Hmmm, New Trans Am Class Structures ?

[Drive-em]

Am I the only one skeptical of the new Trans Am class structures for 2016?
I love seeing more Porsches racing, no matter what series. But I'm not sure I want to see them running in their own Porsche only class in Trans Am. I would prefer to see them racing against Aston Martins, Corvettes, BMWs etc. with a fair and clear rule book. It has been frustrating to see the rules skewed to allow tube cars to race against production tub cars and other inequities.

2016 Trans Am Class Structures;

TA3 Class will essentially replace the International Group and will include (but is not restricted to) the Aston Martin GT4, BMW M3, Chevrolet Corvettes, and Dodge Vipers. Porsches will be excluded from this class

TA4 Class will function in an identical capacity to that of the former TA3 American Muscle Group, providing a production class for competition between the Dodge Challenger, Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro.

TA5 Class "to accommodate the ever-increasing interest from the Porsche community". The class will also run Hoosier Racing Tire slicks rather than the DOT tires that the TA3 class cars will continue to run.

[Brant]

Same thing happened in 1976
the tube frame Silhouettes eventually outpaced the production car bodies and took over in the interest of competition.

[Matt Romanowski]

TA5 includes Ferrari Challenge Cars. This is really a result of a number of Porsche entrants not being happy with the slicks and wanting to use a different tire. This is not like what happened in TA last time.

Also, in Trans Am, the Porsches are not running against tube frame cars. The TA3 and TA4 cars are all production based cars. Only the TA and TA2 cars are tube frames.

[Drive-em]

Thanks for some more detail Matt.
Good to hear it won't be just Porsches.
I was referring to a few years back when BMW and Mazda were allowed to compete with tube frame cars.

[Matt Romanowski]

That was with Grand Am, not TA.

[cstreit]

Interestingly the Hoosier Slicks are not so great with the Cup Cars that will likely run in this class compared to the Michelins they are set up for....

I had no end of issues with them for 2 years....

Sure wonder why they excluded 911's...