After a shaky start to the 2011 World Challenge series season, Cadillac‘s CTS-V Coupe race cars finally showed some promise over the weekend at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. Drivers Johnny O’Connell and Andy Pilgrim finished fourth and fifth in the GT Class, helping both drivers move up the standings in the Championship race, and landing Cadillac second in the manufacturers points category.

As impressed as we are with the team’s effort, we’re perhaps more enthused by the selection of photos the team managed to gather from the scenic track. Browse the gallery of car porn below and watch for the V coupes to make their next run at the podium on the May 20-24 weekend at Mosport International Raceway.

GALLERY: Cadillac CTS-V Coupe Race Cars

As Cadillac gets ready for its return to racing this weekend, they’ve now quietly rolled out the first three installments of the ‘Refueled: The Return of the CTS-V’ YouTube miniseries.

The series profiles the creation of the cars, their testing and includes more insights on the team and drivers, with Andy Pilgrim driving the No.8 and Johnny O’Connell the No.3 car.

Set to take on everything from Vipers to Volvos in the GT class, the first race of the 2011 SCCA World Challenge series starts this weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla. And the best news, is, while in the past you’d have to wait at least two weeks to watch it on the NASCAR-obsessed SPEED channel, now you’ll be able to watch it live streaming at www.world-challengeTV.com with two races this weekend, 11:55 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, March 26, and 4:35 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, March 27th.

Watch episode 1 through 3 after the jump and subscribe to Cadillac’s YouTube channel for updates here.:

Continue Reading…

Cadillac is currently testing its CTS-V Coupe race cars at Sebring International Raceway and has released a full selection of photos from the shakedown, helping to add more to our weekly car-porn collection.

Shown for the first time in official livery and driven by pilots Andy Pilgrim (No.8) and Johnny O’Connell (No.3), the cars are preparing for the starts of the SCCA World Challenge series in St. Petersburg, Fla., on March 25-27

“The driving is going very well,” O’Connell said. “We’re just learning how the car responds to different changes and we’re getting a lot of track data. With two full days of testing (Feb. 22-23), we’ll have a really good idea of how we’ll perform at the first race in St. Petersburg next month.”

We’ll be watching Cadillac’s return to World Challenge closely to see if the new coupes can dominate the series in the way the sedans used to.

GALLERY: Cadillac CTS-V Coupe Race Car

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Last year Chevrolet announced that it would retire its GT1 Corvette Racing team after dominating the class for close to a decade. In its place Chevy would run a lower-level GT2 team in a class that has become increasingly competitive.

This year the GT1s still ran in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) during the season opener at Sebring and then at Long Beach before heading off to France to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. There the team did Corvette Racing justice, taking the top spot on the podium in the last race the GT1 C6Rs would ever see. It also marked an astounding six class wins at Le Mans for Corvette Racing.

Now Corvette Racing has announced plans to return to the series on August 6th at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Two cars will take to the field to battle it out with Ferraris, Porsches and Vipers. Both cars will be piloted by familiar drivers, with Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen forming one team and Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin forming the other.

“For several years now, the competition in GT2 has been the closest and most competitive among all our classes,” said ALMS CEO Scott Atherton. “With the news of Corvette Racing’s official entry into the category at Mid-Ohio, the class quite possibly becomes the most diverse and competitive ever. It also serves as another example of the continued growth and success of the American Le Mans Series. Corvette never truly left, but it’s safe to say that they were missed by the countless participants at our Corvette Corrals and fans worldwide. We would like to be the first to officially say, ‘Welcome back!’”

The two car Corvette Racing GT2 team will race for the first time at Mid-Ohio from August 6-8th.

[Source: American Le Mans Series]