This article first appeared in the February, 2014 edition of SportsCar Magazine. SCCA members can read the current and past editions of SportCar digitally here after logging into their account; To become an SCCA member and get SportsCar mailed to your home address monthly in addition to the digital editions, click here.

How Professional Racing Changed the World – and the SCCA

One thing most racers take for granted is that the SCCA is permanent, and pretty much the same as it’s always been. We may lobby the various committees and boards for rule changes, we might question the Board of Directors, and we might notice that popular classes and cars come and go over the years. But when you get right down to it, it sometimes appears that SCCA doesn’t change very much. It’s only when you step back and take a deeper look at SCCA’s history that you see the profound changes that have happened inside the Club, and the effect that those changes have had on the state of sports car racing in North America and around the world.

In the modern era, SCCA Pro Racing is another entity that seems to have been around for forever. Some longtime members will recall when SCCA Pro was spun off into its own corporate entity back in 1993, but even before that, SCCA Pro was working, sanctioning some of the great series of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. To really get a sense of the impact of SCCA Pro Racing, you have to go back to the 1950s and understand the Club as it was in that era.

Purity of Essence and the Fight for the Soul of SCCA

From the time it was founded in 1944 through the late 1950s, the SCCA stood for excellence in amateur racing. Sports car racing was very much a rich man’s game in those days, and the attitude of the Club leaders was the same as you’d find at any country club golf championship or sailing regatta – that the essential nature of the Club would be spoiled if a cash prize was part of any event.

Jack Hinkle, a member of SCCA’s Board of Governors in 1958, stated the position eloquently: “I feel this organization should be a simon-pure amateur organization. Let us be the best racing outfit in the country. Our personnel, our flags, our ambulance, our everything, puts on the race.... This is an amateur Club, and for my vote it should stay an amateur Club.”

The pure amateur spirit of SCCA was admirable, but the rest of the racing world was moving into a new era. Since the dawn of auto racing, the American Automobile Association had sanctioned professional competition in America – the same AAA that makes maps and sells insurance today. But Pierre Levegh’s crash in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans killed 84 people (including Levegh) and injured 120 more. That put an end to AAA involvement in racing, leaving NASCAR and SCCA as the primary sanctioning bodies in operation. Both the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States (ACCUS) and the United States Auto Club (USAC) were formed in 1956. ACCUS was founded to govern auto racing in America on behalf of the FIA. USAC was specifically formed by Tony Hulman of Indianapolis Motor Speedway to sanction Championship, Sprint, and Midget open-wheel racing on oval tracks.

When USAC announced that they would expand into the sports car road-racing scene in 1958, it spawned a battle for the soul of SCCA and control of the development of road racing in America. The struggle that followed was unlike anything seen since that era, and could easily have destroyed the Club.

To combat the possibility of drivers supporting the USAC series, the SCCA Board of Governors announced in 1960 that, “Members who participate in events, unless specifically exempted by the Board of Governors, at which prize money, travel expense, appearance money, etc., or any other valuable remuneration is offered or given to participants shall immediately forfeit their membership privilege.”
The response to this was just what anyone would have expected from a bunch of headstrong racers. Some drivers competed under different names in the two organizations, some simply said goodbye to SCCA, and some supported the Board.

Before it was all over, FIA and ACCUS revoked the licenses of all drivers who held SCCA memberships, the SCCA Board of Governors and some of the Regions engaged in an internal and external battle of press releases and legal actions, and the whole structure of SCCA was thrown into turmoil. The result of all that was a turning point for the Club and American motorsports: SCCA took the plunge into professional racing.

Glory Days of the U.S. Road Racing Championship

At the beginning of the 1962 season, SCCA and USAC were in hot competition for the loyalty of drivers and event sanctions, but SCCA still had no organized series for competition – just a bunch of varying events with international status.

