Trans am is coming Back!

[Nicksfix]

Awesome John,getting excited for this 👍.Can hardly wait for May 30-31 Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington, OH.

I'm there dude.

 

[RACECAR]

Anyone know the TV schedule for this series? I've been looking everywhere but haven't found one so far.

 

[Nicksfix]

Can't say I've seen one anywhere,but I heard once that there may not be a T.V. schedule for this particular series.......... bummer I know would have like to have taped them.

 

[ND4SPD]

Heh, oddly enough. A non american car finished in the top 10 in the first race. A Mazda RX-7 finished in 9th for the first race! Hoorah for two spinning triangles battling it our with the big V8's! Here's the car in question.

 

[JohnBM01]

http://www.sccatrans-am.com/?p=595

If you love your racing in the Bluegrass State, a new race track will set up shop in Kentucky. Called "Bluegrass Motorsports Park," it's a 2.5-mile road course based in northern Kentucky. It's told to be within Kentucky's Lexington (Wildcats' country), Louisville (Cardinals' country), and Cincinnati, Ohio. Should be a nice track to host some action. I would imagine other series tring this place out, like AMA Superbike, Grand-Am (including Rolex Sportscar Series), and series like that.

 

[RACECAR]

http://www.sccatrans-am.com/?p=595

If you love your racing in the Bluegrass State, a new race track will set up shop in Kentucky. Called "Bluegrass Motorsports Park," it's a 2.5-mile road course based in northern Kentucky. It's told to be within Kentucky's Lexington (Wildcats' country), Louisville (Cardinals' country), and Cincinnati, Ohio. Should be a nice track to host some action. I would imagine other series tring this place out, like AMA Superbike, Grand-Am (including Rolex Sportscar Series), and series like that.

That looks like it'll be a awesome track, kinda reminds of Miller Motorsports Park somewhat. And I just relised its location which means that.... THIS... IS...SPARTA!!!

 

[CAMikaze]

And I just relised its location which means that.... THIS... IS...SPARTA!!!!!!!!1!1111!oneoneone

Fixed.

 

[JohnBM01]

For a recently-revived series, the fifth race of this eight-race championship has been concluded this past weekend. Tomy Drissi won in his "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" Jaguar XKR at Portland. Surprisingly, that's the ONLY west coast event this season! Not even a trip to California. Here's the remaining schedule:

* July 11 and 12: Watkins Glen
* September 5 and 6: Bluegrass Motorsport Park (Sparta, Kentucky)
* September 19-20: Road America (SCCA Runoffs)

 

[SR-71_Blackbird]

They should get Can Am going again

 

[Radracing]

I presume this means that the cars will still be silhouette space-framed cars rather than production car based (monocoque chassied)?

Hope not. I would rather have them compete as production base race cars. It helps promote after market tuners join in and give the manufacturers incentive to improve on thier final product in the showroom floors. Wasn't that how Trans Am started with production based chassis?

 

[peter_vod69]

That is EXACTLY what I'm talking about! And I like what I see.👍

@ Jackington: Would it be a stretch on my part to say the V8 Supercars series might have been influenced by the Trans-Am series?

Yeah - bit of a stretch. The V8 supercar thing evolved out of the worldwide collapse of Group A touring cars, a history of tribalism between Ford and Holden, and a general dislike of having the local brands beaten constantly by what were perceived to be higher-tech, "foreign" cars.

V8 Supercars would like to be able to trace their roots back to the Falcon GTHO and the Holden Monaro of the late 60's/early 70's, but really the series is just basically a silouhette formula with different bodyshells to differentiate the cars. Kinda like Nascar in a way, but designed specifically for roadcourses and much more varied speeds. A Nascar would kill a V8 Supercar on an oval, but the V8SC is much faster on what you guys would call a "road course".

For reference:

and

 

[Small_Fryz]

We have a great catagory here... though it gets almost no TV time..

Very powerful cars.

For example, they lap phillip island 2 seconds faster than V8 super cars and the Ferrari 430 GT Class cars. Only Formla 3 and formula 4000 lap faster (open wheel cars)

 

[TheCracker]

We have a great catagory here... though it gets almost no TV time..

Very powerful cars.

For example, they lap phillip island 2 seconds faster than V8 super cars and the Ferrari 430 GT Class cars. Only Formla 3 and formula 4000 lap faster (open wheel cars)

I think i've seen some of this racing on MotorsTV here in the UK. I remember seing a race from Philip Island where the Saab in the picture (or one similar) spun off on a damp track and got collected and destroyed by another car.

They're like full silhouette racers aren't they - a bit like Super Saloons were in Britain in the 70's and Germany's Group 5 DRM racers were in the late 70's and early 80's. 👍

 

[Small_Fryz]

I think i've seen some of this racing on MotorsTV here in the UK. I remember seing a race from Philip Island where the Saab in the picture (or one similar) spun off on a damp track and got collected and destroyed by another car.

They're like full silhouette racers aren't they - a bit like Super Saloons were in Britain in the 70's and Germany's Group 5 DRM racers were in the late 70's and early 80's. 👍

yes with big 6.0lt V8's, flares, massive tyres and big Aero. From what i can see they are Australias "fastest" Tin tops. Not sure of their top speed, but they out lap a V8 supercar anyway. Ive only seen them a few times on the TV show "speedweek" but they are awesome to watch!

 

[JohnBM01]

If you want a little look at Trans-Am for 2009, here are some YouTube videos I found. Obviously, those with 56K or slower may have LOTS of trouble trying to see these videos. I included links in case embedding is disabled. So here you go:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0uf7vIb6qQ
^ Rd. 1 at Road Atlanta. (WARNING: turn DOWN the volume!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnC9NM7J5-0
^ Mosport, same YouTube channel. (WARNING: turn DOWN the volume!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W1cDLEW7wU
^ Road Atlanta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRr1rUdz6w
^ Road Atlanta. Mazda love, Trans-Am style!



Thank me later!

 

[peter_vod69]

That corvette sounds like its revving to the moon! It's awesome.

I'll thank you later, as per your request.

 

[Radracing]

I would rather see the original concept of this type of cars:

Evolve to the new Trans AM Series of this kind of cars:

If they are going to be silouhette bodies they should at least stay true to the exact same body configuration instead of the NASCAR style bodies that only have liveries of the front and back of what it's suppose to look like and wider bodies with lower roof and body lines.

From the Youtube videos thou, it looks like they did it the NASCAR way. I guess it's the cheap and lazy way to go that route. Would be easier to level the playing field this way. That's too bad, because it does not make the car manufacturers have any incentives to improve on the actual car they sell to the public to make it competitive in the Trans Am series. If they did you would see a lot more of the technology they would use in the Trans Am series transffer over to the production version of the car and vice versa.

It would even help stimulate the auto industry since the race teams would need to buy a lot of chassis or body parts for thier race cars. Every time they would crash a car they would need to buy a new chassy or body panel instead of just biulding a new tube frame and some fiberglass body shell.

 

[RACECAR]

Well, this was how the series was the last time they actually had a series going. I think for the moment just to bring back the series in the economy we have now, this was the way to go. I have no doubt though that eventually, they will go back to that style.

 

[Mad94d]

We have a great catagory here... though it gets almost no TV time..

Very powerful cars.

For example, they lap phillip island 2 seconds faster than V8 super cars and the Ferrari 430 GT Class cars. Only Formla 3 and formula 4000 lap faster (open wheel cars)

I love watching these things. They are so fast it's insane. Here are a few onboard videos I found of a Calibra with a 6.0L Chev engine.