The TC America season begins in Texas

After a strong inaugural year under the name of Pirelli World Challenge, the North American sprint series has been rebranded TC America and returns this weekend with the opening event at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.
Twelve entries make up the TCR with five brands represented: Alfa Romeo, Audi, Honda, Hyundai, and Volkswagen.
FCP Euro will field two Volkswagen Golf GTI cars for Michael Hurczyn and 2018 TCR Rookie of the Year Nate Vincent; the two are poised to challenge for the championship with each having a year of TCR racing under their belts.
Longtime sportscar Ferrari outfit Risi Competizione joins the series with James Walker who will be driving an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, as the team kicks-off their touring car programme.
Both Honda and Hyundai had impressive 2018 seasons as Honda won the Drivers’ championship with Ryan Eversely and Hyundai took the Teams’ and Manufacturers’ championships. For 2019, the focus shifts to customer racing with LAP Motorsports and LA Honda World representing Honda, as Nelson Cheung drives their Civic Type R FK7. Mason Filippi, who ended the season with a pair of podiums, moved to Hyundai and will debut the new Veloster N with TFB Performance.
New for 2019, the DSG class is a battle of Audi teams. McCann Racing fields two RS 3 LMS cars for Michael McCann Jr. and Christian Cole; Alphasonic Motorsport comes from the Canadian Touring Car Championship – in which it scored one win in 2018 – with Nelson Chan and Alain Lauzière; eEuroparts.com ROWE Racing – a regular in the IMSA Challenge TCR class – runs Bryan Putt; Eddie Killeen who joined the series for last year’s season finale continues with TWOth Autosport for 2019; Todd Archer races for RS Werkes Racing.