PWC lauds boom in Touring Car entries

Fifty-five cars. It's a ridiculous number for any class of racing, and with the explosion of interest in the Pirelli World Challenge series' smaller Touring Car categories, super-size TC entry lists will become the new norm in 2017.

"We're up against the FIA's track limit for the maximum amount of cars we can have on course at the same time at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and we're facing the same thing at Lime Rock," PWC TC class manager Jim Jordan told RACER. "Splitting into separate races for the different TC classes at Lime Rock is what we're looking at to deal with all the entries, and we could also end up being oversubscribed at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca."

It's a wonderful problem for Jordan and PWC to have. This weekend's TC season opener at Virginia International Raceway, where the ridiculous 55 will shave paint and bodywork from fenders and bumpers in pursuit of the checkered flag, will reaffirm the quality of PWC's current offerings.

The snarling GT class, with its GT3-based supercars, is PWC's darling – its headlining act. And its rapidly expanding SprintX series (featuring Magnus Racing's John Potter, pictured), with a massive year-to-year spike in entries, is another point of pride for PWC's senior brass. GTS is also experiencing a growth spurt. No less important, TC's boom has been carefully crafted and managed as Audis, BMWs, Hondas, Hyundais and other models that could easily double as daily commuters bring a different type of intensity to the racetrack.

Minus the giant downforce and hellacious horsepower found in the GT class, the Accords, Caymans, Minis, MX-5s and Sonics stick together in tight packs and tend to scrap archenemies. If PWC had one specific need to address during the offseason, it was to stoke more manufacturer interest in its TC classes, and with more cars spread across the TC/TCA/TCB spectrum than all of its GT classes combined, the series has overachieved.

"There's definitely a lot of respect that goes to everyone at the series who started this process before I got there," Jordan said. "They looked at cars that were racing in other markets that would be a good fit for TC, and spoke with a lot of car companies about supporting racers who wanted to bring their products to one of the TC classes, and opened dialogue with others about putting packages together where drivers or teams could buy a car and easily build it on their own to come race with us. You're seeing a lot of work in all areas come together to create a great start to the TC season at VIR."

Jordan's corporate experience with Mazda and as a former team owner in PWC's TC class has been invaluable as the series looks to fortify its entry-level category. Working with the car companies to turn the three-tier TC class into a cohesive property with a multitude of offerings is another achievement worth recognizing.

"The BMW M235i Racing is a perfect example of this," he said. "BMW built it specifically for a class in Germany, they were looking for other places for it to be used, we worked directly with the factory, and now we have more than a dozen of them on the entry list. We've also worked with Audi to make their RS3 fit within the TC class, and its making its North American debut at VIR.

"Honda is debuting its new Civic Si, and that's another type of possibility for interested entrants. It's essentially a kit car. You order the body-in-white from Honda Performance Development, the full kit, it arrives at your home or your shop, you assemble it, and go racing in a really cost-effective way. It's a diverse class."

With 55 as the new standard for TC, Jordan hopes to eclipse that number by a significant margin with new car before the end of the decade.

"We're talking with marketing departments at major car companies and now they're asking where the class is going in 2018, 2019, and they're thinking many years out wanting to get information on TC," he said. "What's exciting for me is it isn't just the competition department guys wanting meetings; it's also the marketing guys, and that's when things can start to take off."