That situation changed for 1963 with the introduction of the U.S. Road Racing Championship – a national professional series for sports racers (then known as Modified category cars) in divisions of over and under 2-liter engines, and grand touring cars. The new series was instantly popular and, by the end of the 1963 season, USAC threw in the towel and returned its focus to oval track open-wheel racing.
With the success of the USRRC, SCCA bought some time and breathing room to imagine and create what would become a legendary sports car racing program. The USRRC brought in drivers and builders who would build their careers in SCCA Pro Racing. Bob Holbert drove a Porsche to the Drivers’ Championship in Modifieds, while the new Shelby American Cobra entries won the GT Manufacturers’ Title in 1963 and 1964. The GT classes awarded no Drivers’ Championship, but drew notable winners including Steve McQueen, Bob Bondurant, and Roger Penske.

Formula 1 driver Jim Hall brought his Chaparral team to the USRRC Modified class and won the 1964 Drivers’ Championship. George Follmer drove a Lotus-Porsche to the Drivers’ Championship in 1965. Mark Donohue (himself a 1961 SCCA National Champion) won the USRRC Drivers’ Championship for Roger Penske Racing in 1967 driving a Lola T70 and again in 1968 at the wheel of a McLaren M6A. Three-time SCCA National Champion Skip Barber was also in the hunt in the 1967 USRRC.

SCCA discontinued the USRRC at the end of the 1968 season, but not because it was failing. The concepts proven in the USRRC had been expanded and the result of that expansion would bring SCCA Pro Racing its greatest years yet.

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup

In the fall of 1966, the Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs and SCCA combined forces to host a series of six races for FIA Group 7 cars – these were similar to the modified sports racing cars running in the USRRC, but without restrictions on engine size – or much of anything else.

The winners of the 1966 series show the potential – John Surtees won half the races. In the remaining contests, Mark Donohue driving for Roger Penske, Dan Gurney in partnership with Carroll Shelby, and Phil Hill driving for Chaparral, each claimed a single victory.

The following year, 1967, was even stronger for Can-Am, with 18 drivers participating in another fall series. McLaren dominated; with Denny Hulme winning five of the six races, while 1966 champ Surtees won the last race of the season. It was at the 1967 Can-Am race at Watkins Glen that Bob Bondurant suffered the devastating accident that nearly claimed his life. The 1968 Can-Am series continued McLaren’s dominance, with Hulme taking three races while Bruce McLaren, Donohue, and John Cannon each claimed a single victory – though all were driving McLaren cars.

With the USRRC now in the history books, the 1969 Can-Am series dominated the world of sports racing in America, and McLaren dominated the Can-Am series. Every race was won by a McLaren car, with Bruce McLaren claiming six victories to Denny Hulme’s five. That streak continued into 1970, with McLaren’s team winning nine out of 10 races. Tony Dean claimed that 10th race in a Porsche 908 at Road Atlanta.

Peter Revson, George Follmer, Mark Donohue, and Jackie Oliver claimed the 1971-’74 championships before the Can-Am series took a two-year hiatus to come to grips with the changing scene in the mid-’70s. But the impact on SCCA had been made – building success on success; SCCA had been vaulted into the major leagues of professional racing.

The Trans American Sedan Championship

At the same time that the Can-Am series was being established, SCCA Executive Director (what we would now call President) John Bishop established the Trans American Sedan Championship as a two-class series for Grand Touring cars in Club Racing’s A and B Sedan groups. The USRRC had abandoned its production car classes at the end of the 1965 season, and Trans Am was the replacement series for those drivers.

Originally envisioned as a manufacturer’s series, Trans Am did not award a Drivers’ Championship until 1972, but the series was always hard-fought between the pony cars of Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, AMC, and the Pontiac Trans Am that took its name from the series (paying SCCA handsomely for the privilege). There was also a class for small-displacement cars, and this saw some epic battles between Alfa Romeo, BMW, Porsche, Lotus, and Datsun.

Trans Am, in its various forms, became the longest-running professional road racing series in American history – competing every year until 2005 and holding an abbreviated series in 2006. The series returned in 2009 under new management, but with SCCA Pro Racing remaining as the sanctioning body.

