GOAL OF THE EVENT
As l explain in my last editorial, and based upon a strictly scientific econometric analysis, the structural economic crisis will be within six months much much sharper than it actually is. As I wish that as many European racers as possible can show at Toronto, I am searching financial means to help the poorer racers who cannot afford to pay the trip. In a normal situation I could have given those racers a loan without interest, so that they could make the trip. Unfortunately I am in deep financial problems: (1) my first lawyer, with who I worked a quarter century, has stolen most of my money (yes he's life long suspended now, but what I can buy with that, he wasted all my money in casinos); (2) I lost another big part of my money in the Fortis Bank crisis (shares went down from € 35 to less than 1 euro); (3) Belgian fiscal people blocked my lonely account with the rest of all my money. So I am absolutely out of cash now that several young racers need help. The here proposed BMW PROCAR GIANOTTI TROPHY is intended to fund the necessary loans for those racers who really need it.
As I explained earlier I am busy to put a new Formula BMW Series on the rails: Moneytron II. I was thus in a largely privileged position to negotiate with BMW Switzerland and BMW Austria to make a model car version of the PROCAR BMW M1 Memorial of 30 years ago. I achieved to materialise a concrete sponsoring deal of € 20,000 cash (could have been the double if I could have had two reigning sprint champions at the start). Half of that budget has already been paid to Michael Niemas to build 26 identical BMW M1 cars at scale 1/24th: a copy of the 26 BMW M1 race cars having been used in the 1979 PROCAR Series. Initially I believed that we could use the collection of Ronald Zaal, but sharper analysis learned that most of those cars - all falsely attributed to 1979 - never entered the 1979 PROCAR series. Having failed to get ISRA ES24 world champion Matti Fyhr at the start it was no longer opportune to waste the remaining sponsoring money on too much starting bonuses for scale racers or for moving IMCA's MTT track from Herentals to Mechelen (where we should have to pay the rent of the building). If we wish to obtain our goal with only half of the initially scheduled sponsoring budget, the best solution was (1) to restrict the number of invited scale racers with a starting bonus and (2) to organise the race in Herentals at the IMCA Model Car Centre, Nieuwstraat 31.

   PROCAR BMW SERIES ALLOWS TRUE MODEL CAR RACING
True model car racing is the reproduction at scale of races having been contested, or in the immediate past (e.g. the 2008 Petit Le Mans ALMS as contested in 2009 at the Toronto Endurance Worlds, or the Ferrari F430 Challenge Final of 2007 as contested at the Toronto 124 Sprint World Championship) or in the further past (e.g. The 1970 Le Mans 24 hours as contested at the 2005 Franco Gianotti Trophy at Aalst). In most cases the reproduction is only partly perfect as not all cars in the original 1/1 race are present at the 1/24th reproduction (at the Petit Le Mans of Toronto not all GT1 and GT2 cars will be present; at the Le Mans race in Aalst only 32 of the 55 cars were present at the model car version).
If we consider all 1/24th models actually available, I see only two possibilities to organise the perfect model car race, nl. as a copy of the 1979-1980 PROCAR BMW series or as a copy of the IROC races of 1974-2006 in the States. Number of cars having been involved in those series was restricted and complete model car versions are easily available. Of the two the PROCAR series shows certainly a higher attraction than the IROC as famous F1 racers entered in 1979 and 1978 that PROCAR competition.  
PROCAR was thus - just as IROC - a one make series, pitting professional drivers of the F1 World Championship. Jochen Neerpash, head of the competition division of BMW Motorsport GmbH, was the father of the initiative. For that competition, having started in 1979, the street version of the BMW M1 was tuned to a 3.5-litre Group 4 version with 470bhp instead of the original 277bhp, allowing a top speed of 311 kph and an acceleration from 0-100 kph in 4.2 seconds. BS Fabrications constructed five cars for the BMW Factory team, in the course of the season four more. Cars for other competitors were constructed by the British Project Four team of Ron Dennis (38) and by Squadra Osella Corse (2), using themselves a car in competition, and selling the other cars to such teams as GS Tuning, Schnitzer, Tom Walkinshaw Racing, Max Eggenberger, Max Heidegger, Alimpo Sport, etc. Price of the car was up to $ 60,000. The winner of the series received a new BMW M1 Group 4.
The races - no longer than a half hour - were contested as curtain raiser to the European F1 Grand Prix in the mid-season. The five best qualifiers at the Friday F1 qualification session received a works BMW M1 and could - irrespective of their qualification time with the M1s - always start from the five first places on the grid. As the cars used special Goodyear tyres several Formula One drivers were not allowed to compete due to contractual obligations with competing tyre manufacturer Michelin.  As Scuderia Ferrari and Renault raced on Michelin and were selling road cars themselves, they did not allow their Formula One drivers to participate. The other cars went to famous drivers of road racing (among them several ex-F1 drivers and several later F1 drivers). In 1979 e.g. twelve F1 racers of that year entered the PROCAR Series. For Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari) and for Jean-Pierre Jabouille and René Arnoux (Renault) such was, however, forbidden by their employer.  
The BMW M1 was intended to be a direct opponent to the Porsche 935 in Group 5 racing. Unfortunately the FIA changed the rules by requiring 400 copies of each car before they could be tuned to Group 5 cars. When BMW eventually had manufactured its 400 cars Group 5 racing was replaced by Group C racing, so that it never came to a direct opposition between the Porsche 935 and the BMW M1 Group 5 (except at the 1981 Nürburgring 1000-kms, where a BMW M1 Group 5 won the race when it was flagged off after 2h16min due to the fatal accident of Switzerland's Herbert Muller.