Amy Ruman completes another record Trans Am season at 2022 CoTA finale

Amy Ruman is the longest tenured among a group of accomplished racers that have contested every race in the Trans Am Series, going back past 2016 when the TA Series became part of the Parella Holdings Speed Tour.

 In 2022 the Trans Am Series hosted 11 races - opening at Sebring FL on Feb 26 and ending 9 months later in Austin TX at Circuit of the Americas (CoTA) on Nov 6.

Ruman in the McNichols # 23 C7 GT1 Corvette was 4th in the final TA standings.  Her 170 points fell just shy of 3rd place nemesis Tomy Drissi (Mustang) 175 points and 2nd place Ken Thwaits (Camaro) 176 points.  (Chris Dyson (Mustang) had already clinched the title scoring 241 points)

 Her sixth place at CoTA proved inconsequential as things turned out.

Gustavo Ortega from Costa Rica piloting the # 17 Cochron racing TA C5 GT1 Corvette from Panama was surprisingly fast, qualifying 4th but dropped out on lap 21 of the 30-lap race.  

Rob Forsyth from Alforvd TX, # 27 made his first Trans Am appearance in a C6 Corvette prepared by the GSpeed, a specialist in Cresson, TX.  The customer supplies a C6 ZO6 Corvette which they build for street, track day, club, vintage, Trans Am.  Order from column A and column B.  It doesn’t get cooler than that.

 Rob’s lap times were decent but he finished 6th in the GT class behind some rather exotic competition.  Plenty of customers are out there if this proves to be a one-shot deal. 

A record 80 total entries at CoTA indicates the Trans Am Series is quite healthy.  The TA2 cars are clearly the future, consisting of Camaros and Mustangs on a spec chassis which cost less and combine modern technology. 

 The carburetor-inducted more powerful TA cars are a nod to the past, consisting of tube-fame chassis designed in the late 1970s topped with a silhouette GT-1 body.  The Mustangs and Camaros more closely resemble their namesakes in TA2 and are said to have better aerodynamics than the Corvette.

Photos courtesy of Chris Clark