History
The series was founded in 1969 by John Bishop and Bill France, Sr., and racing debuted in 1971. It was originally aimed at two of FIA's stock car categories running at two different classes, the GT (Group 3 and 4) and Touring (Group 1 and 2) cars. The first race was held at Virginia International Raceway; it was an unexpected hit with both the drivers and a handful of spectators who attended.
For the following year, IMSA founder John Bishop brought in sponsor R. J. Reynolds and in 1975, introduced a new category called All American Grand Touring (AAGT). In 1977, the series would go through a series of major changes. IMSA permitted turbocharged cars for the first time as well as introducing a new category called GTX for cars based on the Group 5 rules. In 1981, after Bishop decided to not follow FIA's newly introduced Group C rules, so he introduced the GTP class for sports prototypes. In 1989, Bishop sold off his organization. After a period of decline in the early 1990s, the Worlds Sports car category was introduced in 1993 to replace the GTP category in 1994.
After a period of multiple ownerships, the organization was eventually renamed Professional Sports Car Racing (PSCR). In 1999, PSCR decided to drop their own championship in order to sanction a new American Le Mans Series. Despite various names, the GT series was known commonly as the IMSA series as it had been the organization's dominant series.
Read more about this topic: IMSA GT Championship
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)