Acura Places First in Class at Sebring

Monday, June 11. 2007
Acura Places First in Class at Sebring
In late 2006, Acura announced plans to contest the American Le Mans (ALMS) series starting with the 2007 season. Three established race teams signed on: Fernandez Racing will use an Acura powered Lola chassis, and Highcroft Racing and Andretti-Green Racing will use an Acura modified Courage LC75 chassis’ with Acura power.

Nobody expected immediate results, especially against the established Penske Porsche Spyders. However, in their first race, Acura finished 1st in Class and second overall in the grueling 12 Hours of Sebring. It was a stunning upset victory for the Andretti-Green Team with drivers Dario Franchitti, Tony Kannan and Bryan Herta sharing the driving chores.


Acura to Compete in the American Le Mans Series

Sunday, April 16. 2006

At the New York Auto Show, Acura celebrated its 20th Anniversary with the announcement that for the first time in its history, they will enter an international racing series as a full factory racing program. With the Acura brand on the verge of a global launch, the new LMP2 car will debut in the 12 Hours of Sebring in March 2007.

The new engine will be designed by Honda Performance Development (HPD). HPD currently builds the engines for the Indy Racing League, and has powered the last two Indy 500 winners.

Acura will supply the engines for the LMP2 program, and as the program matures, there are plans for an Acura designed LMP1 chassis to earn an invitation to the historic 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race.
Endurance racing is a challenge that Honda and Acura should excel at. The keys to success are reliability, fuel economy, and out right speed. All of these are traditional Honda/Acura virtues.

The Acura division currently provides cars and support for the Speed World Challenge Touring Car class and Real Time Racing. Our Integra Type-Rs and more recently our Acura TSXs have won both drivers and manufacturers titles championships. Back in the 90's, Acura sponsored the Camel Lights car of Parker Johnstone in the old IMSA series (below). This car ran a modified NSX engine and racked up 22 race wins in 38 starts including three championships, and the 12 Hours of Sebring.


Honda Race Report, Winning ways continue in 2001

Sunday, April 28. 2002

The racing season is for 2001 is finished, and Honda again posted drivers championships and manufacturers titles. In doing so, Honda is training it’s engineers to learn, and adapt in the fast paced world of motorsports. These lessons will pay dividends as these engineers move to passenger car projects in the future.

Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) racing is the premiere open-wheel series in North America and has some of the most competitive racing anywhere. CART had 11 different drivers visit the top step of the victory podium in 20 races. It was in this ultra competitive environment, that Gil DeFerran (above) won his second consecutive drivers title in a Penske/Reynard with Honda power. Honda has been in CART for 8 years, and for the last 6 years in a row, the drivers title has gone to a Honda powered driver! Honda also won the engine manufacturer’s title for the fourth time, beating their rivals from Toyota and Ford in the process by a hefty margin.
Over in Formula 1, the going has been tougher. Honda provides motors to the British American Racing team (BAR) as well as Team Jordan, but success has eluded the two teams so far. There have been a couple encouraging podium finishes for Jacques Villenuve for the BAR team as well as numerous points paying positions. Villenuve’s teammate Oliver Panis has also finished in the points on several occasions. The 2002 pre-season testing for both Jordan and BAR has gone well, and there are high hopes for both teams.

In the Speedvision World Challenge, there are two classes, Touring Cars and GT. Peter Cunningham raced a supercharged Acura NSX in the GT class and narrowly missed the drivers title by only 8 points, while claiming 5 victories in 10 races. In the smaller Touring Car class, Pierre Kleinubing won his 3rd drivers title in his Acura Integra Type-R. This car has dominated the Touring Car class since it’s inception and this year’s title was the 5th in a row for the Type-R. This year the Real Time racing team faced a stiff challenge from the new BMW 6-cylinder 328s. World Challenge rules dictate that each time you win a race, you need to add 30 lbs of weight to the car, and by the end of the season, Kleinubing’s 1.8 liter, 4 cylinder VTEC engine was burdened by over a hundred extra pounds. The Acura contingent managed to win the drivers title but the manufacturers title went to BMW.

In the Speedvision World Challenge, there are two classes, Touring Cars and GT. Peter Cunningham raced a supercharged Acura NSX in the GT class and narrowly missed the drivers title by only 8 points to his former teammate Michael Galati (driving and Audi). In the smaller Touring Car class, Pierre Kleinubing won his 3rd drivers title in his Acura Integra Type-R. This car has dominated the Touring Car class since it’s inception and this year’s title was the 5th in a row for the Type-R. This year the Real Time racing team faced a stiff challenge from the new BMW 6-cylinder 328s. World Challenge rules dictate that each time you win a race, you need to add 30 lbs of weight to the car, and by the end of the season, Kleinubing’s 1.8 liter, 4 cylinder VTEC engine was burdened by over a hundred extra pounds. The Acura contingent managed to win the drivers title but the manufacturers title went to BMW.