AGT Expands Championship – Announces “Divisional Champions” as part of the Inter-America’s Challenge “Grand Championship”.
(June 14, 2007) - What was originally part of the strategic plan for 2008 (the initiation of Divisional Champions) will be implemented earlier than anticipated due to the ability of the new executive team to bring together such a strong venue of races in the back half of the 2007 season. “We had planned on developing a Divisional Champion type of incentive plan as part of the 2008 racing season to augment and compliment the whole Inter-America’s Challenge concept – crowning three Divisional Champions and one Grand Champion at the end of the year” stated Tony Febles. “But what has happened here is through the efforts put forth by Terry Giles in helping to plan and schedule events, he has arranged a tremendous series of races in the Southeast faster and easier than we thought would be possible, so we figured we may as well go ahead and implement the Divisional Championships this year so everyone gets a taste of what we will be offering next year” Febles commented further.
The way that the Divisional Championships will work is quite simple and it is going to be used in 2008 to draw more attention to the “regions” or divisions that the AGT races in. The Divisions will be (1) NORTHEAST – and will include races like Mosport, Limerock and Watkins Glen (2) SOUTHEAST – which will include races like Sebring, Homestead, Daytona and Roebling Road (3) THE ISLANDS – which will include races like Ponce and the Dominican. In the future, there have already been discussions of adding a forth division – MIDWEST – which would include our friends to the west. As an example, the NORTHEAST Divisional Championship for the 2007 season includes the race which was held in Mosport on May 19-20 and will also include this weekend’s race at Watkins Glen. The current standing for the Northeast Divisional Championship are:
Pos No. Name Team Car NEDivChampPoints
1 1 Edison LLuch Jr. Coors Light Corvette 17
2 95 Chalie Webste CJ Webster LTD Corvette 14
3 8 Kenny Bupp Hamilton Safe Camaro 10
4 72 Edison LLuch Sr. Don Q Rum Corvette 9
5 9 Jordan Bupp Hamilton Safe Corvette 6
The races for this years 2007 SOUTHEAST Divisional Championship will include Nashville on July 6-7 / Sebring on August 11-12 / Roebling Road on September 8-9 and potentially one more race at a truly “world famous” track at the very end of September (we are still awaiting confirmation on that race) – and a Southeast Division Champion will be named from the highest scoring competitor of all of those combined races. The ISLANDS Divisional Champion will be named based on the races to be held at the end of the year in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
The Inter-America’s Challenge GRAND CHAMPION will be the driver that finishes the over-all season with the highest over-all series points score. In addition to enhancing the over-all appeal of the series for drivers and teams, the AGT believes that the addition of the Divisional Championships will encourage GT1 driver and team involvement on a region by region or divisional basis, to defend and declare a Championship within their geographical region or “division”, further adding to the “friendly” yet competitive rivalries within the AGT.
