Ford Introduces New Mustang GT4 for Continental Tire ChallengeCompetition; Acura Selects NSX Drivers; Stevenson Motorsports Helps Hurricane VictimsLas Vegas is a hotbed of activity virtually year-round, but on the first week of November each year, it’s a place where one can find many IMSA manufacturers, teams, drivers and partners. The reason? It’s the site of the annual Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show, the world’s premier specialty products trade event held over four days at the Las Vegas Convention Center.This year, a pair of IMSA manufacturers used the SEMA Show as their platform to unveil exciting plans for the 2017 season. One of those manufacturers was Ford, which drew a huge crowd to its expanisve display on Tuesday morning to unveil its new Ford Mustang GT4, which will make its competition debut next year in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge.The Mustang GT4 is the successor to the Ford Shelby GT350R-C, which carried No. 15 Multimatic Motorsports co-drivers Billy Johnson and Scott Maxwell to the 2016 Continental Tire Challenge Grand Sport (GS) class championship. The new Mustang GT4 is built to international GT4 technical specifications, making it eligible to compete in a number of championships around the world.IMSA is phasing GT4 machinery into the GS class in 2017 alongside “grandfathered” race cars that competed in the class in 2016. GS will use GT4 technical regulations exclusively in 2018.“Everything that we’re doing at Ford Performance is to stay out on the forefront of technology and development and the latest and greatest that we have,” said Ford Performance global director Dave Pericak. “When the series decided that GT4 was the spec they were going to go to, we weren’t about to waste any time.“We won the championship with (the Shelby GT350R-C), we know what it’s capable of. Now, it’s time to show that we know what this thing is capable of. We’re looking to debut this at IMSA (next) year. We’re working to maybe show up at Daytona with it. We’ve already got a lot of interest in the car, we’re working with the series, and we’re really, really excited to show the brand-new car.”While Pericak stopped short of confirming entries for the four-hour Continental Tire Challenge 2017 opener at Daytona International Speedway on Friday, Jan. 27, it’s only a matter of time before he expects a number of them on the GS grid.“Even before we announced it, people started to understand we were working on it and the requests have already been coming in,” he said. “We’ve not confirmed anybody yet, but we’ve got a lot of interest in the car. A lot.”Acura, Shank Introduce Impressive Driver Lineup for 2017 NSX DebutAnother major announcement set against the SEMA Show backdrop on Tuesday was the confirmation of four full-time drivers for the new, two-car Acura NSX GT3 program that will compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona (GTD) class beginning in 2017.Experienced IMSA racers Andy Lally, Katherine Legge, Ozz Negri Jr. and Jeff Segal will compete in all 12 rounds of the WeatherTech Championship next year in the pair of NSXs to be fielded by longtime GRAND-AM and IMSA team, Michael Shank Racing.“We need to have success for Acura, there’s no question, so we went out and tried to find people that fit, that ticked a bunch of boxes,” said team owner Mike Shank of his new driver lineup. “This group — the full-time group here — do that, I believe. Especially with a car that we want to produce results right away, we have a couple of guys here that won Petit and finished third at Petit in other brands, which gives us a complete scope of where we’re at, good, bad or ugly, which is great and all we could ever ask for.“That was the main reason, but the other reason – which I think is most important – is I think they’re compatible off the track. We’re going to have interesting races this year, including themselves, and we need to be able to manage that in a professional way. I believe I have a group here that can do that and understand what the real reason we’re here for is, and that is to show how good the NSX is.”All four drivers recently tested the car at Sebring International Raceway and will get steady seat time opportunities at Daytona International Speedway over the next couple of months at IMSA-sanctioned tests in November, December and January’s Roar Before The Rolex 24 two weeks prior to the 55th Rolex 24 At Daytona, which opens the 2017 WeatherTech Championship season on Jan. 28-29.“Next year, I think GTD is going to be, maybe, the most competitive of all four classes,” Shank said. “They’re all good classes, but we have so many cars that are homologated so close to each other in the performance envelope.”Stevenson Motorsports Lends Helping Hand to Hurricane Matthew VictimsStevenson Motorsports took some time away from its 2017 WeatherTech Championship preparations to support the efforts of one of its sister companies, Stevenson Chevrolet in Swansboro, North Carolina. The race team and dealership partnered to collect a variety of items to provide relief for victims of Hurricane Matthew, which impacted Eastern North Carolina early last month.A significant component of the disaster relief drive was to support the Pet Food Pantry, which focused on assisting severely impacted pet owners by providing pet food and other important items. Stevenson Motorsports supplied its race team transporters to make deliveries to affected areas.“It was great to see how the community rallied around this cause, and we were also happy to support the efforts of the Pet Food Pantry,” said Stevenson Motorsports owner John Stevenson. “It could have been much worse with Hurricane Matthew, but it still had a very big impact on a lot of people in the area, so it was great to be able to help a little bit as everyone is working on getting their lives back to the way things were before.”End Quote: Christina Nielsen on returning to defend her 2016 WeatherTech Championship GTD title with Scuderia Corsa in 2017: “I think as a driver, after going through different championships and teams over the last couple of years, I am really looking forward to going back to Daytona this January with this group. We all know each other, and we can continue the work we have done so far and improve from there.”