The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) holds their annual championship this weekend, the SCCA Runoffs, at the famous Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. While the world of club racing typically races on their own without a lot of spectators, this gives the rare chance to put amateur racers in the spotlight as the SCCA streams the championship races for all of their classes. The classes can be a bit daunting, but we’ll give a nickel tour of the classes and the information on the racing below.
Thursday is the final qualifying day with championship races beginning Friday morning at 8:05 a.m. Eastern. The SCCA Live page will have live timing as well as streaming video of the races. You can find the full entry list here.
Here’s the full schedule of class races for Friday through Sunday:
FRIDAY
8:05 a.m. – Formula Enterprise
9:00 a.m. – American Sedan
9:55 a.m. – Prototype 1
10:50 a.m. – Touring 2
11:45 a.m. – Formula Vee
1:30 p.m. – E Production
2:25 p.m. – Formula 500
3:20 p.m. – Super Touring Under (STU)
4:15 p.m. – GT-2
5:10 p.m. – Touring 4
SATURDAY
8:15 a.m. – Touring 3
9:10 a.m. – Spec Racer Ford
10:05 a.m. – Formula Mazda
11:00 a.m. – Spec Miata
12:45 p.m. – Super Touring Lite (STL)
1:40 p.m. – GT-Lite
2:35 p.m. – Formula 1000
3:30 p.m. – H Production
4:25 p.m. – B-Spec
SUNDAY
8:30 a.m. – Formula Atlantic
9:25 a.m. – GT-3
10:20 a.m. – Formula Continental
11:15 a.m. – F Production
1:00 p.m. – Formula F
1:55 p.m. – Spec Racer Ford Gen. 3
2:50 p.m. – Touring 1
3:45 p.m. – Prototype 2
4:40 p.m. – GT-1
Here’s a quick description of the classes:
Formula Atlantic: Open-wheel cars with wings, slicks, and around 240 horsepower. These are the quickest cars at the Runoffs.
Formula Continental: Open-wheel cars with a spec 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine.
Formula Mazda: Open-wheel cars using a sealed version of the Mazda rotary engine.
Formula SCCA: Used to be Formula Enterprise. Open-wheel racers using a spec chassis and spec Mazda 2.0-liter engine.
Formula F: Traditionally called Formula Ford, but now runs a version of the 1.5-liter Honda Fit engine.
Formula 1000: Open-wheel cars capped at 1.0 liter displacement, typically using sportbike engines.
Formula Vee: Open-wheel cars runing 1.2-liter air-cooled Volkswagen engines.
Formula 500: Small open-wheel cars running small-displacement, two-stroke engines.
P1: The “Prototype” classes are for dedicated sports racer cars with fenders. This class will be as quick or quicker than many Formula classes.
P2: Like P1 but not as quick.
Spec Racer Ford: A classic spec class that uses Ford 1.9-liter engines—most commonly in the Ford Escort—and identical chassis. Big fields and lots of comptitive racing.
Spec Racer Ford 3: The third generation of evolution of SRF with a more modern, 1.6-liter version of the current Ford Fiesta engine.
GT-1: Fire-breathing silhouette cars in a power-to-weight-driven class, many of which compete in the top Trans-Am Series class currently.
GT-2: The subsequent GT classes get a bit slower. This class has everything from a Sunbeam Tiger to Porsche GT3 Cup cars.
GT-3: A class with many smaller-bore cars and a lot of rotary-powered Mazdas.
GTL: The “L” stands for “Light.” Lots of varying four-cylinder cars running the gamut from Toyota Tercel to late-model MINIs.
A Sedan: Not actually sedans but American performance coupes and pony cars with carb’d engines small-block V8s.
Spec Miata: First- and second-generation Miatas racing with identical(-ish) parts. Brings huge fields, close racing, and the occasional on-track melee. If you catch only one race, watch this one.
E Production: The fastest production class, which limits modification. It’s a mixed bag of cool vintage stuff sports cars like the Mazda RX-3 and late-model stuff.
F Production: The middle production class with more limited modifications. This brings huge fields with a lot of variety.
H Production: The slowed production class, which is essentially a “lightweight” class. Small classic sports cars like an Austin Healey Sprite will mix it up with front-wheel-drive Hondas and more.
T1: Touring classes here don’t necessarily resemble “touring cars.” This class includes high-performance cars with lots of Corvettes and Vipers.
T2: A notch of crazy down from T1. More Corvettes here, but also Mustangs, BMW M3s, and a couple Porsches.
T3: One more level down. Lots of late-model Nissan Z cars to be found here.
T4: Another small-bore class that will include some double entries with Spec Miata cars.
STU: Mid-level performance cars that include Pirelli World Challenge TC-class competitors. Capped at 3.2 liters and newer than 1985.
STL: A 2.0-liter cap on the “Light” Super Touring class. Almost exclusively Hondas and Mazdas here.
B-Spec: Lightly modified subcompacts that will race on momentum.
Thanks for the link!
This event has been rated BTE—Better Than Expected
The SCCA has nice cars, a great track, and knowledgeable announcers.
Lets hope Bangshift has more road racing events for 2017.