Ray Evernham, a NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee, and Rob Kauffman have officially joined forces to form IROC Holdings LLC, a joint venture company, and have acquired the rights to the iconic IROC brand. IROC Holdings will seek out the revival of the brand beginning in 2024.
The idea of reviving the IROC brand, and the acquisition of the brand by Evernham and Kauffman was a process that took a few months to pull off.
“It was conversations over the last several months and we just kind of looked into it, and just started working on it, and it took more time than I think we thought [it would],” Det Cullum of IROC Holdings said of the acquisition of the IROC brand to TobyChristie.com. “But we finally made the deal to do it. It’s just one of those things that both Rob and Ray are passionate about.”
According to a press release, which was distributed on Monday morning, the joint venture intends to have an IROC racing event in 2024, which would mark the first IROC event in 18 years, and the current plan is to feature historic IROC race cars in the race.
Racing executives @RayEvernham and @kauffmanrob form joint venture, acquire iconic IROC brand. Give us a follow to be the first to know about future developments! pic.twitter.com/aK6K46wDiC
— IROC (@irocofficial) January 8, 2024
When asked what the end goal was for the joint venture company, Cullum told TobyChristie.com that any thoughts past the one race planned in 2024 would be a “pie in the sky kind of thing.”
The International Race of Champions (IROC) was a racing series, that held events in 30 seasons between 1974 and 2006 and included a star-studded lineup of drivers from all forms of motorsports in the series. Following the 2006 season, IROC faded away, but the memory of the special series has remained in the minds of race fans.
For Evernham, the IROC brand also means a great deal as he started his professional motorsports career, which led to him recording three NASCAR Cup Series championships (1995, 1997, and 1998) as a crew chief for Jeff Gordon, as a chassis specialist for IROC at the age of 26.
Evernham has an extensive collection of original IROC race cars, including a large collection of the Chevrolet Camaros, which were utilized in the series in the 1970s. According to a representative with IROC Holdings, the plan at this time is for the IROC event to feature the IROC 1970s Chevrolet Camaro race cars.
Evernham showed off some of his IROC car collection on X, formerly Twitter, in a post back on September 12th:
Lining up some IROC history pic.twitter.com/IPxJk0J3tD
— ray evernham (@RayEvernham) September 13, 2023
A date for the event, a location for the race, and a list of drivers who will compete in the race are unknown at this time. The purpose of Monday’s announcement was simply to let the world know that the IROC brand is officially back and that it is in capable hands with Evernham and Kauffman steering the ship.
