The modern version of the Trans-Am Series is a throwback to an earlier era when the thunder of raw, unbridled American horsepower echoed from this country’s iconic road racing venues.
“First and foremost, the cars themselves are phenomenal beasts, still roaming the Earth at a time when the sport has become more sanitized and, frankly, a little more one dimensional,” road racing veteran and Trans-Am competitor Chris Dyson told SPEED SPORT. “Trans-Am remains one of last bastions of unapologetic, loud, brutally fast and very, very monstrous racing cars.
“That’s the central appeal of the series and it’s become more pronounced as time has gone on because Trans-Am has always occupied a really important position in American road racing. That position has become more profound as a lot of other racing series have retreated from high-powered, monstrous performance pieces and Trans-Am stands out even more now.”
“Old-school” is among the adjectives longtime racer Boris Said uses to describe today’s Trans-Am cars.
“Of all the cars I’ve driven, they are the most fun,” Said noted. “Now, everything is getting dumbed-down with traction control, ABS and paddle shifts. Trans-Am is 850 horsepower, gated shifter, no ABS and no traction control. The cars are just a blast to drive. It’s a car you need to manhandle; it’s kind of old-school.”
Born in 1966, the current Trans-Am has a lot in common with the series’ early years when legends such as Jerry Titus, Mark Donohue, Parnelli Jones and George Follmer traded paint in the muscle cars of the era.
“The series hasn’t evolved that much,” said John Clagett, who has promoted the series since 1984 and currently serves as president of the Trans-Am Race Co. “That means it has stayed relatively true to its core direction, which is a home for the Trans-Am class — the beautiful 850-horsepower, purpose-built race cars that so often get dismissed as no longer being part of the motorsports fabric. When people see the cars and hear them, it brings back what motorsports should be all about.”
The Trans-Am Series features two distinct classes.
“First, you have the TA class, which is essentially the same formula that has existed since the 1980s, as far as a purpose-built race car with a V-8-based engine and a pony car-type body package, sports cars as well,” Clagett explained. “The engine formula has changed over the course of time. It’s been made a lot cheaper by taking the engines that are essentially NASCAR engines and using them instead of having a customized platform like we had in the ’80s.
“The TA2 is the same thing, a purpose-built race car but with a 530-horsepower engine in a very affordable spec car. The Trans-Am class is open to technology with the exception of traction control and things like that, but the TA2 class is very much a spec formula that has kept those cars very affordable. It is our strongest class.”
According to Clagett, each class attracts a unique type of racer.
“Competitors see the Trans-Am class as the last sports car championship that is not relegated by some balance-of-power computer geek. If you’re a racer and you cherish the days of 850-horsepower machines without traction control and all of things that are so prevalent in today’s racing, that’s what Trans-Am racing is all about,” Clagett said. “That’s why you see the Boris Saids, Chris Dysons and Greg Picketts of the world. It’s a true racer’s formula.
“Having said that, the TA2 is not that. TA2 is a relegated formula where we have spec engines per se, we have a limited number of chassis builders and we have capped pricing on brakes, shocks and all kinds of things,” Clagett continued. “The formula has worked over what is now a 10-year period where we’ve kept the cars basically the same price with the exception of an inflation index.
“The beauty of that class is that it’s attracted some of the strongest and deepest fields in sports car racing today. You have what we call ‘the NASCAR kids,’ which are kids who are trying to get some road racing experience on their way to a NASCAR career. We get them. We get guys like Raphael Matos, who is an Indy 500 rookie of the year and a championship racer. He’s found a home in TA2. And we get guys like Mike Skeen, who is a very accomplished racer that came to the series and won a championship last year. As a result, the talent level across the 30- to 35-car fields is deep and there is really great racing.”
A typical weekend of Trans-Am racing also includes numerous production classes, none of which are specific to the Trans-Am cause.
“They are common formulas that other entities are using,” Clagett noted. “Our difference is that we’re not homologating cars out of existence every year or two and forcing competitors to buy new cars to meet the new specs. We are kind of the home for where those old homologations go to race. It gives cars an opportunity to be sold down to a competitor who wants to race it beyond its shelf-life that FIA or SRO creates for them.”
In addition, Trans-Am partners with the Sportscar Vintage Racing Ass’n for several of its bigger events.
“We are creating a wonderful motorsports experience on these weekends,” Clagett said. “It has Trans-Am, giving them the professional sports car racing element. We have historic and vintage cars for those who are looking for that. And this year, we are going to have the Formula 4 and Formula regional championships join a lot of our weekends, bringing a different demographic mix to the events in terms of audience.
“It’s kind of a motorsports celebration. Somebody who comes to Watkins Glen for the Trans-Am/SVRA weekend is going to be shocked to see an infield full of race cars. It’s one of the biggest events held at Watkins Glen.”
The auto industry’s recent focus on eye-popping horsepower numbers and iconic automobiles such as the Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustang and Dodge Charger has brought the Trans-Am Series full circle.
“You go back to 1966; Trans-Am and pony cars came into existence together. It was the Trans-Am Series that was used as the ‘race on Sunday, sell on Monday’ platform,” Clagett noted. “For us to have stayed in that same wheelhouse for 54 years and to have the industry comeback to once again building a platform for pony cars, or muscle cars, sure it’s been good for us.
“It hasn’t necessarily carried over to massive amounts of factory support of our racing, and that’s not to say we wanted that,” Clagett added. “We don’t want to have factory teams when it comes to Trans-Am and Trans-Am2. Those have a tendency to be flash-in-the pan programs and your independents get left behind. Then, when your factories leave, that’s when the independents have an opportunity for success.
“Our niche has been to keep Trans-Am non-dependent on the factories and give the privateers a place to race. That’s essentially what the Trans-Am Race Co. created in 2012 and it certainly seems to be working.”