STARS Lowe's Premier Series

From Super Touring Auto Racing Series
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The Super Touring Auto Racing Series was founded in 1978 between lifelong friends Graham Truro and Mitchell Montgomery. Starting off a series that ran mainly on short tracks in the north of the United States of America, the series had started off running 10 races per season from 1978 and 1983, but took off once it caught the recognition of Daniel Miller, a famed stock car champion from the late 1970’s. Miller made the move over to the series, and the series gained its first live television contract in 1985, where 5 of the 26 scheduled events were televised. In 1988, the series had ventured onto larger ovals, such as Michigan International Raceway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, as well as a largely successful event at the prestigious Daytona International Speedway.

In 1991, when fighting for the lead for the series biggest event, the season opening 300 miler at the New York Autoring, Jack Hamlin and Kevin Miller brought the series to the attention of the mainstream media when they recorded the closest finish in the series, separated by just 0.002 seconds. Miller was crowned the victor. The 1991 season was the first fully televised season, and the series was given a national television contract after a stellar season. The series has remained on national television until the modern day, earning fans nationally and internationally year by year. Unfortunately, the series was plagued with its first fatality at the Daytona International Speedway in 1997 when Daniel Miller was turned on the backstretch. Miller’s car had no brakes, and he hit the inside wall at speeds over 200 miles per hour. Miller died on impact. After the accident, the series worked hard over the off season to create a new car design more suitable for larger ovals and road courses. The 2nd Generation STARS Stock Tourer was introduced in 1999, and has been in place since, with safety enhancements regularly being introduced.

The series has recently boomed into an international phenomenon after Haani el-Bashir, a successful entrepreneur and avid motorsport enthusiast from the United Arab Emirates placed a large investment into the series in 2008. Since then, the series has expanded, running races in the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, and with other destinations planned in the future. The most recent season saw the series’ first female champion when Matilda Dillinger took home the championship in a dramatic season finale, beating team owner and mentor Ben Atkins with a last lap pass to earn the title by 2 points. Dillinger was only the first rookie to earn the title, and also became the youngest champion, aged only 19 years and 28 days old. After the passing of Mitchell Montgomery in a road traffic accident in 2000, Graham Truro has been the Executive of STARS by himself, but will step aside from his role, with his son Ryan taking the seat. Ryan, a former racer, and the 1991 champion of STARS, has worked for the series since his retirement in 2005, and now steps up to plate as executive. Ryan Truro has taken little time to act, introducing the STARS Playoffs for 2017.

Appropriately, the 2017 season was be the first where STARS’ full season was broadcast internationally, with the series being broadcast in the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France, Spain, Germany among other countries. In total, 26 countries were able to watch the full season live from their television.