TUDOR Championship makes schedule tweaks, sets tentative car count caps - MotorSportsTalk

Covering sports car racing is a challenge because of the various regulations, classes, requirements for drivers and other extenuating circumstances. But, because of the variety offered, particularly compared to single-spec stock car and open-wheel series, I dig my sports car fix.

However, sometimes, you can easily get confused.

I don’t think it was the intent of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship to make things even more confusing than they already are with the intricacies of putting together series and ideologies (GRAND-AM Rolex Series and American Le Mans Series) about as far apart as the divide in Washington.

But today’s press release with schedule updates and announcing tentative car capacities has made its best effort to make things more convoluted.

Kansas Speedway has been added as a 13th race weekend for the TUDOR Championship, which is something of a surprise. It will hold a PC class race on June 7. Earlier Friday, the track itself released details of Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, IMSA Cooper Tire Prototype Lites and IMSA Porsche GT3 Challenge races there to be held that day, but said nothing of a TUDOR Championship race.

The PC class will, if I’m reading the press release correctly, run “doubleheader sprint races” at both Kansas June 7 and Virginia International Raceway August 24, “alongside” Prototype Lites. That would be unprecedented if the PC class ORECA FLM09 chassis race alongside the Panoz DP02s, which run in Prototype Lites.

Where PC gets shafted is that it loses the Detroit and Mosport rounds it was already promised, and announced with the rest of the 2014 schedule at the Circuit of the Americas weekend in Austin in September.

IMSA series officials have said repeatedly throughout this process that there was “one chance to get the schedule right,” and so after what was a very good, by most accounts, full schedule release at COTA, we now have a Friday afternoon where the schedule’s been changed. Go figure.

The above copy doesn’t even get into the tentative car count capacity, projected for each race. IMSA officials have outlined the below numbers as tentative caps in the four classes, and rather than repeat them in words, I’ll just list them below.

Date	Location	Class	Car Cap	Class	Car Cap
Jan. 25-26	Daytona	P PC	19 10	GTLM GTD	12 19
Mar. 15	Sebring	P PC	20 10	GTLM GTD	14 19
Apr. 12	Long Beach	P	20	GTLM	16
May 4	Monterey	P	20	GTLM	12
May 4	Monterey	PC	10	GTD	19
May 31	Detroit	P	20	GTD	21
Jun. 1	LM24	Test Day
Jun. 7	Kansas	PC	10
Jun. 14-15	LM24	LM24
Jun. 29	Watkins Glen	P PC	19 10	GTLM GTD	12 19
Jul. 13	Mosport	P	19	GTLM GTD	12 19
Jul. 25	Indianapolis	P PC	20 10	GTLM GTD	14 19
Aug. 10	Rd. America	P PC	19 10	GTLM GTD	12 19
Aug. 24	VIR	PC	10
Aug. 24	VIR	GTLM	19	GTD	19
Sept. 20	COTA	P PC	19 10	GTLM GTD	12 19
Oct. 4	Petit	P PC	19 10	GTLM GTD	12 19

Not to be outdone, the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge schedule has also been announced. It will follow the TUDOR Championship to most events, with the standalones at Lime Rock Park May 24 (the Saturday before the Indianapolis 500) and also, with the PC race at Kansas June 7.

Complicating matters further is that next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans will directly conflict with two parts of the TUDOR Championship calendar. The test day is June 1 and scrutineering, technical inspection, begins June 7.

So, that’s where we stand at the close of business this Friday afternoon.

2014 Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Schedule
Date    Venue
Jan 24  Daytona International Speedway
Mar 14  Sebring International Raceway
May 3   Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
May 24  Lime Rock Park
Jun 7   Kansas Speedway
Jun 28  Watkins Glen International
Jul 12  Canadian Tire Motorsport Park
Jul 25  Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Aug 9   Road America
Aug 23  Virginia International Raceway
Sep 20  Circuit of The Americas
Oct 3   Road Atlanta

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On the heels of his Hangtown 100 victory, Justin Grant worked his way from 13th in the Turkey Night Grand Prix to beat three-time event winner Kyle Larson by 1.367 seconds. The 81st annual event was run at Ventura (Calif.) Raceway for the sixth time.

