In the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge - Street Tuner class, Mazda won the 2011 Manufacturer's Championship by 26 points over VW, BMW, KIA, Mini, Honda and Porsche. The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series features straight-from-the-showroom American muscle cars and the hottest imports.

Freedom Autosport and i-MOTO Racing led the Zoom-Zoom charge with multiple MAZDASPEED3s and MX-5s at every race. Both teams took Mazda to the winner's circle and delivered a total of three race wins and ten podium-finishes from ten races, including a 1-3 finish in the series' finale at the Mid-Ohio Sports car Course.

Matthew and Mark Ponbo in the #31 i-MOTO MAZDASPEED3, who scored 2nd at Homestead and 3rd at Road Atlanta, finally won at Mid-Ohio. The i-MOTO team is based in North Carolina and has a long-term relationship with MazdaSpeed. For the 2011 season, they entered the ST class of the Continental Tire Challenge series with a trio of Mazdaspeed3s. In the final round, held at Mid-Ohio, another Mazdaspeed3 took 3rd place.

Freedom Autosport campaigns two MX-5s and two MAZDASPEED3s in the Continental Tire Challenge series. After their 1-2 finish in the ST class of the series at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in July, Freedom Autosport's two MX-5s were poised to become the upstarts of the season. However, sheer bad luck would cause the Long/Whitis team to finish only 25th at Mid-Ohio. On the other hand, claiming the 4th spot was Freedom Autosport's Foss/Rampelberg pairing in the #27 Mazdaspeed3.

Even worse luck plagued the #31 i-MOTO MAZDASPEED3 seemingly all season long. Strong finishes by Matthew and Mark Pombo at Road America, Barber Motorsports Park and Homestead hinted at the team's true potential, but near-last-place finishes everywhere else kept them from Continental ST-class championship contention. Silencing the skeptics, the brothers Pombo took their elusive first win at Mid-Ohio.

Demonstrating just how much of a family sport racing can be, finishing 8th in the ST class of the Continental Tire Challenge series were brothers Jameson Riley and his younger sibling Andrew "AJ" Riley in the #66 Riley Racing Mazda RX-8, owned and operated by parents Jan and Chris Riley.