Production-based cars race ahead

The SCCA's Speed World Challenge Series has delivered automakers a U.S. platform for racecars that are closely related to the vehicles they sell.

The bottom-line purpose of motor racing for car manufacturers is to sell more of their products based on their association with the racecars. Racing series using cars that are heavily based on production street cars are very attractive to manufacturers because the link between racecars and street cars is more obvious to customers. An added benefit is that, by actually racing what they sell, manufacturers are able to test their products under far harsher conditions than normal, revealing problems before most customers encounter them.

“We're in motorsports for two reasons,” commented Rod Bymaster, Manager of Audi Sport North America. “One is technical development and the other is marketing.” While it may sound like a cliché, racing improves the engineers, not just the breed. “They learn things working in motorsports that can be applied to production cars,” said Bymaster.