History of Sports Car Racing

Georges Faroux, a joint-creator of the first 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 1923, claims that sports car racing was not born until after 1919 or before the First World War.

The cars used in endurance racing and Grand Prix were indistinguishable in the 1920s. They both have fenders and two seats if a mechanic is needed. But in the 1930s, the legendary Alfa Romeo Tipo A Monoposto sports car started the evolution of the true single-seater sports car. 사설토토사이트

In the later 1930s, French constructors withdrew into primarily domestic competition with large-capacity sports cars such as Talbot and Bugatti’s because they were unable to keep up with the progress of the Mercedes Benz and Auto-Union cars in GP racing.

Roadgoing sports or GT cars started to emerge through the 1920s and 1930s, as distinct from fast tourers and sports cars.

In the 1950’s, open-road endurance races across Europe which often run on dusty roads like Tour de France and Targa Florio still needed fenders and mechanics. Many Italian cars and races defined the genre until it came to be known as Gran Turismo. It is because long distances had to be travelled instead of running around on short circuits. After the Second World War, sports car racing was regarded as almost important as Grand Prix competition. Major car companies started to invest their efforts in their works to supply cars to customers. Some of these companies were Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, and Aston Martin.

In the 1950s and 1960’s, a breed of powerful hybrids appeared and raced on both sides of the Atlantic featuring European chassis and large American engines. The combination of British chassis and American V8 engines made Can-Am series popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The 1960’s and 1970’s were the times sports car racing evolved, rise, and declined.

But when the 1990s came, sports car racing was revived. A number of GT series sprung up at national and European levels. Prototypes and other similar cars started to be raced in Europe as the 1990s progressed.

In 2000, the SpeedVision television network debuted in the US and it brought a renaissance of interest in sports car racing. In 2010, some major reformatting was done to sports car racing in the United States.