The 2012 IMSA American Sportscar Championship, the 46th season of the famed IMSA series, was no less of an event than most had been in times past, for a variety of reasons, though the record-setting grid - 39 cars were aiming for the Prototype championships and 49 were gunning for Grand Touring Car glory - made for headaches at times and massive problems with accidents involving backmarkers, and it was hard to imagine a field of 81 cars taking the green flag at a track like Laguna Seca, but that's what happened in the final race of 2012.
The series comprised of 18 races, as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with seven of the series' events (Daytona, Sebring, Petit Le Mans, Portrero de los Funes, Sao Paulo, Kyalami and Silverstone) also counting for points in World Sportscar Championship. Indeed, huge grid were a fact of life for many events - 107 cars started the Tourist Trophy, showing the amount of interest and funding that has become such a big deal in the series. (It should be noted that of those 107, only 49 finished the 1000-kilometer race at Silverstone.) The five classes of cars meant that the racing was close, tough and wild at pretty much all times, with every class having multiple cars that could win their class.
All of the race wins were fought between the Prototype 1 category and Prototype GT category cars, with Chrysler, Ford-Panoz, Toyota, Peugeot and BMW's factory P1 entrants facing off against the factory Corvette, Porsche and Audi efforts in P-GT. The factory teams claimed every race except one, that one loss coming at the hands of Cytosport's Lola-Aston Martin at VIR thanks to a spectacular drive by Bruno Spengler in the last 90 minutes. The Chrysler SuperPatriots were the top dogs in 2012, though the Ford Panoz racers made them work every inch of the way for it, Don Panoz's wicked front-engine chassis combined with Ford EcoBoost power making a real rival to the roaring Chryslers, who left most everyone else behind at fast tracks - Road America, Bridgehampton and Mosport saw races where the final order was never in doubt, and a broken gearbox and a tangle with one of the Prodrive Ferrari 599s left the Chrysler crews watching the Cytosport win. The Corvette and Porsche efforts were capable of running with the big guys at speed - Porsche's one overall win came after a lead-footed marathon drive by Johannes van Overbeek at Baltimore - but the extra weight of the P-GT cars and the straight-line speed of the Chrysler and Peugeot efforts meant that the P-GT cars found themselves racing for top-fives rather than wins. Corvette won one race (Dallas) finished an amazing second at Daytona and had two more third-place finishes (Mosport and Kyalami), but they didn't have the year they hoped for - though consistent driving by the Corvette crews allowed them to beat out the Porsches for the P-GT title. In Prototype 2, where Porsche had been on top for years, 2012 saw the Alex Job and Schumacher teams fighting for the category with the shockingly-good Radical SR9 of Libra Racing (helped along on several occasions by Indycar stars Sarah Fisher and Alex Gurney) and the Zyteks of Autocon Motorsport and Intersport Racing, the latter not missing a beat despite the massive crash in Argentina that left team owner Jon Field in a hospital for a month. The P2 racers could keep the pace and run well most of the time, though they had not the horsepower to keep up with the P1 and P-GT racers. (Despite this, Alex Gurney and Austin Snader booted the Libra Radical to a stunning fourth overall in the Prototype race at Mid-Ohio, proving that a twisty track like Mid-Ohio can be a great equalizer.) The #98 Schumacher Racing Porsche RS Spyder held on to the Prototype 2 title, though that was only because of a rare Nissan engine failure in the Libra car while they were leading the category at Laguna Seca and drivetrain and electrical failures on the Autocon Zytek-Nissan forced them out of the races at Road Atlanta and Kyalami.
If anything, the GT category was more hard-fought still. GT1 saw Ferrari, Lamborghini and Nissan slugging it out, and while Corvette's move into P-GT meant no factory cars there, the Corvette Owners' Club entered two Corvette ZR1.R2s to run as well. Team Lexus also entered, but the LFA GT's undoubted pace was not matched up with reliability and they frequently foudn themselves behind. Lamborghini, courtesy of three race wins by the West Yokohama team, was competitive but not enough so to beat down the Ferrari and Nissan juggernauts, the technologically-state-of-the-art turbocharged GT-R taking on Ferrari's awesome 599 Fiorano GTS. Despite eight class wins - three of those by Ayrton Senna's racing for a better world team in their only three starts at Daytona, Sao Paulo and Petit Le Mans - Nissan lost the title chase to Prodrive's mighty Ferraris. The Corvettes proved to be solid runners, and a little help from Ron Fellows and Phillipe Letourneau saw the Owners Club Corvette come out with the GT race win at Mosport, but they weren't able to always top Ferrari, Nissan and Lamborghini.
