DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (July 30, 2013) — United SportsCar Racing, the entity that will oversee top-flight professional sports car racing in North America, appears to be close to naming Continental Tire the Americas as its spec race tire supplier for the series debut season next year.
United SportsCar (USCR) and Continental have scheduled a media teleconference for 11 a.m. on July 31 to disclose a "partnership announcement" for the series 2014 season.
"Racer" magazine, citing insider sources, reported earlier this week that USCR had agreed to award the tire contract to Continental.
USCR was formed in March to oversee combining North America's two premier sports car racing series— American Le Mans Series and Grand-American Racing Series.
The united series will debut at the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway in January, where the cars from the two series will compete head-to-head under one set of rules for the first time.
The issue of a tire supplier or suppliers has remained open since the USCR announcement. The ALMS has an open tire supply rule, which has attracted Michelin Motorsports, Falken Tire Corp. and Yokohama Tire Corp. as teahttp://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20100426/ISSUE/304269967/conti-snags-grand-am-rolex-supply-to-2015m partners for the prototype and/or GT classes.
Grand-Am, on the other hand, has had a single supplier tire rule since its inception in 2000. Continental has been the series' prototype class supplier the past three seasons and GT class supplier since 2010.
It also gained the contract earlier this year for the ALMS' Prototype Challenge class.
Continental designs the tires but contracts their production to Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. of Plymouth, Ind.
