United States Endurance Racing Association
The United States Endurance Racing Association (USERA) is a road racing sanctioning body that conducts endurance and sprint race events in the United States and Canada. The USERA Endurance Championship was established in 2006 as a low cost, professional endurance championship for drivers looking to move beyond regional and club racing programs.
The USERA Endurance Championship was initially run with spec Mazda Miata sports cars and there were 6 race events held in 2006. At the end of 2006, the series migrated to the Spec Racer Championship, running SCCA Spec Racer Fords as The Primary car. There were two events held in 2007 and the series did not conduct events in 2008.
New for 2009, USERA created the American Touring Car Championship. ATCC is designed for near STOCK touring cars and will conduct six double race weekends for a season of 12 championship races. Using standing starts common to European-style touring car racing, the series is set to be an EXCITING yet low cost professional touring car championship.
Type of cars
The United States Endurance Racing Association, or USERA, sanctions sports car road racing events in North America. There are three main series that have been sanctioned by USERA, including the American Touring Car Championship, USERA Endurance Championship and USERA Spec Racer Challenge. The Endurance Championship has been conducted with two spec series cars. The first was the Mazda Miata built to club racing "Spec Miata" specifications. The second was the SCCA's Spec Racer Ford purpose built sports racer. The Spec Racer Ford was also used in the Spec Racer Challenge series.
The newly formed American Touring Car Championship supports over 40 different makes of touring cars.
Latest season
No endurance events were run in 2008.
ATCC race format
The American Touring Car Championship races are typically double sprint races of 30 minutes in length. Teams qualify for race 1, and the grid of race 2 is set based on the finish order of race 1. Teams are also required to qualify and run both races on one set of marked tires. If any tire is changed prior to the start of a race, the car must relinquish its starting grid position.
Endurance race format
The endurance races are typically three hours in length and on many race weekends, there are double races with one race on Saturday afternoon and the second on Sunday afternoon. One night race was ran at Nashville Superspeedway and the format of that event was altered slightly to run two one hour "sprint races" with a 20 minute break in the middle.
Points system
Drivers and Teams each season championship points based on their finishing position. Points are awarded to the top forty drivers in each race. Extra Point are awarded to the driver who wins the pole position, leads a race lap and leads the most laps.
Previous champions
Currently, the driver's championship is awarded per season. The overall driver's championship is the driver gaining the most points overall throughout the season. There have been three USERA Endurance Champions. Chris Puskar and David Daugherty shared the inaugural 2006 Driver's Championship co-driving the Puskar Motorsports Spec Miata entry. In 2007, Herb Sweeney IV won the Driver's Championship in the abbreviated Spec Racer Championship.
Season |
Driver Champions |
Team Champions |
|---|---|---|
2007 |
Herb Sweeney IV |
Sweeney Racing |
2006 |
Chris Puskar David Daugherty |
Puskar Motorsports |
See also
- American Touring Car Championship
- Touring Car Racing
- Endurance Racing
- Spec Miata
- Spec Racer Ford