Saturday 16 January 2021, Posted by Philip Brasor
On December 23rd We announced A new series of sports cars, dedicated to GT4 and TCR cars such as the one we find in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge and the CTCC can see the light in 2021 in Canada.
Since then, Franczak Enterprises Canada (FEL), the company that started the project, has made a correction: abandoning the use of the TCR name, which is exclusive to CTCC in Canada. But on the other hand, it has just announced that it has received 16 filings from various teams in Canada that are interested in participating in this new series this year.
“The response of the Canadian sports car community has been truly amazing. The quality of the teams that have shown interest not only to confirm their participation but also to provide technical and logistical support has been outstanding,” said Chris Bay, President of FEL.
FEL has taken deposits for 16 certified racing cars currently in GT4 or Touring Car. These teams are Hyundai Racing Canada, Blanchett Motorsports, Mark Motors Racing, Two Autosport and GT Racing for a total of 9 touring cars (which we wouldn’t call TCR but it really is that kind of car!). FEL also received deposits from Paragon Competition, Speedstar Motorsports, GT Racing, AIM Autosport, Multimatic Motorsports and Pfaff Motorsports to raise the number of paid entries in the GT4 category to 7.
At FEL we also specify that we have interviewed teams at the planning stage and are not in a position to commit at this time. “We are confident that once the schedule is announced, we will have more than 20 cars,” said Chris Bay, adding, “We have some of the best performing sports car teams in Canada.
So now it looks like the series is on track to start next May, possibly in Mosport. “As we have said from the start, we are totally focused on providing a value proposition to the difference through transparency,” Bay said. FEL has 5 events currently under negotiation, with plans to show a total of 6 events in 2021. All weekends will have two races in their schedule. FEL does not specify whether endurance races with two drivers per vehicle are planned as in IMSA (image above) or Sprint races with one driver as in CTCC.
FEL plans to announce the schedule and next steps for building its series in the coming weeks. This will then coincide with the official launch: “We are working hard to formalize the series as quickly as possible,” concluded Chris Bay.