Cadillac will support two teams in the GT Class with a race car roughly based on the CTS-V Coupe.
Cadillac today announced that it will return to racing in 2011 with a version of its CTS-V Coupe competing in the Sports Car Club of America World Challenge.
The return to SCCA sanctioned tracks sees Cadillac rejoin a series where it successfully competed from 2004 to 2007, capturing the Manufacturer’s Championship in 2005 and 2007, the Driver’s Championship in 2005.
Cadillac will support two teams in the GT Class with a race car roughly based on the CTS-V Coupe.
“The race cars in this series are production based, which allows us to validate our performance against the best of our competitors on the track, and not just the showroom,” said Don Butler, vice president for Cadillac marketing.
Cadillac is working with Pratt & Miller, a New Hudson, Mich., engineering firm which specializes in motorsports, to develop the CTS-V Coupe race car.
The first event in the SCCA World Challenge is March 25-27 in St. Petersburg, Fla. Johnny O’Connell, a three-time GT1 champion in the America Le Mans Series, and Andy Pilgrim, who won the 2005 SCCA World Challenge GT class in a Cadillac, will be behind the wheels of the CTS-V race cars.
Introduced for the 2003 model year, the CTS-V can run with the world’s best and has been subject rave reviews. (See Driving the Cadillac CTS-V Coupe)
For the 2011 model year, Cadillac added the CTS-V Coupe and the CTS-V Sport Wagon to the CTS-V Sport Sedan, creating a family of performance vehicles. The CTS-V has a supercharged 556 horsepower 6.2-liter V8, ad enough electronic ride, braking and chassis controls to make mediocre drivers feel like whoever they are fantasizing about, say Mario Andretti, arguably the fastest, most versatile American race driver in history.
The World Challenge is designed to provide teams, manufacturers and aftermarket suppliers a competitive production-based race series in which to prove their products. The races follow a 50-minute maximum time limit, with the number of laps and total distance determined by track configuration, lap times and race conditions.
To quote from a well-known auto writer:
“So watch out BMW M5, Mercedes E63 AMG, Audi RS5 or even the RS6 when it comes to the U.S. There really is no direct comparison here, but the V Coupe is roughly the size of a 5-series BMW, but priced at the smaller M3.”