The 2014 IMSA
Continental Tire Sports Car 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 ...
was the fifteenth season of the showroom stock series and the first under the
International Motor Sports Association
The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a North American sports car racing sanctioning body based in Daytona Beach, Florida under the jurisdiction of the ACCUS arm of the FIA. It was started by John Bishop, a former executive direc ...
sanctioning body after the
Grand American Road Racing Association
Grand-Am Road Racing or Grand-Am was an auto racing sanctioning body that was established in 1999 to organize road racing competitions in North America. Its primary focus was the Rolex Sports Car Series, an endurance racing championship series. ...
's
Rolex Sports Car Series
The Rolex Sports Car Series was the premier series run by the Grand American Road Racing Association. It was a North American-based sports car series founded in 2000 under the name Grand American Road Racing Championship to replace the failed ...
was merged with IMSA's
American Le Mans Series
The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The American Le Mans' hea ...
. The series remained unaffected aside from the addition of IMSA to the beginning of its name.
In the Grand Sport class, Fall-Line Motorsports pairing
Trent Hindman
Trent Hindman (born September 20, 1995 in West Long Branch, New Jersey) is an American racing driver. Hindman won the 2014 Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge in the GS class. He also was selected by BMW Motorsport for their junior program in ...
and
John Edwards
Johnny Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004 alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents George ...
won two races during the season, but due to Edwards not completing a mandatory period behind the wheel at
Kansas Speedway
Kansas Speedway is a tri-oval race track in the Village West area near Kansas City, Kansas, United States. It was built in 2001 and it currently hosts two annual NASCAR race weekends. The IndyCar Series also held races at the venue until 2011 ...
, Hindman was crowned sole champion by 15 points ahead of Edwards. Stevenson Motorsports drivers Andrew Davis and Robin Liddell were next in the championship, finishing just one point behind Edwards, despite winning one more race than the Fall-Line team. TRG-AMR North America's Kris Wilson was the only other driver to win multiple races; he won at Kansas with
James Davison
James D. Davison (born 28 August 1986) is an Australian professional racing driver who drives an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in the Blancpain GT World Challenge America. He has also competed in the NTT IndyCar Series, NASCAR Cup Series, and NASCAR ...
, while he also won at
Virginia International Raceway
Virginia International Raceway (commonly known as "VIR") is a race track located in Alton, Virginia, near Danville. It is less than a half-mile from the North Carolina/Virginia border just outside Milton, North Carolina, on the banks of the Dan ...
, sharing with Max Riddle. Other teams to win races were the second Fall-Line team of Shelby Blackstock and Ashley Freiberg, Rum Bum Racing pairing Nick Longhi and Matt Plumb,
Matt Bell and
Andy Lally
Andrew J. Lally (born February 11, 1975) is an American professional auto racing driver. He competes full-time in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, driving the Audi R8 for Magnus Racing and previously part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, dr ...
for Stevenson Motorsports, CKS Autosport's Lawson Aschenbach and Eric Curran, while the season finale was won by
Multimatic Motorsports
Multimatic Motorsports is the competition arm of Multimatic Special Vehicle Operations. Founded in 1992, the team has competed in the Firestone Firehawk Series, Motorola Cup, IMSA GT Championship, American Le Mans Series, Grand-Am Cup, Rolex Sport ...
with drivers Ian James and Billy Johnson.
In Street Tuner, there was a solo champion like in the Grand Sport class. Murillo Racing's Eric Foss and Jeff Mosing competed for the majority of the season together – with two wins at
Daytona Daytona refers to the city of Daytona Beach, Florida, or things named after it.