“My dad used to take me to Irwindale Speedway, and we’d watch Turkey Night there every year,” Grant said in a series press release. “This is one of the races I fell in love with. I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to run in it, never thought I’d make a show and certainly never thought I’d be able to win one.”

With its genesis in 1934 at Gilmore Stadium, a quarter-mile dirt track in Los Angeles, the race is steeped in history with winners that include AJ Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Gary Bettenhausen and Johnnie Parsons. Tony Stewart won it in 2000. Kyle Larson won his first of three Turkey Night Grands Prix in 2012. Christopher Bell earned his first of three in 2014, so Grant’s enthusiasm was well deserved.

So was the skepticism that he would win. He failed to crack the top five in three previous attempts, although he came close last year with a sixth-place result. When he lined up for the feature 13th in the crowded 28-car field, winning seemed like a longshot.

Grant watched as serious challengers fell by the wayside. Mitchel Moles flipped on Lap 10 of the feature. Michael “Buddy” Kofoid took a tumble on Lap 68 and World of Outlaws Sprint car driver Carson Macedo flipped on Lap 79. Grant saw the carnage ahead of him and held a steady wheel as he passed Tanner Thorson for the lead with 15 laps remaining and stayed out of trouble for the remainder of the event.

“It’s a dream come true to win the Turkey Night Grand Prix,” Grant said.

There was a lot of action to squeeze into our highlights from Saturday's #TurkeyNightGP at @VenturaRaceway! @USACNation https://t.co/6iwjWWkfP4

— FloRacing (@FloRacing) November 27, 2022

Kyle Larson follows Justin Grant to the front on Turkey Night

The 2012, 2016 and 2019 winner, Larson was not scheduled to run the event. His wife Katelyn is expecting their third child shortly, but after a couple of glasses of wine with Thanksgiving dinner and while watching some replays of the event, Larson texted car owner Chad Boat to see if he had a spare car lying around. He did.

“We weren’t great but just hung around and it seemed like anybody who got to the lead crashed and collected some people,” Larson said. “We made some passes throughout; in the mid-portion, we weren’t very good but then we got better at the end.

“I just ran really, really hard there, and knew I was running out of time, so I had to go. I made some pretty crazy and dumb moves, but I got to second and was hoping we could get a caution to get racing with Justin there. He was sliding himself at both ends and thought that maybe we could get a run and just out-angle him into [Turn] 1 and get clear off [Turn] 2 if we got a caution, but it just didn’t work out.”

Larson padded one of the most impressive stats in the history of this race, however. In 10 starts, he’s won three times, finished second four times, was third once and fourth twice.

Bryant Wiedeman took the final spot on the podium.

As Grant and Larson began to pick their way through the field, Kofoid took the lead early from the outside of the front row and led the first 44 laps of the race before handing it over to Cannon McIntosh, who bicycled on Lap 71 before landing on all fours. While Macedo and Thorson tussled for the lead with McIntosh, Grant closed in.

Thorson finished 19th with McIntosh 20th. Macedo recovered from his incident to finish ninth. Kofoid’s hard tumble relegated him to 23rd.

Jake Andreotti in fourth and Kevin Thomas, Jr. rounded out the top five.

1. Justin Grant (started 13)
2. Kyle Larson (22)
3. Bryant Wiedeman (4)
4. Jake Andreotti (9)
5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (1)
6. Logan Seavey (8)
7. Alex Bright (27)
8. Emerson Axsom (24)
9. Carson Macedo (7)
10. Jason McDougal (18)
11. Jake Swanson (16)
12. Chase Johnson (6)
13. Jacob Denney (26)
14. Ryan Timms (23)
15. Chance Crum (28)
16. Brenham Crouch (17)
17. Jonathan Beason (19)
18. Cade Lewis (14)
19. Tanner Thorson (11)
20. Cannon McIntosh (3)
21. Thomas Meseraull (15)
22. Tyler Courtney (21)
23. Buddy Kofoid (2)
24. Brody Fuson (5)
25. Mitchel Moles (20)
26. Daniel Whitley (10)
27. Kaylee Bryson (12)
28. Spencer Bayston (25)

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