IMSA 1990–1999: The Turbulent Years of American Sports Car Racing
by Mark Raffauf, Martin Raffauf, George Silbermann, Jonathan Ingram
“After 1989, the succession of ownership groups and ‘visions’ at the top levels of the sport was frankly dizzying. Any fan (or entrant) during this time who could keep track of series’ names, class structures, and technical regulations could probably earn an advanced degree in international relations.”
Rob Dyson, who wrote these words in the Foreword to this book, must have just such a degree because as a driver and team owner his diplomacy skills would have been severely taxed by being on the receiving end of the tumult that “made the 1990s nothing short of hell on earth for IMSA.” That Dyson Racing has an unsurpassed IMSA victory total must mean that insanity did not ruin what is considered the top tier of sports car and endurance racing in the world. If you didn’t already know it it’ll be a shock to the system to learn that in those years IMSA once almost sold itself to a British group.
The book is the proverbial insiders story inasmuch as its authors all have IMSA connections going back to 1973/74, with both lead author Mark Raffauf and George Silbermann having been presidents, and Martin R. gigging as a part-time tech inspector and then as mechanic for several teams. (Ingram is an Autoweek contributor and veteran motorsports writer.) But “insiders story” doesn’t even capture it—this is a look behind closed doors, at matters that are not normally accessible.
The IMSA story proper begins of course 20 years before this book. Thank goodness there’s a book about that too, IMSA 1990–1999: The Turbulent Years of American Sports Car Racing, and it too was headed by Mark Raffauf, then in collaboration with Mitch Bishop, the IMSA founder’s son. It makes sense that he sat out this new book because when John Bishop sold the organization to new owners in 1989 a vastly different way of doing things began—and it didn’t work that well which is why the one decade that this book examines saw a succession of owners each with their own ideas and also agendas. Worse, it ends with a split into two different racing series representing “opposite approaches to technology and economics.” And the story doesn’t end there either because in 2014 those two separate series became one again. Fodder for more books!
That IMSA has weathered all these storms all the while sustaining multiple platforms and a global footprint (the “I” in IMSA stands after all for International [Motorsports Association]) is a testament to the value it has to the auto and motorsport industry—the owners, drivers, builders, sponsors etc. many of whom have things to say in this book. Each year is discussed in its own chapter and wherever an entire section or sidebar is penned by a specific person, that person is identified. A good Index makes it easy to find things again.
The photos on these two spreads illustrate just some of the variety of IMSA classes.
The role of a race sanctioning body does not make for easily digestible news, hence the proverbial man in the street/in the grandstands remains woefully uninformed how the sausage gets made. At the same time it regulates everything on the track, in the pits, and behind the scenes. A book like this, written not only by people who know but who care, and especially a book that is fact-driven and abstains from both polemics and revisionism is a real treat. We wrote about the first one: “This is too good a book—thoughtful, measured, thorough—to be shortchanged by preconceived notions.” And we say the same about this one as well.
The existence of that previous book prompts a rather peripheral observation: the books (they are designed by the same person) are the same height but not width meaning they’ll look like a matched set standing side by side on the bookshelf but one will want to be pushed several inches farther forward. Maybe the new book, which is about 130 pages shorter, would have looked too “thin” if it had the same landscape format of the first one? The publisher sells both as a bundle at a reduced price.
Copyright 2025, Sabu Advani (Speedreaders.info
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