The now traditional ‘State of the Series Presentation took place at Road America this year with laughter and applause for Scott Atherton’s statement that, “anyone that had been to one of the American Le Mans Series State of the Series, they were an endurance event in themselves. But for tonight’s presentation, I will be adopting the sprint race format. So buckle up, I’ll be keeping my foot on the gas while we cover a multitude of exciting topics.”
The evening kicked off with news of the growth of the series in the media. Series exposure and growth has improved this year, with IMSA Radio having a special acknowledgement from Atherton in regards to this. IMSA Radio alone has had over 3 million connections this year.
The two major pieces of news to come out of the 2015 State of the Series event were the announcement of the 2016 Calendar, and the announcements of sponsorship involvement in the championship going forward into the future.
Sponsorship news kicked off with Rolex and Tudor renewing contracts with IMSA. Rolex will be staying on as an official sponsor of the Mobil One 12 Hours of Sebring for a further 10 years, this in addition to their recently confirmed additional decade as title sponsor of the Role 24 at Daytona.
Tudor meanwhile will see a change in role, moving from the Title sponsor of the series to the official timepiece of the North American sports car championship. This of course leaves the position for title sponsor open for the series going forward in 2016. That announcement came next in the evening’s presentation, when WeatherTech, headquartered in Bolingbrook, Ill, was announced as the new series Title sponsor. Also, the series will see a slight change in name with the dropping of the “United” from it’s title. From 2016, it will be known as the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship with prize funds substantially boosted for 2016.
The other major headline grabbing news for the evening was the announcement and presentation of the 2016 WeatherTech Sportscar Championship Calendar.
The series will open on the last weekend in January for the series class, the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona on January 30-31. The series will then move to Sebring, Florida for the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring on March 19th. Both of these opening rounds will see all four classes, P, PC, GTLM and GTD, taking part.
For the third round of the championship, the classic contest on the streets of Long Beach, will take place on April 16th. P, PC and GTLM will compete while GTD takes the weekend off.
The 4th round of the championship moves to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on May 1st with all classes competing.
Then, the fifth round of the championship will be run on June 4th in Detroit, MI. This race will see a variant of classes competing with only P, PC and GTD on the docket.
Then the series will take its traditional longer break while many participants in the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship will be competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The calendar resumes with all classes competing in the sixth round on July 3rd with the Sahlen’s 6 Hours of the Glen at Watkins Glen International.
Round 7 will be contested, again with all classes present, just a week later at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, or for our traditionalists out there, Mosport, on July 10th.
July 23rd will the series return to Lime Rock Park for the eighth round of the championship. Lime Rock will also see the GTLM class competing, a change from the 2015 event.
Elkhart Lake, Road America will once again host on August 7th, with the great track playing well to all four classes of cars.
August 21st will see the ninth round contested at Virginia International Raceway, with only GTLM and GTD classes competing. This event could produce some of the greatest GT racing seen all year.
September will see another annual trip to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX. It has yet to be confirmed at this time if the IMSA championship will once again partner up with the FIA World Endurance Championship for this event. The series then travels to the classic season finale, Petit Le Mans, run on October 1st at Road Atlanta.
Series heads also mentioned that much news is coming forward in regards to the pending decisions regarding the future’s of both the LMPC and GTD classes. For LMPC, the question still remains if the series will continue with the current platform of cars, all Oreca FLM09’s, for the future, or if another alternative chassis/car will be used from 2017 and forward.
Also, Atherton during his presentation did make special note that there are still some very big names to be announced in regards to participation in the 2016 GTD class, which is moving to FIA GT3 regulations next season.
