US RaceTronics
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US RaceTronics (USRT) is an auto racing team based in Buttonwillow, California, that competes in the
Atlantic Championship The Atlantic Championship Series is an American open-wheel racing series with races throughout North America. It has previously been called Champ Car Atlantics, Toyota Atlantics (after its then engine supplier for sponsorship reasons), or just ...
. It was founded by former Dorricott Racing Team Manager Shane Seneviratne. Seneviratne and the Dorricott Racing organization dominated both the Toyota Atlantic and
Indy Lights Indy NXT (pronounced "Indy Next"), previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as INDY NXT by Firestone for sponsorship reasons. Indy NXT is the highest step on the Roa ...
open wheel series. The team won numerous awards and race wins, including series championships in 1999, 2001, and 2002. Dorricott Racing founder Bob Dorricott died of cancer in 2002 and Seneviratne assisted in the liquidation of the team’s assets after the 2003 season.


Team formation and the 2005 season

At the end of 2004 season, which Seneviratne and Dorricott Racing did not participate in, Seneviratne formed US RaceTronics with the hopes of competing in the 2005 Toyota Atlantic Championship season. Purchasing some of the old Dorricott equipment as well as a Swift 014.a chassis, produced by
Swift Engineering Swift Engineering is an American engineering firm that builds Autonomous robot, autonomous systems, helicopters, submarines, spacecraft, ground vehicles, robotics, and composite parts. The chairman and CEO is Hiro Matsushita, a former racecar dr ...
Seneviratne set out to enter the team in the 2005 season opening race at Long Beach. After hiring a skeleton crew the team entered its first official race with driver Roby Feazel. Feazell and US RaceTronics finished the race in 13th.
Monterrey, Mexico Monterrey (, , abbreviated as MtY) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. It is the ninth-largest city and the second largest metropolitan area, after Greater Mexico City. Located at the foothills of th ...
driver David Martinez signed on to drive for US RaceTronics after the team's Long Beach debut for his home race in Monterrey, Mexico. Mexico. Martinez and the team finished 3rd for that race. They went on to complete the season together and finished 5th place in the final Championship standings at the year’s end. Martinez had 10 top-10 finishes, 5 of those were top-3 finishes. He also garnered a pole position award at Montreal. The major sponsor for the 2005 season was Roshfrans.


2006 season

For 2006 the team purchased the new Swift 016.a chassis (2006 was the first year that the Swift 016.a chassis was introduced into the series) and entered their sophomore year with driver David Martinez rejoining the team. Once again Martinez and the team enjoyed success as the 12-race schedule included 10 top-10 finishes, 1 of those was a top-3 finish. Martinez’s race finishing position averaged 6 gained positions. Major sponsors for the 2006 season included
Telmex Teléfonos de México, S.A.B. de C.V., known as Telmex is a Mexican telecommunications company headquartered in Mexico City that provides telecommunications products and services in Mexico. In 2014, Telmex was the dominant fixed-line phone carri ...
, Sub Hub, and Days Inn Canada.


2007 season

2007 included the expansion of US RaceTronics from a 1-car team to a 2-car operation. American Carl Skerlong and Mexican driver David Garza joined the team to compete in the 12-race series Champ Car Atlantic Championship Series schedule. In Portland the team announced that it would become the “junior team” for
Pacific Coast Motorsports Pacific Coast Motorsports was a racing team owned by Tyler Tadevic. Team history It was founded by Tadevic in 2003 and has competed in the American Le Mans Series, Champ Car Atlantic Series, and Rolex Grand-Am series. In 2007 it moved to the ...
Champ Car team. The new partnership would share resources and capitalize on both west coast racing team operations. As the season concluded Skerlong’s performance was topped off by 4 top-10 race finishes, two of those were top-3 finishes. Garza’s performance included 4 top-10 race finishes. Major sponsors for the 2007 season included King Taco,
Axtel Axtel S.A.B. de C.V., known as Axtel, is a Mexican telecommunications company headquartered in San Pedro, near Monterrey. It offers telephone, internet, and television services through FTTH in 45 cities of Mexico as well as IT Services. It is t ...
, Mechanix, Meguiars, Madisa, and
Tecate Tecate () is a city in Tecate Municipality, Baja California. It is across the Mexico–United States border, Mexico–US border from Tecate, California. As of 2019, the city had a population of 108,860 inhabitants, while the metropolitan area ha ...
. The season concluded with Seneviratne being selected as the Champ Car Atlantic Series Team Owner of the Year for 2007.


2008 season

The US RaceTronics team was renamed to “Pacific Coast Motorsports powered by US RaceTronics”. The driver makeup of the team changed as well. Skerlong continued with the team, however the team was joined by second year Atlantic series racer
Frankie Muniz Francisco Muniz IV (; born December 5, 1985) is an American actor and racing driver. Muniz came to prominence in the 2000s playing the title character of the Fox sitcom ''Malcolm in the Middle'' (2000–2006), for which he was nominated for an E ...
. Facing the challenge of the collapse of the Champ Car series, the team continued in the Atlantic Series and saw continued success. The team experienced its first win after 45 races when Skerlong won on September 14, 2008 at the New Jersey Motorsports Park’s Thunderbolt Raceway. At the end of the season Skerlong had 7 top-10 finishes, 4 of those were top-3 finishes. Muniz also excelled as he continued his transition from Hollywood actor turned professional race car driver. His results included 4 top-10 finishes. Muniz averaged 2 gained races positions at every race event. Major sponsors for the 2008 season included King Taco, Hard Rock Hotel, Mechanix, and Meguiar's.


2009 season

With the partnership with Pacific Coast Motorsports dissolving in 2009, US RaceTronics signed Atlantic Championship series regular
Simona de Silvestro Simona de Silvestro (born 1 September 1988) is a Swiss people, Swiss-Italians, Italian racing driver, who is currently employed by Porsche as a factory driver. She has previously driven for Andretti Autosport, Amlin Andretti in the 2015/16 seaso ...
and resigned Frankie Muniz to compete in the 2009 season. Imran Safiulla joined the team as Team Principal and together with Seneviratne the team signed Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, FireSky as Major Sponsors and Mechanix and Meguiar's rejoined the team. The team underwent a name change to Team Stargate Worlds. ''
Stargate Worlds ''Stargate Worlds'' (abbreviated as ''SGW'') was to be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) video game, but it was put on hold and never released. It was developed by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment (CME) in association with M ...
'' was the name of a then-upcoming
massively multiplayer online game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, although t ...
that was scheduled to be released by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment. Both de Silvestro and Muniz portrayed characters in the game. De Silvestro participated in an IndyCar Series test on December 8 and 9 at Sebring, a joint effort between
HVM Racing HVM Racing was an auto racing team owned by Keith Wiggins that competed in the IndyCar Series. It competed in the Champ Car World Series in 2007 as Minardi Team USA when it was co-owned by Paul Stoddart. It has a long history of changes of owner ...
and Team Stargate Worlds.


References


External links


US RaceTronics Official WebsiteOfficial Website of the Atlantic Championship Series
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100328113234/http://www.atlantic-championship.com/ , date=2010-03-28 American auto racing teams WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams Atlantic Championship teams Auto racing teams established in 2004 Mercedes-Benz in motorsport