Competitors in the KONI Challenge on a pre-grid at New Jersey Motorsports Park in 2008

The Continental Challenge was the support series for Grand-Am's premier offering, the Rolex Sports Car Series. In 2014, the series became the support series for the United SportsCar Championship (now known as the IMSA SportsCar Championship) upon the merger of the Rolex Series and the American Le Mans Series.

Races

In traditional sports car racing format, the races are often run with both GS and ST classes on track simultaneously, which is known as a "combined" race. Occasionally the races will be run in "split classes", with separate races for both classes. This is especially common for shorter venues such as Lime Rock Park. Currently the races are 2 hours 30 minutes in length with a required driver change.

Telecasts

  • Until 2013, broadcasts were to Fox Sports 1, formerly Speed Channel. All telecasts are uploaded to the series website after their initial airing.
  • From 2019 season, NBC Sports telecast Delayed-Race and IMSA TV has telecast live via Peacock.
  • In some countries, NASCAR Holdings (which owns IMSA) feature the Michelin Pilot Challenge is included in NASCAR's media rights deals in Mexico and Brazil that includes NASCAR's three national series, IMSA's two major series, and American Flat Track, all of which have broadcasts produced by NASCAR.
  • IMSA TV, which is controlled by NASCAR Productions, has international rights in selected countries.

Vehicles

The series uses two classes in each race. Originally, these were:

  • The Grand Sport (GS) class features large-displacement 6-cylinder, 8-cylinder, 10-cylinder or 12-cylinder sports cars as well as small displacement 4-cylinder forced induction sports cars.
  • The Street Tuner (ST) class is for smaller 4-cylinder, 5-cylinder or 6-cylinder sedans, hatchbacks, coupes or convertibles.

From 2017, IMSA allowed cars built by "mainstream automotive manufacturers" to SRO GT4 regulations to compete, with a complete phase out of the original Grand-Am GS class the next year. Also in 2018, IMSA introduced TCR Touring Cars as a third class, with the intention of it replacing the Street Tuners as the second class, which happened the following year.[2]

The original format was reminiscent of the original Trans-Am Series, combining conventional sports cars and touring cars, though the Trans-Am Series usually had a single driver per car, unlike the Continental Challenge, which has two drivers per car. Some vehicles in the Continental Challenge have actually been wrapped to resemble the original Trans Am cars, such as the Boss 302 Mustangs of George Follmer and Parnelli Jones or the original Sunoco Camaro. As the Pilot Challenge consists of longer races (2-4 hours), the cars are also eligible for the United States Auto Club's Pirelli World Challenge GT4 or TCR classes, which are one-hour races.

Champions

Season GS Champion Car ST / TCR Champion Car
2004[3] United States Craig Stanton
United States Terry Borcheller
Cadillac CTS-V United States David Haskell
Canada Sylvain Tremblay
Mazda RX-8
2005[4] Canada David Empringham
Canada Scott Maxwell
Ford Mustang United States David Haskell
Canada Sylvain Tremblay
Mazda RX-8
2006[5] Sweden Anders Hainer
United States Boris Said
BMW M3 United States Don Salama
United States Will Turner
BMW 330i
2007[6] United States Jeff Segal
United States Jep Thornton
BMW M3 United States Trevor Hopwood
United States Adam Burrows
BMW 330i
2008[7] United States Joe Foster
Canada Scott Maxwell
Ford Mustang Canada Jamie Holtom Chevrolet Cobalt SS
2009[8] Canada Kenny Wilden Ford Mustang United States Chris Miller Honda Civic Si
2010[9] United States Charles Espenlaub
United States Charlie Putman
BMW M3 United States David Thilenius[N 1]
United States Lawson Aschenbach[N 1]
Honda Civic Si (2)
2011[10] Canada Paul Dalla Lana BMW M3 Sweden Niclas Jönsson Kia Forte Koup
2012[11] Canada John Farano[N 2]
Canada David Empringham[N 2]
Porsche 997 Brazil Pierre Kleinubing
Canada Jason Clunie
Mazdaspeed3
2013[12] United States Nick Longhi
United States Matt Plumb
Porsche 997 United States Terry Borcheller
United States Mike LaMarra
BMW 128i
2014[13] United States Trent Hindman BMW M3 Coupe (5) United States Eric Foss BMW 328i
Porsche Cayman
2015[14] United States Andrew Davis
United Kingdom Robin Liddell
Chevrolet Camaro United Kingdom Stevan McAleer
United States Chad McCumbee
Mazda MX-5 (4)
2016[15] United States Billy Johnson
Canada Scott Maxwell
Ford Mustang GT350R-C (4) United States Nick Galante
United States Spencer Pumpelly
Porsche Cayman
2017[16] United States Dillon Machavern
United States Dylan Murcott
Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR United States Eric Foss Porsche Cayman (3)
2018[17] United States Hugh Plumb
United States Owen Trinkler
Mercedes-AMG GT4 United States ST: Devin Jones
Canada ST: Nick Galante
United States TCR: Britt Casey Jr.
United States TCR: Tom Long
ST: BMW 328i (5)
TCR: Audi RS 3 LMS
2019 United States Tyler McQuarrie
United States Jeff Westphal
Audi R8 LMS GT4 United States Michael Lewis
Canada Mark Wilkins
Hyundai Veloster N TCR
2020 Canada Kyle Marcelli
United States Nate Stacy
Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 Colombia Gabby Chaves
United States Ryan Norman
Hyundai Veloster N TCR
2021 Belgium Jan Heylen Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport (4) United States Michael Lewis
United States Taylor Hagler
Hyundai Veloster N TCR
2022 United States Alan Brynjolfsson
United States Trent Hindman
Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 (2) United States Taylor Hagler(2)
United States Michael Lewis (2)
Hyundai Elantra N TCR (4)

Notes

  1. The Bimmerworld 328i of Bill Heumann and Seth Thomas and the Compass360 Civic of Thilenius and Aschenbach finished the 2010 season tied in ST points. As both teams had the same number of wins and second-place finishes, Thilenius and Aschenbach won the title by virtue of having more third-place finishes.
  2. Matt Plumb was victorious in the final race and was the presumed champion, but upon official review he was determined to have been illegally entered in multiple cars, and thus received no points, handing the championship to Farano and Empringham.

References

  1. "Michelin Pilot Challenge Revealed; Two Classes in 2019 – Sportscar365". Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  2. "IMSA Finalizes Racing Platform Innovations | IMSA". www.imsa.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-18.
  3. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2016-01-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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  5. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-01-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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  8. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2016-01-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-09-16. Retrieved 2014-03-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-09-16. Retrieved 2016-01-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2015-07-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2015-07-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-10. Retrieved 2015-07-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-15. Retrieved 2016-01-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  15. "Michelin Pilot Challenge: Home".
  16. "Michelin Pilot Challenge: Home".
  17. "Michelin Pilot Challenge: Home".
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