What are Innovation Race Cars?

Image - John Morris

Innovation Race Cars, Aussie designed and built, powered by a thumping V8 engine, and speed to rival GT3 machinery, what’s not to love?

While many readers may be unfamiliar with the name Innovation Race Cars (IRC), a lot will be aware of MARC Cars Australia which was created by well-known motorsport engineer Ryan McLeod.

MARC Cars Australia was officially founded in 2014 when McLeod formed an alliance with Paul Ceprnich, the founder of PACE Innovations, an engineering and fabrication company based in Queensland.

The original MARC I machines produced 550bhp through a 5.0L V8 Coyote engine, and fitted to a Ford Focus, Mazda 3 and BMW M235i Sedan silhouette.

The MARC II was faster and more powerful, 615bhp from a 5.2L quad-cam V8. The Mustang inspired MARC II is a full carbon body, with a paddle-shift operated Albins 6-speed transaxle gearbox. The aerodynamics also moved much closer to that of GT3 machinery.

In 2020 Geoff Taunton took over the business from McLeod and with him at the helm, the MARC GT was created.

This was the first car with no specific silhouette of a road car, the GT car was designed with a general European GT look.

Danny Stutterd drove one, and in a matter of a few months became the exclusive seller of the GT, now renamed the IRC GT.

“We saw an opportunity with an exceptional concept,” said Stutterd. “An Australian made race car that takes on the world’s best, with high performance at a fraction of the price and running cost of others. It made perfect sense and certainly has a place in the race car world.”

“After getting to drive the IRC GT, it made even more sense to take this opportunity.”

While Stutterd focuses on the financial side of the business, Ceprnich at Pace Innovations continues to be the technical director.

“We are ecstatic to have IRC look after the marketing, sales, and support of this new car as this will allow us to focus on what we do best, and that is to design and build race cars,” Ceprnich said when IRC jumped onboard.

“The sales and distribution business is not something we want to do, so we are very happy to team up with Danny.”

Image - John Morris

Stutterd firmly believes the IRC car is unique and is proud that the machine is locally built.

“There seems to be a gap in the market for fast cars to be affordable,” he said. “I think there's a real need in Australian motorsport, for affordability with a fast car.

“We see it as a big opportunity to fill that void, and we think the IRC cap does that perfectly.”

Stutterd has raced production cars, GT cars and Carrera Cup, but found the IRC GT particularly special.

“I had a drive of one some 12 months ago and fell in love with it for the whole concept of the speed, the ease, and the costs to race,” he recalled.

“So, I bought one, fell in love with it, and started selling them.”

This is the inaugural running of the Innovation Race Cars Series, as part of the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series program.

Entries are open to IRC GT, MARC I and MARC II cars. Two championships are being held, a three round sprint series, and three round endurance championship.

“I thought an IRC series was a great way to promote the car, and have some way to race them against identical machines,” Stutterd explained.

For more on the Innovation Race Cars Series click here.

The IRC GTs that will run in the series each have an LS3 6.2L V8 engine. Each engine has been dyno tested to produce a maximum power output of 550bhp at 6200RPM. Considering the car weights only 1125kg, it certainly packs a punch.

They deliver 705Nm at 5000rpm and have a maximum rpm of 6650.

The gearbox is a Holinger MFT six-speed sequential transaxle and is operated by a paddle shift with pneumatic shift barrel actuator.

The car runs on 98 octane, with 120L stored in the dual lift in-tank collector system.

It is a proper modern machine, fitted with a MoTeC M150 ECU with steering-wheel-selectable throttle and traction control mapping.

As previously outlined, the car is PACE Innovations designed and built chromoly space frame chassis with bolt-on front and rear axle carriers.

The suspension is double-wishbone front and rear and has adjustable camber, toe, ride height, droop, anti-roll bar anti-dive, roll centre and track; both front and rear. It even has adjustable steering ratio and bump steer.

“The IRC car is very close to the pace of a GT3 car,” Stutterd said gleefully. “The beauty of them is they're a lot easier to run, affordable and a lot less complicated.

“Certainly, the big flowing tracks is awesome for those cars. But the car is pretty versatile, it’s good anywhere, but certainly the big tracks, with the aero package is great fun.

“They’ve got an LS3 V8 in them, so they sound the part. There's a mix of GT performance and V8 Supercar sound.

“It has ABS and traction control, so it's got the GT features, but certainly got the look and sound of an Aussie built V8.”

It’s ironic that Stutterd would say that, as the category has opened its door to old spec GT3 machines and decade old V8 Supercars. The Supercars and GT3 cars will both be in separate classes competing for their own respective titles.

It is quite an adaptable car, with a few minor tweaks the car can be, and has been driven in Sport Sedans and even endurance racing, most notably the Dubai 24 Hour and Bathurst 12 Hour in the invitational class.

As a result, the car is a global hit.

“Currently we’ve sold 14, we're about to start car 15 in the next couple of weeks,” Stutterd said.

“We're probably looking to build or somewhere around 15 a year, but we can certainly push that up to somewhere near 25 a year, if the demand requires.

“There's approximately 14 in circulation at the moment, and more being sort of sold around the world to South Africa, America and New Zealand and really, what they'll see is pace very close to GT cars.”

The brand-new series, with along with the invited GT3 cars will next hit the track at Sydney Motorsport for the first Endurance round of the year.

If you can’t get trackside and watch the action in person you can tune in on live on SBS, Foxtel, Kayo, and for our international viewers on the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series livestream.

Written by Dan McCarthy