Daytona may also refer to:
Locations
* Daytona Beach Shores, Florida
* South Daytona, Florida
* The Daytona Beach metropolitan area
* Halifax area, also known as Da ...
and Virginia International Raceway – but Mosing missed the
Laguna Seca Laguna Seca may refer to:
* Laguna Seca Formation, a geologic formation in California
* Laguna Seca (Mexico), see Convention of London
* Laguna Seca (Santa Clara County), a seasonal lake in California
* Laguna Seca, Texas, United States
* Rancho La ...
event due to back spasms. Thus, Foss won the championship by eight points ahead of Team Sahlen driver Wayne Nonnamaker, who did not win a race but finished in second place on four occasions. Mosing finished in third place in the championship, a further three points in arrears. The most wins were taken by Compass360 Racing pairing
Ryan Eversley
Ryan A. Eversley (born December 22, 1983) is an American professional auto racing driver. Since 2015, Eversley has been a Honda factory driver who primarily races in sports car racing championships such as the Michelin Pilot Challenge and Pirel ...
and Kyle Gimple, who won three races during the season – including the last two races – but their other performances were only good enough for ninth in the drivers' championship.
Randy Pobst
Randy Franklin Pobst (born June 26, 1957, in Dayton, Ohio), also known as "RFP" or "The Rocket," is an American race car driver and journalist for ''Motor Trend'' magazine.
Active in the SCCA World Challenge GT series and the Grand American s ...
and Andrew Carbonell took back-to-back victories for Freedom Autosport at
Sebring and Laguna Seca, while other race victories were taken by Chad Gilsinger and
Michael Valiante
Michael Valiante (born November 11, 1979, in New Westminster, British Columbia) is a Canadian racing driver.
Formula racing
Valiante began racing in karting where his success earned him a full-season scholarship in the Skip Barber 2.0 Series. ...
at Kansas, Canadian duo Remo Ruscitti and Adam Isman on home soil at
Canadian Tire Motorsport Park
Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (formerly Mosport Park and Mosport International Raceway) is a multi-track motorsport venue located north of Bowmanville, in Ontario, Canada, east of Toronto. The facility features a , 10-turn road course; a adva ...
, Cody Ellsworth and Corey Lewis at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is an automobile racing circuit located in Speedway, Indiana, an enclave suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. It is the home of the Indianapolis 500 and the Verizon 200, and and formerly the home of the United State ...
and
Terry Borcheller
Terry Borcheller (born March 22, 1966, in Hialeah, Florida) is an American professional racing driver who races in the Grand American Road Racing Association Rolex Sports Car Series and American Le Mans Series.
As a teenager, Borcheller was the W ...
and Mike LaMarra at
Road America
Road America is a motorsport road course located near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, United States on Wisconsin Highway 67. It has hosted races since the 1950s and currently hosts races in the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series, WeatherTech SportsCar Champ ...
. A second Freedom Autosport car was able to win at
Lime Rock, when Tom Long shared a car with Liam Dwyer – a
staff sergeant with the United States Marines – who was racing with a prosthesis on his left leg after losing it when he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan, three years prior.
Schedule
Official test sessions
Two official test sessions were scheduled:
*January 3–5 –
Daytona International Speedway
Daytona International Speedway is a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Since opening in 1959, it has been the home of the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race in NASCAR as well as its season opening event. In addition to NA ...
*February 20–21 –
Sebring International Raceway
Sebring International Raceway is a road course auto racing facility in the southeastern United States, located near Sebring, Florida.
Sebring Raceway is one of the oldest continuously operating race tracks in the U.S., its first race being run i ...
Race schedule
A twelve-round schedule was announced on October 11, 2013.
Results
;Notes
News
*
Compass 360 Racing
Compass Racing, formerly known as Compass360 Racing is a professional sports car team that competes in IMSA's Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge and SCCA's Pirelli World Challenge.
Racing history
Compass360 Racing won the Continental Tire Spo ...
announced that they were entering
Subaru WRX
The Subaru WRX is an all-wheel drive sport compact car manufactured by the Japanese automaker Subaru, originally based on the Impreza created for the World Rally Championship in 1992. Subaru claimed the name WRX stands for "World Rally eXperim ...
s in Grand Sport alongside their street tuner
Honda Civic
The is a series of automobiles manufactured by Honda since 1972. Since 2000, the Civic has been categorized as a compact car, while previously it occupied the subcompact class. , the Civic is positioned between the Honda Fit/City and Honda Acc ...
Si's.
References
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2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
Continental Tire Sports Car 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 ...