Prototype Lites: Eurosport's winning legacy

The Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda series has advanced the competition of sports car racing since 2006. And few teams have built more sweat equity in IMSA Official Development Series than Eurosport Racing.

Colorado-based Eurosport Racing, led by team principal Rich Dahl, has been a mainstay in Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda since 2007, just one season after the championship started.

“We got involved in Lites close to the beginning,” Dahl said. “It had a lot to do with IMSA and how they ran their events and the people involved. The competition was very good, and it was something we wanted to align ourselves with.”

The team has become one of longest-tenured teams in the paddock and amassed quite a collection of hardware along the way.

Since 2009, Eurosport Racing has earned two team championships, in 2009 and 2011, and collected more than 65 overall podium finishes, including 16 victories. Since the inception of the Masters’ class in 2008, the team has collected more than 40 Masters’ Lites 1 and Lites 2 podium finishes and 13 wins.

Jon Brownson also won L1 Masters Drivers’ Championships with the team in 2008, 2012 and 2013.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve mastered it yet, but I’ve had a lot of people work with us over the years, so we have a pretty good pool of experience to lean on,” Dahl said. “We have a lot of part-time crew people that have been with us for years, some over 20 years, so that helps with the consistency."

Despite the success in the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda series, Eurosport Racing is dedicated to continually improving at every race.

“We’ve been fortunate to have some drivers stay with us for long periods of time, and they’ve gone on to different things or stop racing,” Dahl said. “And then we’ve had several new drivers in the last couple of years. We’ve just worked through that and work with them to get them at the level they need to be at to be competitive.

“Our team goal is always to win one of the championships, but we haven’t had the consistency of having drivers being able to attend every event, so that has made it hard. When it sets up properly, we want to go for the championship, and we’ve shown that we can be competitive doing that.”

Dahl pulls experience from his team’s tenure in Lites and an extensive motorsports background. Eurosport Racing, based in Brighton, Colorado, was founded in 1983 by Dahl when he was still racing Formula Mazdas and Spec Racers. He started a Porsche repair shop at the same time.

“I am first generation in the race world,” Dahl said. “My late father was a banker, but I always had an interest in it (automotive pursuits). I had the Porsche business still going, and the race shop broke away from that. We started racing locally and then growing out and growing out.”

The team started racing Porsches in SCCA GT-2 and GT-3 classes before taking the next step to Spec Racer Renault as one of the original customer service representatives. In 1989, Eurosport Racing took on both Amateur and Pro levels of the Shelby Can-Am series as a full-service team.

Eurosport continued to compete in the Star Mazda Series and SCCA Club Racing before taking on the newly designed next-generation Pro Formula Mazda in 1999 and eventually joining Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda.

“Every series has its little quirks and things you have to get used to,” Dahl said. “How it runs and especially the car itself. Every series has something you have to learn about. It’s kind of a progression, but you take what you learn and continue to apply it.”

Eurosport has fielded Prototype Lites cars this season at various events for Lites 1 Masters drivers Michal Chlumecky, Max De Angelis, Keith Dusko and Brownson.

Rounds 9 and 10 of the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda are scheduled for Aug. 7-9 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.

Source: IMSA