IMSA SportsCar Championship
Sports car racing series based in the US and Canada and organized by the International Motor Sports Association
The IMSA SportsCar Championship, currently known as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship under sponsorship, is a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada and organized by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). It is considered the pinnacle of sports car racing in North America, attracting top-tier manufacturers, teams and drivers. The championship features prototypes and GT cars competing across various classes and consists of both long-distance endurance races and shorter sprint races.
The series traces its roots to the IMSA GT Championship, which began in 1971 and ran until 1998. From the late 1990s until 2013, top-level sports car racing in North America was split between the high-tech American Le Mans Series and the low-cost Rolex Sports Car Series. These two series were merged in 2014 to form the United SportsCar Championship, which was subsequently renamed as the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2016. Rolex SA's Tudor brand was the title sponsor of the championship in 2014 and 2015, and WeatherTech has served as title sponsor since 2016.
The season begins with its premier race, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the last weekend of January and ends with the Petit Le Mans, another Michelin Endurance Cup race, in early October.
History
On September 5, 2012, it was announced that the Grand-Am Road Racing sanctioning body would merge with the Braselton-based International Motor Sports Association, and as such, both bodies would merge their premiere sports car series, the Rolex Sports Car Series and American Le Mans Series respectively, with plans to debut in 2014. On November 20, 2012, the merger committee announced that SME Branding were selected to develop the name, logo and identity of the new series.
The public source identifies “IMSA SportsCar Championship” as sports car racing series based in the US and Canada and organized by the International Motor Sports Association. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around IMSA, SportsCar and Championship.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7889178. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1998, 2013 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “IMSA SportsCar Championship” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.