Can-Am

Can-Am started out as a race series for Group 7 sports racers with two races in Canada (Can) and four races in the US (Am). The series was initially sponsored by J-Wax. The Series used the FIA Group 7 category with unrestricted engine capacity.

The Group 7 category was essentially a formula libre for sports cars; the regulations were minimal and permitted unlimited engine sizes (and allowed turbocharging and supercharging), virtually unrestricted aerodynamics, and were as close as any major international racing series ever got to anything goes. As long as the car had two seats and bodywork enclosing the wheels, and met basic safety standards, it was legal... Group 7 had arisen as a category for non-homologated sports car 'specials' in Europe and for a while in the 1960s Group 7 racing was popular in the United Kingdom as well as a class in hillclimb racing in Europe. Group 7 cars were designed more for short-distance sprints than for endurance racing. Some Group 7 cars were also built in Japan by Nissan and Toyota, but these did not compete outside their homeland (though some of the Can-Am competitors went over to race against them occasionally).

SCCA sports car racing was becoming more popular with European constructors and drivers, and the US Road Racing Championship for large-capacity sports racers eventually gave rise to the Group 7 Can-Am series. There was good prize and appearance money and plenty of trade backing; the series was lucrative for its competitors but resulted, by its end, in truly outrageous cars with well over 1000 horsepower (750 kW) (some teams claimed 1500 HP in qualifying trim), wings, active downforce generation, very light weight and unheard of speeds. Similar Group 7 cars ran in the European Interserie series, but this was much lower-key than the Can-Am.

A second generation of Can-Am followed, but this was a fundamentally different series based initially on converted Formula 5000 cars with closed-wheel bodies. There was also a 2L class based in Formula 2 chassis.

The Can-Am is mostly remembered as the last series to allow unlimited motor racing before it became definitely over in 1974.

// Extracted from Wikipedia (see full text clicking here)//

Video: