It was started by John Bishop, a former executive director of SCCA (Sports Car Club of America), and his wife Peggy in 1969 with help from Bill France Sr. of NASCAR.

John Bishop, a Sikorsky employee, first became involved in motorsport in the 1950s when he met Dave Allen, a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) staff member.

[3] Bishop's duties consisted of defining technical rules and general administration of SCCA competition, as well as providing artwork for many of the club's magazines and event programmes.

To ensure a more serious level of competition, he was tasked with rewriting the technical rules for the newly formed Pro Racing program.

By 1962, the SCCA was tasked with managing major World Championship for Makes rounds, particularly at Daytona, Sebring, Bridgehampton and Watkins Glen.

At the end of the 1970 season, Bishop helped to establish the foundations of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) "J appendix" for World Championship for Makes sports cars.

They became the foundation of the newly formed Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) category in 1981, with separate rules similar to Group C (Bishop was unhappy with the fuel consumption formula of the latter).

[12] In 1987, FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre almost made a successful attempt to settle the dispute by announcing that turbochargers and fuel restrictions would be phased out by 1989 (excepting naturally aspirated engines below 3.5 liters).

This attempt failed, as did another in 1991, in which with chassis ballast penalties for turbocharged cars rendered them uncompetitive, except at Le Mans.

He began to realise that the Camel GT series was in danger of becoming oriented toward the factory-backed teams and less to the privateers as Bishop originally intended.

[4] In January 1989, the Bishops sold the company to Mike Cone and Jeff Parker, owners of the IMSA Grand Prix of St.

[13] In 1996 Slater sold the organization with previously accumulated debt to Roberto Muller (ex-CEO of Reebok) and Wall Street based portfolio manager for Bill Gates, Andy Evans, who also was an IndyCar owner and owner/driver of the Scandia World Sports Car team.

[14] In 1998 the United States Road Racing Championship was revived as an alternative to Professional Sports Car Racing, involving the Sports Car Club of America and headed by a group of competitors and ex-IMSA personnel, including John Bishop, Bill France Jr., Rob Dyson, Roger Penske, Skip Barber, and Ralph Sanchez.

Under tremendous pressure from team owners and management, Evans sold Professional Sports Car Racing to Don Panoz in 2001,[14] to solidify the American Le Mans Series.

IMSA's main series, the ALMS focused on manufacturer entries along with top privateers with the worldwide prestige of championship greatly increasing.

On September 19, 2019, Scott Atherton announced retirement from his position as the President of the International Motor Sports Association at the end of 2019.

[16] One month following that announcement, then-director of Mazda's motorsports program in North America, John Doonan, was confirmed to be Atherton's replacement.

Feezell didn't fare too well having to drive against the local four-cylinder "beater class" cars brought in to fill out the field, with their protruding wheels rubbing Racey's "immaculate" Alfa Romeo.

[citation needed] The idea was to attract racers who did not have the budgets that were required in the GT category as well as an emphasis on compact sedans such as the AMC Gremlin and the Opel Manta.

[29][30] The series became dominated mostly by Mazda's rotary-powered RX-2 and RX-3 prompting IMSA to specify heavier weights than piston-engined cars and prohibited any modifications to the rotors and more importantly to intake and exhaust ports.

Many drivers would cut their teeth in this series such as Don Devendorf, of Electramotive fame, Jim Downing, of Kudzu, and Bobby Rahal.

The final season was run in 1984 before it was replaced by the IMSA Showroom Stock class the following year, while retaining its sponsor until 1988.

This series started the careers of Irv Hoerr, Kenny Irwin Jr., Patty Moise, Clay Young, Lyn St. James and Paul Gentilozzi.

ARR's members were mostly Showroom Stock racers from the Southeast and Northeast Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) regions.

All members put up a bond to ensure they would participate if it came to fruition so that a sanctioning body and a sponsor would be assured success from the start.

The rules along with the association's proposed plan to organize and launch the series, were sent to several manufacturers soliciting sponsorship, including Mazda, Toyota, Nissan, and Renault.

Due to classic concerns of track owners and sanctioning bodies, Renault was reluctant to agree to the drivers' points system.

A meeting was held on April 4, 1981 at Road Atlanta between Bishop, B Clar, the US Competition Director of Renault, and Coleman representing the drivers.

Coleman even suggested there might be as many as fifty, if Renault and IMSA didn't revise the proposed series rules to a point the majority of drivers would pull out before then.

During the sportscar racing "split" from 1998 until 2013, a rival series from Canada, the Motorola Cup, was sanctioned by the SCCA, with Grand-Am taking over in 2001.