Big plans for IMSA's first standalone COTA event

IMSA's trip to Texas for this weekend's Advantage Auto Parts SportsCar Showdown marks its first standalone visit to the lavish Circuit of The Americas road course.

Following three modestly successful years of splitting a September date with the FIA World Endurance Championship, optimism is high within IMSA as is tries something new with the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship hosting its own headlining date in May.

With the packed Thursday-Saturday schedule featuring the WeatherTech Championship as the big draw, not to mention a familiar event model with constant activity from support series, the big change for IMSA has come from the need to take charge of all the marketing and promotion responsibilities it once shared with the WEC.

Presented with a clean slate to fill, IMSA President Scott Atherton (pictured) says the series has taken a fresh perspective with the series' first marquee visit to COTA.

"No question, the approach we've taken this year has been different than in years past when we co-headlined with our FIA WEC partners," he told RACER. "For starters, with a weekend focused solely on IMSA content, we have had total flexibility to work with the COTA staff to optimize the way the weekend schedule was built. We also aren't in a situation where either our series or the WEC has had to compromise with the logistics of organizing the paddock, pit lane, media center, race control and other procedures that in recent years were all impacted by the shared event.

"Our event this year is consistent with most of our event weekends. However, we always enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate on the same weekend with WEC. Those combined events represented a unique opportunity – but the quality and quantity of the racing we will put on the track this weekend will be second to none."

One lingering problem with the former September date came with the start of the college football season and the looming October U.S. Grand Prix date at COTA. As Atherton explains, asking football-crazed Texans to forego long-held traditions to watch sports cars, among other considerations, was always going to be a stretch.

"The autonomy gave us the ability to move to a spring date, moving away from potential football conflicts and the distraction of F1 that were a constant with the fall date," he said. "It also enabled us to provide a more traditional IMSA experience; an event schedule that features nearly all of the IMSA [series] and because we don't have to absorb the fairly lengthy process of removing the pit wall and accommodate a six-hour race after the WeatherTech Championship Advance Auto Parts Sportscar Showdown, we have a more traditional race start time."

"If we had a chance to rethink this year, we may have arranged the weekend schedule differently to more closely align our race start time with our FS1 broadcast window, or perhaps enabled the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge to have a Saturday race," he said. "Those are items we can explore more closely in the future, but overall, we've definitely had more scheduling flexibility this weekend – and we are confident we are going to deliver a full slate of spectacular races. And I'm confident the WEC will take a very similar approach in the fall."

The clean slate also gave Atherton and the rest of IMSA's brass a chance to show COTA's budding sports car fans what the series can do without the need to compromise with the WEC.

"We feel strongly that the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is – without question – a top-tier, professional sports car championship worthy of headliner status everywhere we race," Atherton asserted. "This year, because we are here with a full slate of IMSA content, fans will not only see the highest level of professional sports car racing – cars, teams, drivers, etc. - with the WeatherTech Championship, but also some of the best from our Challenge series and single-make championships.

"It gives us the opportunity to shine a brighter spotlight on IMSA as a whole. At the WeatherTech Championship level, it's the first race here for our new Prototype class with the DPi and LMP2 cars, which will play well at this state-of-the-art facility, as well as the new GT Daytona cars that have joined us since we raced here last fall. In Continental Tire Challenge, it's the influx of new GT4 cars in the Grand Sport class that should capture attention.

"The Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA series has built a reputation for having great races everywhere, but especially at COTA, and this year, C.J. Wilson – who made a name for himself in Major League Baseball right here in Texas – is on the racetrack competing as a driver in addition to his team owner responsibilities in the Continental Tire Challenge. And we've also got the 2017 Lamborghini Super Trofeo season debut. None of our series may be new to COTA fans this weekend, as they've all been here in the past, but the examples I've highlighted all are reasons to join us at the racetrack this weekend."

Atherton and his IMSA colleagues will soon know whether their first attempt to lead the bill at COTA will be a hit or miss with fans and the numerous manufacturers and sponsors who populate the series.

"In general, this configuration with an all-IMSA event enables all involved – IMSA and our promoter partners at COTA – to focus solely on all our priorities, for fans and competitors, without compromise," he said. "We are looking forward to delivering an outstanding event by every measure."