Since John Bishop and his wife Peggy created IMSA in 1969 with the help of former NASCAR president Bill France Sr., it has been an influential motorsports-sanctioning body in America. Coming to the question of does NASCAR own IMSA, the answer would be yes. The IMSA was sold to NASCAR in 2012, and today, despite the ownership, both these series operate independently of each other.
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France Sr. played a pivotal role in kickstarting things for Bishop in 1969. However, the Bishops decided to sell the body just two decades later and kickstarted a series of events that led to NASCAR purchasing it from Don Panoz (Founder of the American Le Mans) in 2012, who himself had purchased it in 1999.
Following NASCAR’s take over, it merged the American Le Mans with its own Grand-AM sports car series which led to the creation of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Since the series debuted under this name in 2014, it has gone to be a hugely successful venture. IMSA is also a part of the Daytona Speedweeks. The Rolex 24 at Daytona or the 24 Hours at Daytona, is one of the fixtures in its calendar that also garners participation from NASCAR drivers from time to time.
Meanwhile back in 2017, following the merger, former IMSA president Scott Atherton said, “The vision and foresight and confidence Jim France had in doing that…well, it was definitely seen as a high-risk move at the time. When the merger was announced, there was at best cautious optimism. Four years later, Jim looks pretty darned smart.”
IMSA continues differentiating itself from NASCAR through a core value
For IMSA, NASCAR is the “Mothership”, as Atherton calls it. Though IMSA hugely benefits from the resources at its disposal, it distinguishes itself from stock-car racing. In the former president’s words, “NASCAR is its own entity. Stock-car racing is clearly a mainstream sport…but it’s not sports-car racing, which has its own culture, one that definitely deserves respect.”
Jim France, the current chairman of NASCAR, provides IMSA with the resources it needs to be sustainable, but not in an oppressive manner that would kill the idea upon which it was originally built. Today, IMSA has access to most of NASCAR’s capabilities ranging from marketing and research to HR and accounting. Over 50 years in the making, the union stands as a strong presence in motorsports in the United States.
Meanwhile, the latest edition of the 24 Hours at Daytona took place last Sunday and was won by Porsche’s Felipe Nasr and saw Cadillac’s Tom Blomqvist finish in second after a close battle during the closing stages of the race.
