If the SCCA’s Speedvision World Challenge were a young man, he’d now be 16, zit-encumbered, and reading Playboy, though only for the Pete Rose interview. As it happens, the series got its start as the 1985 Playboy United States Endurance Cup, a series filled less with playboys than dirty-under-the-nails Click and Clackers in pursuit of major seat time.

Much has changed in 16 years. The World Challenge is now a slick, heavily subscribed, acutely competitive showroom stock series whose paddocks are chock-ablock with 18-wheel transporters, at least six paid drivers, and factory engineers from Acura, Audi, Dodge, Ford, GM, and Toyota. All but one of this year’s races will be run in conjunction with Trans-Am or American Le Mans events, and all will be televised.

The World Challenge comprises two classes: GT and Touring. The faster GT competitors include a who’s who of desirable machines: Audi S4 Quattro, BMW M3 and M coupe, Chevrolet Corvette, Dodge Viper, Ford Mustang (Steeda, Saleen, and factory Cobra Type R models), Ferrari F355 and 360 Challenge, Lotus Esprit, Pontiac Firebird, Porsche 911 GT3 Supercup, and Toyota Supra Turbo. For 2000, star newcomers include Derek Bell and Michael Galati in a pair of Richard Lloyd-built Audi S4 Quattros powered by twin-turbo 2.7-liter five-valve V-6s. (You can order one just like Bell’s for $120,000.) NASCAR driver Boris Said will race a Steeda Mustang. And further enlivening the show are veterans Elliott Forbes-Robinson and Butch Leitzinger in Lotus Esprits, though these are 1996 four-cylinder models rather than new V-8s. Last year’s GT champion, Bobby Archer in a navy-blue Viper GTS, returns this year with bigger brakes. In 1999, Archer won the title by only one point over Porsche 911 driver Peter Kitchak. For 2000, Kitchak is campaigning a $130,000 Porsche 911 GT3 Supercup car.

In the Touring Class, the two competitive marques are the Acura Integra Type R and the BMW 328, though the fields are fleshed out by Ford Contours, Honda Accords and Preludes, Mazda 626s, Mercury Cougars, and Nissan 240SXs. Touring newcomers include a pair of wild-looking Toyota Celica GTSs, a Jetta driven by former Trans-Am winner Bob Hagestad, and later in the season, a Steve Saleen-tuned Ford Focus team using Ford’s 2.5-liter Duratec twin-cam V-6s rather than the stock Zetec fours, which were deemed too weak to fend off the Integras. Last year’s Touring champ-possessor of three of the past four titles, in fact-was Michael Galati in an Integra Type R.

The 10-race series, in which GT and Touring races are run separately, this year features standing starts for each of its 45-minute events. Mandated mufflers limit the racket to 107 dBA. The SCCA-specified tires-identical-compound BFG g-Force versions-cost $145 to $190 apiece. Although each driver must race on the tires on which he qualified, it is not uncommon for a set to last two races.

The rules, at least in theory, are simple. Suspension mounting points may be moved one inch. Any shocks and anti-roll bars can be installed. The engine may be balanced and blueprinted, although the crankshaft and all reciprocating parts must weigh within the manufacturer’s weight tolerances. The flywheel and the clutch are free, but the ring gear must be of original diameter. But the reality is that if you lobby persuasively enough, series general manager Mitch Wright, 45, will allow almost anything-a compression ratio the manufacturer never intended, a carburetor on a Mustang engine, or in the case of the Supras, one immense turbo rather than the sequential duo Toyota originally intended. And the same is true of suspensions, so that the Corvettes, for example, may forego a rear transverse leaf spring in favor of coil-over shocks. In short, each model eventually earns its own individualized ever-in-flux rule book. Wright further maintains parity by specifying each model’s tire width, base weight, and size of engine intake restrictor. On a car-by-car basis, even more weight, from 10 to 40 pounds, is affixed each time the vehicle finishes in the top three positions, though that burden can be shed in succeeding races if the car finishes fifth or worse.

All this jiggery-pokery is hell to enforce, but it seems to work. In at least five WC races, there were five different marques in the top seven positions. And at the series opener this year at Charlotte, 95 cars paid to enter and 73 made the show.

At each race, even the big teams make do with three-to-five-man crews, because midrace refueling and tire changes are unnecessary. Most of the leading teams shell out about $7500 per race in expenses for the three Ts-travel, towing, and tires. As showroom-stock racing goes, that makes this series expensive, and the $8000-to-win GT purses and the $4000 Touring purses defray costs only marginally. "The thing is, I’d prefer people didn’t think of this as showroom-stock racing at all," says series director Alan Wilson, 54. "Personally, I’d like to see the cars go even faster."

We tested this mixed trio of World Challenge racers at Carolina Motorsports Park (803-475-2448), whose new track near Kershaw, South Carolina, can be rented for as little as $2300 per weekend. This 2.235-mile course is smooth, flat, fast, and deceptively difficult. We recorded lap times and rudimentary acceleration numbers, of course. But to get a better feel for each car’s strengths, we also recorded trap speeds and segment times in the trickiest turns. Finally, as each crew chief chewed his fingernails and nervously mined his ears for wax deposits, we drove the cars ourselves.

Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/00q3/a_speedvision_sampler-feature

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