SRO Still Planning ‘GTX World Tour’ Road Shows

Photo: Porsche

SRO Motorsports Group is still planning to organize its ‘GTX World Tour’ despite COVID-related delays in the festival-like road shows that will feature cutting-edge electric and other alternative-powered vehicles in road and race environments.

Announced in July 2019, events were due to start in 2021 in Europe prior to road shows rolling out in both North America and Asia.

Ratel has clarified that he now is targeting to organize its first “demo” event in Europe sometime next year.

“It’s a work-in-progress,” he told Sportscar365. “It was absolutely impossible to do this year. The whole thing is about exposure and [involving] the public. 

“We postponed it and we will continue to work on it. The goal is to do a short demo in 2022 and the first big event in 2023.”

The events will be open to production-based and concept EVs that will travel as a group around a specified region over the course of seven days.

“You start in the central square in a big city, as central, historic and beautiful as possible,” Ratel said. “You drive with GPS and have regularity, efficiency with how much you do on the battery and everything.

“Then you arrive at a small circuit where you do a short race. It would be a 15-minute race.”

Ratel explained that SRO will utilize Enel X’s JuiceRoll charging infrastructure, initially developed for MotoE, during the stops along the way.

“They are charged on the grid,” he said. “Instead of waiting three hours to charge your car, you charge in a half hour.

“You get back the power during lunch and you then do a rally stage one day, a short hill climb another day and then you continue.

“Eventually you find a place to recharge on the normal grid on the road. Then you arrive to another central square where the JuiceRoll is out there, charge for the night and then go back for the next day.”

Ratel said he’s hoping to attract OEMs with concept EVs to take part in the events, to help promote high-performance electric vehicle technology.

“Ideally they need to be concept cars from the manufacturers,” he said. “The idea is to make people dream about electric and hydrogen cars that can have fantastic looks and power.”

Whether GTX could expand into a more track-focused competition in the future remains to be seen.

Ratel said he did not place a tender for the FIA’s Electric GT Championship as electric racing “can’t be customer racing.”

“With these cars, we say can there be a bridge between the two,” he said. “It’s still very much in infancy. We’re discussing with all of the stakeholders to see what can be done. 

“But the concept is definitely there.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John