Grand Touring 2 may well be the slowest of the five classes of cars in the IMSA championship, but its always one of the most hard-fought simply because the GT rules make it that way, and with both manufacturers and enterprising race teams forever working to build a better race car, it's always a place to see machinery - and with Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Corvette, Viper, Cadillac, Jaguar, Audi, Aston Martin, Mosler, Ford and Lotus all in the fight, it was sure to make for chaos at times - and that didn't prove to be wrong. Extreme Speed and Pacific Coast Motorsports sought to make Ferrari dominate the GT categories, and they got plenty of help from Prodrive to help make that fact a reality, but they had Porsche intent on holding on to their 2011 title and equally-dedicated efforts by BMW and Jaguar, the latter in the hands of Paul Gentilozzi's Rocketsports team, looking to make up their once-soiled reputation. Saleen-Allen Speedlabs got lots of attention just because of the fact that famed actor Tim Allen was on the driving strength for two-thirds of the season (that ended after Tim had a huge crash at Mosport and got a broken leg as a result), and the big ponycar Mustangs they had were known for towering over cars like the Lotus Evora GTE and Mosler MT900 which were much smaller in size. The most wins of the season went to Porsche, who were able - by two points - to hang on to the GT2 title, those two lost points undoubtedly the result of the pitstop miscue at Indianapolis that cost Guy Cosmo, Ed Brown and Scott Sharp the GT2 win there. The Flying Lizard Porsche team's pairing of Seth Neiman and Darren Law was able to come home with the GT2 driver's title, sharing it between the two.
2012 IMSA American Sportscar Championship Final Results
IMSA American Sports Car Champions
Robby Gordon and Scott Pruett (Chrysler Patriot Team)
Prototype 1
Driver's Champion
Robby Gordon and Scott Pruett (Chrysler Patriot Team)
Driver's Championship Runners-Up
Bryan Herta and Ali Naimi (Ford Racing Team Panoz)
Driver's Championship Bronze Medal
David Donohue (Chrysler Patriot Team)
Teams Champion
Chrysler Patriot Team
Manufacturer's Championship
Chrysler American Motors
John Bishop Cup (best privateer team)
Dyson Racing
Michelin Green X Award Winners (for efficient competitiveness)
Peugeot North American Racing
Prototype GT
Driver's Champion
Jordan Taylor (Corvette Racing)
Driver's Championship Runners-Up
Trevor Bayne and Ashraf Namaki (Corvette Racing)
Driver's Championship Bronze Medal
Jeroen Bleekemolen (Porsche Motorsport North America)
Teams Champion
Corvette Racing
Manufacturer's Championship
Chevrolet
John Bishop Cup
CORE Autosport Team Lotus
Michelin Green X Award Winner
Porsche Motorsport North America
Prototype 2
Driver's Champion
Bill Lester (Schumacher Racing)
Driver's Championship Runners-Up
Austin Snader (Libra Racing)
Driver's Championship Bronze Award
Clint Field (Intersport Racing)
Teams Champion
Alex Job Racing
Manufacturer's Champion
Porsche
Michelin Green X Award Winner
Libra Racing
Grand Touring 1
Driver's Champion
Joao Barbosa and Adam Potter (Prodrive Ferrari North America Racing Team)
Driver's Championship Runners-Up
Jeff Kowalik and Michael Mallinen (West Yokohama Racing)
Driver's Championship Bronze Medal
Jamie Campbell-Walter (Sumo Power North America)
Teams Champion
Prodrive Ferrari North America Racing Team
Manufacturer's Championship
Nissan
John Bishop Cup
Robertson Racing
Michelin Green X Award Winner
Sumo Power North America
Prototype 2
Driver's Champion
Seth Neiman and Darren Law (Flying Lizard Racing)
Driver's Championship Runners-Up
Scott Sharp (Extreme Speed Motorsports)
Driver's Championship Bronze Medal
Bruno Spengler (Prototype Technology Group)
Teams Champion
Extreme Speed Motorsports
Manufacturer's Championship
Ferrari
John Bishop Cup
Brumos Racing
Michelin Green X Award Winner
Prototype Technology Group
