Aston Martin Racing is expanding the Vantage GT4’s career by sending it over the pond to race in the 2012 Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.

They’ve appointed Multimatic Motorsports as their American partner to campaign two GT4s in the CTSCC series. The Canadian firm is also the maker of the carbon fibre chassis for the exclusive One-77 supercar, as well as carbon fibre components for the V12 Vantage Zagato.

The lead car will be driven by Multimatic regulars and proven race-winners Scott Maxwell and Joe Foster. They also have a movie star onboard. Grey’s Anatomy’ Patrick Dempsey, a talented racer in his own right, will drive the second car, partnered in the opening round of the series by Aston Martin Chief Engineer and vastly experienced Vantage GT4 racer Chris Porritt.

The Vantage GT4 has years of successful European campaigns in its portfolio, including numerous 24 Hour class victories, the 2010 European GT4 Cup title, back-to-back championship victories in the Nürburgring-based VLN series in 2010 and 2011. Aston hopes the Vantage makes a good career in America as well.

Based on the V8 Vantage production car, it’s powered by the same 4.7 liter V8 and has the same manual transmission and suspension design. It is in fact the road-going car if you strip away the racing body and roll bars, and put some leather on the dashboard.

About CTSCC:

The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge is run by the Grand American Road Racing Organization. The 2012 calendar takes in some of North America’s most iconic circuits over ten races, which run for two and a half hours with a mandatory driver change. The series kicked off with an official test session at the Daytona International Speedway on January 6-8, ahead of the prestigious opening round at the same circuit on January 27, which will be held as a support race to the legendary Rolex 24 at Daytona. Aston Martin will compete in the headlining Grand Sport category, which is contested by six- and eight-cylinder production-derived sports cars.