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Champ Car Atlantic Championship

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The Champ Car Atlantic Championship is a formula racing series with races throughout North America. The series is often considered the top developmental open-wheel racing series in North America, typically the last series a driver will compete in before moving to Champ Car World Series or the Indy Racing League. The series is sanctioned by Champ Car, and most of its races are support races for the Champ Car World Series.

Starting in 2006, the series will use a spec Swift Engineering 016 chassis powered by a Mazda-Cosworth 2300cc DOHC inline-4 engine producing 300hp. The new formula is expected to lower the costs of running a full Atlantics season to around $500,000-$600,000. In addition, Champ Car will award a $2 million sponsorship prize for the 2006 champion towards a ride in the Champ Car World Series. These changes are expected to increase car counts, which have dwindled since the early 2000's.

The formula evolved in the early 1970s from the SCCA Formula B, with 1600cc production-based engines (usually Cosworth BDs, with Toyotas coming in later). Formula Atlantic typically used chassis similar to Formula Two and Formula Three cars so most of the manufacturers were familiar from those classes -- particularly the likes of Brabham, Lotus, March, Chevron, and Ralt early on, though Swift Engineering came to dominate in the USA; performance was somewhere between the two international classes, and in the United Kingdom Atlantics ran for several years from 1971 as a major national formula. The same rules were adopted as "Formula Pacific" and races were run in Australia, and New Zealand (where Pacific became the top class of racing); for a few years the prestigious Macau Grand Prix was run to FPacific rules before becoming a Formula Three race. South Africa also adopted Atlantic rules, but later mandated that the cars were fitted with Mazda Wankel engines. In recognition of the global acceptance of the formula it was briefly renamed 'Formula Mondial' in 1983, but its peak of international popularity was some years past.

From 1990 to 2005, the series was sponsored by Toyota and the cars were powered by 1600cc 4A-GE engines.

Former drivers in the series include legends such as Gilles Villeneuve and Michael Andretti, and many current IRL and Champ Car drivers including Jimmy Vasser, A.J. Allmendinger, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andrew Ranger, Ronnie Bremer, Danica Patrick, Alex Tagliani, Patrick Carpentier, Buddy Rice, Dan Wheldon, Sam Hornish, Jr. and Roger Yasukawa.

2006 Champ Car Atlantic Championship Schedule

Atlantic Series Champions

External links

 

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