Today’s Trans-Am: Continental Tires Series Starts 2012 Road-Racing Season with a Mustang Win

Make no mistake, the original Trans-Am series deserves the heady reputation it earned in the early 1970s for fender-to-fender action, but you should know we now have the Continental Tire Series and it’s just as exciting. Okay, this Trans-Am remix might not have the big-name drivers, like Mark Donohue, Parnelli Jones or Sam Posey, but the field makes up for it with tough racing. Better yet, the field is filled with some of our favorite cars: Mustangs, Camaros, BMW M3s, and Aston Martins in the GS field. Move to the ST machines and its Honda Civics, Mazda MX-5s and MazdaSpeed3s, Porsche Boxsters, Nissan Altimas, and BMW 328s.

This weekend is the first race of the season and from the green flag it looked as though the Aston Martins—one starting from the pole—had the measure of the GS class, but the Stevenson-entered Camaro GS.R hounded it, as did the Rum Bum Porsche 997. In fact, the trio of Astons stayed in the top six right to the end, but it was the Mustang Boss 302 R of Jack Roush’s team, his son, Jack Jr., teaming with Billy Johnson that finally had the lead when the checkered flag came out, the Rum Bum Porsche 997 in second, and an Aston finishing out the GS podium.

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• Instrumented Test: 2013 Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca
• First Drive Review: 2012 Aston Martin V8 Vantage S
• Instrumented Test: 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera

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In the ST class, the Hondas beat on the Mazdas, the Porsche Boxsters, the BMWs and the Volkswagen Jettas. And what won? A Nissan Altima Coupe, followed by a BMW 128i and a Civic Si.

Here’s the rest of the series’ schedule for 2013:

March 2: Circuit of the Americas
April 6: Barber Motorsports Park
April 20: Road Atlanta
June 15: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
June 29: Watkins Glen International
July 26: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Aug. 10: Road America
Aug. 17: Kansas Speedway
Sept. 8: Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
Sept. 27-28: Lime Rock Park

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/Bq1WRHqEBw4/

Oscar González Aldo Gordini Horace Gould Jean Marc Gounon Emmanuel de Graffenried