The Australian Production Car Series has revealed plans for a revised class structure for cars alongside a draft calendar for 2019 which includes three standalone events.
Two new classes are set to be opened up aimed at ‘Aussie Muscle’ style machinery such as Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores.
Having not had any entries in the past three seasons, F Class for diesel cars will be removed, with any future entrants placed into another class based on its performance.
“We have been working very hard to build something that will provide not only first-class production car racing in Australia, but also provide a fun, competitive, cost-effective and rewarding place to race for our competitors while raising the bar when it comes to the package we offer to our teams, racers, sponsors and fans,” APC category manager, Iain Sherrin, said.
“As the APC has evolved quickly over the last three years, we now need to look to the future and how we can create the opportunity for all production cars to be competitive in their given class.”
Another change sees the A Class tweaked to now classify cars based on performance levels, rather than whether they are naturally aspirated or have forced induction.
Cars will instead now be assessed on power-to-weight, and torque-to-weight ratios along with previous track performance.
Alongside the class restructure, the category revealed a heavily revised five event calendar, only two of which will run as part of the Shannons Nationals.
This year all but one Australian Production Car Series event will be held as part of the Nationals, with a standalone event at Phillip Island set to round out the 2018 season in November.
The 2019 campaign will begin with a standalone event at Sydney Motorsport Park before joining the Shannons Nationals for Sandown in May and Queensland in July, before two further standalone events at The Bend in September and Phillip Island in November.
“Setting a calendar is one of the hardest things to do, as no category can lock-in dates until F1 and Supercars have each locked in their dates which can in-turn vary everyone else’s calendar depending on what those series’ select,” explained Sherrin.
“That being said, in most cases we have seen that if an event has a history then generally it is carried over each year, give or take a week or two.
“In 2019 and into the future, the APC will strive to establish a consistent calendar ‘year-in, year-out’. We are looking to create ‘must do’ events and cement them in the yearly Australian motorsport calendar.
“To do this and secure our own destiny, we need to take the big jump into more stand-alone events.
“At this stage we will continue to run some Shannons Nationals events, however the Shannons Nationals now has a very condensed calendar running between April and September and therefore cannot cater for us at certain tracks we want to visit, at the times of the year we need to go there.”
Run by CAMS, next year’s Shannons Nationals schedule is yet to be announced, and is not expected until after Supercars has confirmed its 2019 calendar.
Draft 2019 Australian Production Car Series Calendar
| Date | Venue | Format |
| March 1-3 | Sydney Motorsport Park | 4x 1 hour races |
| May 10-12 | Sandown Raceway | 4x 1 hour races |
| July 26-28 | Queensland Raceway | 2x 300km races |
| September 20-22 | The Bend Motorsport Park | 1x300km race, 1x 350km race |
| November 1-3 | Phillip Island | 1x 6 hour race |
2019 Australian Production Car Series Class Structure
| Class | Eligibility |
| A1 | Extreme Performance |
| A2 | High Performance Production |
| AM1 | Aussie Muscle – High Performance |
| AM2 | Aussie Muscle – Performance |
| B1 | Performance Production |
| B2 | Classic Production |
| C1 | Extreme Performance Compact |
| C2 | High Performance Compact |
| D | Performance Compact |
| E | Compact |
| I | Invitational |
CLICK HERE to view the draft class structure by car.
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