IMSA and Ford Performance have announced the 10-race, five-weekend schedule for the inaugural season of Mustang Challenge, the IMSA-sanctioned single-make series featuring the new Mustang Dark Horse R factory-built race car.
The schedule includes two races with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Watkins Glen and Road America; a round with Michelin Pilot Challenge at Mid-Ohio, an appearance with the World Endurance Championship at Circuit of the Americas; and a season-finale on the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. Each weekend will feature a pair of sprint races
“It’s a great schedule that goes to a lot of great tracks throughout the year,” declared Mark Rushborook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports. “We think we’ve got some some good races with IMSA. We love COTA and the opportunity to go there with WEC. And Charlotte Motor Speedway is in many ways – even though we’re a Michigan based company – a home base. Our Ford Performance tech center is there in Charlotte, Ford Performance Racing School is there in Charlotte. So that’s just a great place to race on a great track with a lot of facilities nearby.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1406]
The series is based on the Mustang Dark Horse R, designed to bridge the gap between the Dark Horse, the ultimate road-going performance expression of the seventh-generation Mustang, and the GT4 and GT3 versions that will make their competition debut next year. Each one will be built identically from the factory, with modifications mostly centered on safety and reliability rather than improved performance. The cars will race on Michelin slicks.
Beyond safety and reliability modifications such as the roll cage and improved engine and brake cooling, the Dark Horse R features adjustable roll bars and camber plates to make setup easier. Multimatic, Ford Performance’s partner in building the GT3 and GT4 cars, will supply its adjustable DSSV dampers for the car. It uses Brembo racing brake calipers and will have performance ABS. And while the trend in racecars is toward sequential gearboxes, the Dark Horse R has a Tremec manual transmission. The race car starts at $145,000.
“When we renewed Mustang as a road car with a seventh generation, we knew we had that long-term commitment to Mustang with a combustion engine, we knew that we wanted to keep it on the racetrack. We looked at what the platform was and where sports car racing is in total. And with the opportunity to do Mustang GT3, that was an immediate no brainer. And we wanted to have a complete ladder, full grassroots, so for us a one-make series made a lot of sense. We’ve got such a great starting point with Dark Horse as a road car — make minimal modifications to it, come and race it,” said Rushbrook.
Mustang Challenge joins Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America, Ferrari Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup in the IMSA-sanctioned portfolio of single-make series. Along with Michelin Pilot Challenge and VP Racing SportsCar Challenge, those five one-make championships could make scheduling difficult if they all had to race on IMSA core weekends. Like the other one-make championships do, running with other series opens up the scheduling possibilities.
“There are only so many hours in these days to go racing,” explained IMSA President and CEO John Doonan. “So being able to work with those partners to find weekends that work for them from a marketing perspective is important. So that’s why you see the Charlotte Roval on there and you see that WEC race in COTA. With their involvement in WEC, that made sense for them.” Proton Competition will be running the Mustang GT3 in WEC’s new LMGT3 class.