One of the first really important content and licenses of the Project Motor Racing is this IMSA announcement. With this addition, the game receives many possibilities and chances to be something really big. We’ll see what finally happens.
IMSA—the International Motor Sports Association—was (legend has it) born on the back of a napkin at the 1969 Daytona 500 week. What was on the menu that night may have been lost to the vagaries of time, but over dinner, Bill France Sr. (NASCAR founder) took one look at former SCCA boss John Bishop and his wife, Peggy Bishop’s, hastily scrawled plan to unify American road-racing and wrote a personal cheque on the spot for 75% of stock. The Bishops, meanwhile, would run the new sanctioning body that was incorporated on June 23, 1969.
Armed with cash and ambition, Bishop and his fledgling group hired Pocono to stage IMSA’s very first Formula Vee/Formula Ford race that October.
It was, as they say, a bit of an inauspicious start for a sanctioning body that would go on to define American sports car racing.
Exactly 328 spectators showed up.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, things got even worse when Pocono fined IMSA an extra $10,000 in “rent” after rivals at the SCCA tried to have the event cancelled. On-track shenanigans were even more amusing when the race was mistakenly awarded to a chap named Jim Clarke (not that Jim Clark), who beat out future legends like Skip Barber and (actual race winner) Jim Jenkins.
John Bishop joked that he could have taken all the spectators to dinner for less money than the event cost. But IMSA was off and running and things would soon turn a corner when R.J. rolled into town.
Smoke & Small-Block (1971-1979)
After the debacle at Pocono, Bishop began laying his plans for IMSA’s first big road show—the “GT Championship”—that launched on the 18th of April 1971 at VIRginia International Raceway. The new series was split into two classes: GTU (<2.5L) and GTO (>2.5L).
The “Danville 300”—the first race in the championship’s history—would prove a pivotal moment not only for IMSA but international sports car racing. It would also signal the start of Porsche’s legacy in IMSA and the rise of a future star, Hurley Haywood.
In 1972, R.J. Reynolds arrived with a boatload of cash, rechristened the series for one of its products (that shall not be named), and mandated that every car—and even the drivers’ Nomex—carry a grinning logo the size of a postcard.
A successful GT series, money to burn, big names and brands … it was all happening. And then came 1973 when the FIA pulled out of the Sebring event at the very last moment and gave IMSA a perfect opportunity to launch.
With factory-backed programs like the Porsche 911 RSRs and the Corvette big-blocks already in play, that race in 1973 turned Sebring—then a clubby little 12-hour event—into a globally televised spring break for gearheads. The turnaround was spectacular: Sebring literally went from potential oblivion to a crown jewel of international sports car racing overnight when IMSA saved the day.
And speaking of that IMSA race at Sebring, the track had such poor lighting that the big teams were forced to hire local volunteers to stand on the corners during the night to wave road flares so drivers could see the apexes. (One marshal allegedly roasted hot-dogs over his flare because, yes, your grandpa was cooler than you!)
GTP & The Era Of Flame-Spitting Monsters (1981-1993)
By 1981, with IMSA now the undisputed home of GT racing in North America, Bishop decided the next logical step was to bring in the very elite of international sports car racing. A big decision considering IMSA’s top-level field was dominated by the thunder of Group 5 racing.
But it was time to bring Group C to the USA.
Except, because this was America, Bishop decided he wanted no part of the fuel saving rubbish that restricted those epic racers over the pond. So he invented the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class (think Group C with no restrictions, and a rule book that was less than a page long) and started an arm-racer’s dream.
GTP over the next decade fielded some of the most fearsome prototypes in history. Think the Porsche 962 that made IMSA its personal ATM until Nissan came with the 1,000bhp Electramotive-built GTP ZX-Turbo and reeled off eight straight wins in 1988, breaking Stuttgart’s strangle-hold.
Just imagine a grid on a typical race day in the late-’80s: Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo v. Chevrolet Corvette C4 GTP v. BMW March GTP v. Ford Probe GTP v. Porsche 962C.
And then, of course, there was Mazda’s gorgeous quad-rotor RX-792P (the Le Mans-winning 787B’s successor) that managed to catch fire on the grid—twice—before being dubbed “The Barbecue” by mechanics (and still finding its way on the podium!).
Hollywood, The Cult Of Split Personality & Hard Days (1994-2013)
Throughout the 1980s, GTP and IMSA were on top of the world. It would have been hard to imagine how it could all go wrong so quickly. Which is exactly what happened when IMSA made the fateful decision to replace GTP with open-top World Sports Cars just as the organisation was sold (Bishop’s health was in decline) and renamed Professional Sports Car Racing.
The whole thing splintered in a couple of years with Don Panoz resurrecting the IMSA initials to sanction his new American Le Mans Series (ALMS) in 1999 (with close ties to Europe’s sports car racing scene), while NASCAR’s Jim France (seeing a gap for a more US-centric, low-cost scene) created Grand-Am’s Rolex Sports Car Series.
Sports car racing’s own unhappy version of the CART/IRL split would see the two bodies fight for entries for the next 15 years.
Even amid this, though, IMSA kept its showbiz shine: at the 1995 Rolex 24, a 70-year-old Paul Newman co-drove a Roush Mustang to the GTS-1 class win, becoming the oldest class winner in the race’s history and proving “Cool Hand Luke” was even cooler at night in Daytona. Because, yes, your great grandad was cooler than you, too!
Reunification (2014-2025)
Peace finally broke out when ALMS and Grand-Am merged for 2014, giving birth to the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship which evolved into today’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
The new series blended Le Mans-style Grand Touring Le Mans (GTLM) machinery with Grand-Am’s Daytona Prototypes under a single rulebook that finally put every major North American endurance classic—Daytona, Sebring, Petit Le Mans—back under one banner.
The next revolution arrived in 2023 with the rebirth of GTP, built to joint ACO-IMSA Le Mans Daytona h (LMDh) rules. A common rear-axle hybrid kit keeps costs sane while manufacturers stylise the bodywork, so the grid now boasts Cadillacs shaped like stealth bombers, winged BMWs with laser-beam headlights, Porsche’s 963 in retro Salzburg red, and Acura’s 2.4L V6 ARX-06 that won the very first race of the hybrid era at Daytona.
Oh, and Project Motor Racing’s very own cover car, the Lamborghini SC63 LMDh.
The Wild Side
From a penniless Pocono club race to multi-million LMDh hybrids wheeling out of Daytona’s pits on silent electric torque, from 358 spectators to 584 million homes in 149 countries watching, it’s been quite a ride for the US’s premiere sanctioning body.
Now in its 55th year, IMSA is still doing what it set out to do in 1969: keep North American road-racing loud enough, fast enough, and just crazy enough to keep us all coming back for more podium-furniture rearranging.
Not bad for an idea that was penned on a napkin.
More Facts That Show Your Grandpa Was Cooler Than You!
Apple’s rainbow Porsche: In 1980, the Dick Barbour Porsche 935 K3 raced in full Apple Computer livery, two decades before the iPod. It remains one of the most-photographed IMSA cars in history.
Tiny engine, giant killer: Dan Gurney’s Toyota Eagle Mk III won 21 of 27 GTP starts (1991-93) with a 2.1L four-pot that produced 750-800 hp, hastening the class’s demise.
The ‘flag drop’ Rolex: IMSA awards a specially engraved Rolex Cosmograph to every overall winner of the Daytona 24 Hours; Paul Newman’s 1995 watch recently sold for over 15 million dollars at auction.
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