Like Can-Am, the list of Trans Am champions and team owners is a who’s who of great racing drivers – from Paul Newman to Mark Donohue, John Morton, Bob Tullius, Parnelli Jones, Greg Pickett, and Tommy Kendall, to name a few.

The Tail That Wags the Dog

Beyond an impressive list of drivers, both Trans Am and Can-Am effected huge changes throughout SCCA, from the opportunity for SCCA Club drivers and officials to make the jump to professional racing, to the way that SCCA Regions and the National program ran racing events, and in the relative focus of Club management. It was impossible to ignore the amount of money that Pro Racing brought to the Club – including royalty payments from Pontiac for the use of the Trans Am name. As so often happens, success brought a whole new basket of problems to the SCCA table.

In 1969, matters came to a head when a plan to merge SCCA with USAC was revealed. Larry Dent, the Regional Executive of Fort Wayne Region, stated that the “professional tail is now wagging the Club dog.” Member outcry was vast and the results were almost as tumultuous as the previous fight over professional versus amateur status. The proposed merger was scuttled, but before this round was over, Dent had his membership temporarily suspended and several national employees departed, including Executive Director John Bishop.

Bishop’s departure was perhaps the most profound event in the history of professional sports car racing in America, because Bishop had previously become friends with NASCAR’s owner, Bill France Sr., and with his departure from SCCA he partnered with France to form the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA).

While Bishop always insisted that IMSA was not designed to compete with SCCA, the two entities maintained a strong rivalry with a host of similar series over the years as IMSA grew into an internationally significant sanctioning body.

Formula 5000 and Can-Am Return

The third major SCCA Pro effort to get its start in the late 1960s was a series for SCCA Club Racing Formula A, B, and C cars. Originally named the SCCA Grand Prix, the series was also known as the Continental Championship, and then Formula 5000. After the Formula 5000 series ended, the cars were literally morphed into the second generation of the Can-Am series while SCCA Pro Racing moved on to the Formula Super Vees as the open-wheel series of choice.

The SCCA Grand Prix offered formula car drivers a chance to move up into the big leagues of Pro Racing. The 1967 Pro Racing season saw five races with the three-class format, but in 1968 the Formula A class was changed to allow a 5.0-liter American V8 engine, and the racing community responded. Drivers such as Mark Donohue and George Follmer participated while maintaining their Can-Am and Trans Am efforts, along with notables such as the Smothers Brothers, Mario Andretti, Al Unser Sr., Tony Adamowicz, Monte Shelton, Brian Redman, Jacky Ickx, Jacques Villeneuve, and Nick Craw, who would later become President of SCCA.

The classes for Formula B and C were discontinued after 1972, but the interest in Formula 5000 remained strong until the middle of the decade. At that time, Volkswagen was stepping up to support Formula Super Vee with the new water-cooled engines derived from its successful Rabbit and Scirocco production cars – and these, too, received their own SCCA Pro series using the newly minted Showroom Stock category rules.

As SCCA Pro Racing’s Formula Super Vee took off to birth a new generation of open-wheel champions, the Lola cars that had dominated the Formula 5000 series were offered a chance to adopt closed-wheel sports racer bodywork and compete in the revived Can-Am series starting in 1977. The revived series has never received the recognition that the first incarnation delivered, though it lasted a year longer than the first iteration and saw many great drivers take championships, including Al Unser Jr., Geoff Brabham, Jacques Villeneuve, and Jacky Ickx. At its height, the second-generation Can-Am cars based on the Formula 5000 design were faster than the monumental powerhouses of the first generation.

SCCA Pro Spins Off

In addition to the series previously mentioned, SCCA Pro Racing sanctioned the first year of the CART series in 1979, because the CART organization did not yet have standing to sanction races under ACCUS. And, as the 1980s got under way with Trans Am, the second generation of Can-Am, and Formula Super Vee all running strong, former SCCA Grand Prix competitor Nick Craw was hired as President of SCCA in 1983.

