PWC Touring Car grid flush with new cars, talent

The Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car Championship is full of touring cars again.

For many years, a car had to have four seats to compete in World Challenge Touring Car, but the popularity and availability of some two-seat sports cars made their inclusion somewhat inevitable. However, last year series management made it clear that it wanted touring cars, and current models at that. That means coupes and sedans with four seats, please.

As the 2017 season gets underway at VIRginia International Raceway this weekend, the competitors have delivered on that in spades.

What began last season as two BMW M235iRs from Classic BMW on the grid had tripled in number by year's end. For the first race of 2017, the number has almost tripled, again, with 15 set to take part this weekend.

"I think it's awesome that there's going to be 15 of the M235iRs," says Toby Grahovec, the one who started it all and walked away with the Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car drivers' championship in 2016. "They're great cars, especially for the price. It looks like there's going to be a lot of competition in Touring Car this year."

Grahovec is back with 2016 teammate Gino Carini and newcomers Justin Raphael and Chris Ohmacht, under a new name – Fast Track Motorsports. But several other teams have come on board as well, including Stephen Cameron Racing with four cars for Rodrigo Sales, Greg Liefooghe, Henry Schmitt and Aristotle Balogh. Winding Road Team TFB brings a BMW for Mason Fillipi. Nick Wittmer, who was always a threat in a Honda, joins the BMW crowd with ST Racing, and Anthony Magagnoli will be driving one under the Rooster Hall Racing banner.

But it's not just BMWs that are booming. Pirelli World Challenge worked with Audi to build a detuned version of its RS3 LMS car built to TCR specifications. Four are entered for VIR – two from Berg Racing, one from Compass 360 for Paul Holton and one from TCA champs S.A.C. Racing for Anthony Geraci.

"It's an incredibly cool car," says John Weisberg, principal of Berg Racing, who will campaign cars for rising star Jason Coupal and John Allen. "We tested at VIR about a month ago; it was a really cold day, but the car still performed flawlessly – almost too good. Pirelli World Challenge is making some pretty drastic changes to slow it down a little bit to make it competitive in the Touring Car Class. We can live with the changes."

The car normally races at 2,650 pounds without driver; it will race in PWC at 3,150 with driver, and have a restrictor.

Shea Racing (pictured) is back with its pair of Accords for Shea Holbrook and Jason Fichter; they will be joined by four other Hondas, including Karl Wittmer, brother of Kuno and Nick, in one from Honda St.-Rose Racing.

There's also a single Hyundai Genesis Coupe, run by Jeff Ricca. That car is a relative unknown in TC competition, so it will be interesting to see how it performs.

There's still a place for the two-seaters in 2017, though, and there will be plenty. Tony Rivera, who took both races at Road America last season, is back in his Nissan 370Z. Weisberg, a winner in 2016, will have his third-generation MX-5 – now with a Quaife sequential transmission. And Krugspeed will have its pair of potent Lotus Exiges for Dennis Hanratty Jr. and Cameron Maugeri.

Grahovec is hesitant to judge the competition, but he's pretty aware of who will be the biggest threat to his chances of a repeat, citing Rivera, Nick Wittmer with his switch to BMW, and Liefooghe.

While the series wants to phase the two-seaters out of Touring Car, it's welcoming them with open arms in TCA. Not only are the third-generation (NC) MX-5s –Elivan Goulart (pictured below) won the title for S.A.C. Racing in one – remaining in large numbers, but they're joined by the fourth-generation (ND) car in the form of the Global MX-5 Cup car, which is built by Long Road Racing and sold through Mazda. Both Copeland Motorsports (Dean Copeland and Brian Henderson) and Winding Road Team TFB (Jeff Sexton) are doing double duty in MX-5 Cup and PWC TCA. S.A.C. Racing has some Global MX-5 Cup cars and wasn't going to make a decision which drivers will be running which car until pre-event testing.

Copeland Motorsports principal Kevin Copeland, though, is sure the Global MX-5 Cup car is the better package.

"There's not even a question the ND is better. We're very excited. We're not worried about S.A.C. and the NCs – we're more worried about the Hondas," he says.

The Hondas he refers to are the new Civic Si racers, which come as basically an assemble-it-yourself kit racecar. She Racing has a pair of them, for Sarah Montgomery and 2016 TCB champ Tom O'Gorman. They'll be joined by independent racers Glory Fernandez and Paul Whiting.

TechSport Racing will be bringing a Scion FR-S for team principal Kevin Anderson. They'll also return with an NC MX-5 for Eric Powell, who was third in the 2016 TCA championship. Other racers to watch in third-generation MX-5s are Matthew Fassnacht and Spencer Patterson, both with S.A.C.

TCB, the class for B-Spec cars, remains steady. With O'Gorman moving to TCA, there is no defending champion. One interesting storyline, though, is a second-generation racer. Canaan O'Connell is running a Tech Sport Racing Chevy Sonic, joining the series where his father, Johnny, is a four-time GT champion.