Aston Martin is serious about its return to racing in North America. Last year, it returned to the American LeMans series with the Aston Martin DBR1-2 prototype, winning at Long Beach, Mosport, Mid-Ohio, Road America and Laguna Seca. This year, Aston Martin will also run two cars in the Gran-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC).

Built and campaigned by Toronto-based partner Multimatic Motorsports, the Aston Martin Vantage GT4 racer will be based on the V8 Vantage.

The V8 Vantage is a great starting point for a CTSCC racer, as the car already utilizes a bonded aluminum chassis and a race-proven 4.7-liter V-8 engine. While new to racing in North America, the Vantage GT4 was successful in both European endurance racing and in the European GT4 Cup Series.

Multimatic Motorsports is no stranger to victory lane, having taken the series championship in 2002, 2005 and 2008. They’re a long-term Aston Martin partner as well, supplying the Gaydon, England automaker with the carbon-fiber chassis for the One-77 supercar, as well as producing carbon-fiber components for the V12 Vantage Zagato.

Multimatic will campaign two cars in the 2012 season, including a lead car driven by Scott Maxwell and Joe Foster. The second car will be driven by actor and pro driver Patrick Dempsey and Aston Martin’s chief engineer (and veteran GT4 racer) Chris Porritt.

Aston Martin isn’t the only maker looking to score big in the Grand-Am series this season, as Audi has announced it will run an R8 LMS in the series and Ferrari will be campaigning its own 458 Italia. There’s even Daytona Prototype Corvettes running in 2012, which means that the new season won’t just be more of the same from 2011.

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