Expanding on his first foray in an Innovation Race Cars IRC GT in the 12 Hours of Bathurst, veteran racer Paul Tracy will contest the first two rounds of the 2025 Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli with the car. The former IndyCar star will enter the Sebring and Road Atlanta rounds in the XGT class, with an eye on expanding it to a full-season program in the Australian-built car that was homologated for the class earlier this year.
Backed by IRC and run by Chicago Performance and Tuning [CPT] as part of a two-car program that will include a customer car, the Trans Am entries will add to Tracy’s experience with the car, which started with winning the Invitational class in the Bathurst 12-hour race last February and continued with runs in HSR races at Daytona. Tracy said the tubeframe car that boasts GT3-level performance could be a championship contender.
“I want to go for a championship,” said Tracy. “I loved racing the IRC down at Bathurst, and I jumped in the car at Daytona for the HSR races [with IRC president and founder Danny Stutterd]. The car is super impressive in terms of its performance out of the box — the IRC [USA] guys barely made any [setup] changes to the car across its U.S. tour, and every time I’ve driven it, it’s been a blast and immediately on pace. Only changes I’ve asked for are fresh sets of tires, so with a proper effort from the guys at CPT, I know that we can go for a championship run.
“So, yeah, we’re actively looking for sponsors and partners to jump on board the program and get the full season backed, but right now my priorities are focusing on the first two races at Sebring and Road Atlanta. I’ve put a lot of effort into my fitness and weight to be ready for racing at this kind of level again — I proved that in Bathurst — and with this opportunity that IRC has given me, I’m going to put all that effort into practice and leave it all on the track.”
The LS3-powered IRC GT is built by PACE Innovations in Australia. Producing as much as 550hp and running that power to the rear wheels through a 6-speed sequential gearbox, the car offers similar performance to the FIA GT3 cars that have historically made up the XGT class in Trans Am, but at a greatly reduced price tag. Race car broker RaceCarsForYou and IRC have teamed up to bring the car to the U.S. under the IRC USA banner.
The IRC USA team took the car to the Trans Am Speed Tour at VIRginia International Raceway in October, and worked with the technical team to homologate the car for the XGT class. That eventually led to the involvement of CPT, whose previous experience had been primarily with VW/Audi cars, or Audi-powered cars like the KTM X-Bow.
“What really settled us on wanting to get involved was the people on the IRC USA team,” explained CPT president and team principal Al Uscinski. “Guys like David [Taylor] and Nick [Lester] are in high regard and respect with the team, and especially with me. When they told us about how impressed they were with the build quality, the logic of the car, how it’s put together, how affordable it is in comparison to GT3, we were immediately wanting to get involved, but we weren’t sure to what extent. That really changed when we started seeing [FIA silver-rated] drivers like Paul jump in the car at Sebring and Daytona, the lap times were incredible, and we said to ourselves, ‘OK we need to race this thing.’ We reached out to IRC and started conversations about how we could put a proper effort together.”
That led to the two-car program in XGT. It’s a big step in getting the racing community aware of the car, especially with Tracy’s involvement, as Stutterd acknowledged.
“Paul and I ran the Bathurst 12 Hour this year and stuck the thing on the podium [in the Invitational class]. We had a great time and were absolutely thrilled to show off what the IRC GT could do,” Stutterd said. “Our teammates also managed to close out the rest of the podium as well, so to have the car win on debut with a podium sweep was extraordinary. Since then, we’ve been working hard with David [Taylor] and the whole [RaceCarsForYou] crew to bring the IRC GT to market in the States. When CPT approached us with their reputation, it was a no brainer to get something going.
“We’re still looking for partners to help transform this from a couple of rounds into a full-season effort. Paul’s entries are meant to showcase what the car can do and help generate sales in the market. The car makes so much sense on paper when you see its one-third of the cost of GT3 — not just in the price of the car, but more importantly the running costs as well. So really, Paul’s going to prove that it’s not just cost effective, but a real ripper around the track as well.”
IRC USA has the car on display at the Performance Racing Industry trade show in Indianapolis this week, where it will formally announce the program today.