IMSA GT Championship
The IMSA GTP series was a sports car racing series, which was extended from 1981 to 1993 under the auspices of the International Motor Sports Association in the U.S. and Canada.
The IMSA GT racing series existed since 1971, when the IMSA founder John Bishop called a race series for GT cars to life. With the introduction of Group C in 1981, the IMSA opened for these racing prototypes. While at the same time continued with GT cars, and racing cars like the Porsche 956 and the Porsche 962 came in 1981 in addition to special constructions that were built exclusively for the GTP class, are used. The GTP cars corresponded to the technical regulations of Group C with the non- humble difference that there was no fuel restriction in the IMSA GTP series. The teams were in contrast to the races in the World Sportscar Championship, consume as much gasoline as they wanted.
Hazards were both long distance races like the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring race that counted during the GTP era of racing series, as well as sprint races on street circuits and 200 - mile race on permanent race tracks.
First overall winner in 1981 was the Briton Brian Redman, who was driving a Lola T600 with Chevrolet engine. With the introduction of the Porsche 962 in the race series began a three-year hegemony of Porsche, which was completed in 1988 by Nissan. With the entry of Jaguar, Toyota and Mazda, the series experienced in the second half of the 1980s peaked. The series attracted a number of top drivers, which was mainly due to the high price of money, which was distributed at every race. The series was very popular with the viewers, in part, the starting fields were twice as large as in the group -C Championship.
1985 Camel Light class, in addition to the GTP, and GT car, introduced for 2-liter prototypes to open the series.
Beginning of the 1990s came the series for several reasons in the crisis. 1992 Porsche withdrew and concentrated in the United States on the Indianapolis project. This was dominated by Japanese manufacturers, which in turn forced many private teams to the task that the expensive prototypes of Asia could not afford and their Porsche 962 were inferior. With the withdrawal of Mazda and Toyota 1992, the end was predetermined. As in 1993, the audience - who were interested also because of the wide variety of brands for the series - turned away and thus bailed important sponsors, the last race of the series was discharged on 2 October 1993 in Phoenix.