Craw oversaw a number of changes to SCCA Pro and Club Racing, such as the introduction of the Spec Racer (originally known as the Sports Renault). On the pro side, Craw oversaw the establishment of the Playboy United States Endurance Cup in 1985, which became the Escort Endurance Championship from 1986 to 1989, and thereafter was known as World Challenge.

Additionally, SCCA Pro Racing sanctioned the Corvette Challenge in 1988 and 1989 before folding the Corvettes into World Challenge in 1990. There was also a brief foray into professional pickup truck racing in 1988 and 1989 – well before NASCAR got into that game.

In the early 1990s, President Craw realized that Pro Racing and Club Racing had diverged substantially, and saw the way to let each develop naturally.

“It was my initiative to spin off SCCA Pro Racing as a separate, for-profit company,” Craw explains. “At the time, SCCA Pro Racing was earning profits considerably larger than SCCA Inc., from Trans Am, World Challenge, street races, Formula 1, etc., and we were advised that to protect SCCA's tax exempt status, Pro Racing should be a separate, taxable company, albeit still wholly owned by SCCA. In addition, Pro Racing's business model called for a different structure of decision making, a different culture, and the need to be insulated from the politics of SCCA.”

Ironically, the idea of spinning off SCCA Pro Racing was a big part of what had caused the rift between the SCCA Board of Governors and John Bishop back in 1969.

“I tried, somewhat successfully I think, to establish that both were there to support each other,” says Craw, “Club Racing provided a ladder for drivers, officials, and workers to migrate upward into the pro world, while Pro could relieve some of the pressure on Club to earn a profit. Also, having SCCA Pro Racing meant that drivers, officials, and workers had the opportunity to remain in SCCA-sanctioned events rather than having to move away to another organization.”

Tough Times and the Future

Spinning off into a separate corporation allowed SCCA Pro Racing to experiment with various series, with less pressure from the Club side of the organization. From the middle-1990s to the present, SCCA Pro Racing has sanctioned series as diverse as Pro Spec Racer, Formula 1600 and 2000, Formula SCCA and Enterprises, Formula Atlantic, Formula 1000, Formula Drift, Stars of Tomorrow, SRT Viper Cup, Pro Spec Miata, MX-5 Cup, and, most recently, Global Rallycross.

In the years since spinning off, SCCA Pro Racing has had good times and bad – for several years requiring loans from the Club to remain in operation. However, in recent years, SCCA Pro Racing has found stability and profitability.

“The difficulty we were having in running our own series, including Trans Am, Pro Spec Racer Ford, and Pro Formula Enterprises series, was that we just didn’t have the marketing and financial resources to pursue those series the way they needed to be done,” says SCCA Pro Racing President Tom Campbell. “We’ve made a shift in our business plan to being a service provider to promoters who are running pro racing programs themselves. Basically, we provide sanction and operations support services.” Consequently, SCCA Pro Racing has once again become a profitable entity.

The new role for SCCA Pro Racing means that organizations such as the Trans Am Race Company and World Challenge Vision, which control Trans Am and Pirelli World Challenge, respectively, have taken over the financial risks for their series.

“We’re trying to grow the business in the new business model, finding new customers looking for a sanctioning and race operations body that has the experience and resources to provide them with the services they need to start their own series,” says Campbell. “Global Rallycross is a perfect example. They needed FIA sanction, so they came to us.”

After 50 years of SCCA Pro Racing, the business of professional racing in America would hardly be recognizable to the governing board of SCCA that first authorized the Club’s participation. Then again, the Club itself would hardly be recognizable to those visionaries – both having matured and found a way to live side by side and benefit each other and the sport.

This article would not have been possible without extensive reference to Peter Hylton’s excellent book on the history of SCCA, The Gentlemen’s Club. If it is ever reprinted, every SCCA member should buy a copy.

Words by Jeff Zurschmeide, with extensive reference to previous works by Peter Hylton