Callaway Competition USA team owner Reeves Callaway says his team’s expansion to North America was the logical next step, after a decade of success in Europe.

The team won the 2013 ADAC GT Masters Drivers’ Championship with newly-announced PWC driver Daniel Keilwitz and notched the Teams’ Championships in the series last season to go along with numerous other wins and accolades in European competition.

Callaway’s recent announcement that it would be bringing its homegrown Corvette C7 GT3-R stateside represents a breakthrough into the North American market.

According to Callaway, the lengthy list of accomplishments in GT Masters made the decision to bring the program to North America all the more attractive.

The team is in the process of acquiring U.S.-specific equipment will operate out of Callaway Cars West in Temecula, Calif.

Callaway noted the team had long planned on bringing the Corvette GT3-R to North America and jumped at the chance when it first become a possibility.

“Our condition [with GM] was that we don’t bring the Corvette to North America during Cadillac’s presence,” he said. “We just needed to wait for the sunset of the Cadillac program.

“It’s the natural market for the car. The fan base, the interest level, the iconic American sports car, and our 40 years of working with GM on the road car side made it logical.”

Expansion to IMSA a Possibility for 2019

While focused on its two-car factory PWC effort next year, Callaway hasn’t ruled out seeing Corvette GT3-Rs in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD class by as early as 2019.

It’s understood GM has given the constructor permission to sell cars for competition in the class, while IMSA President Scott Atherton told Sportscar365 that Callaway entries would fall under its existing relationship with the Detroit automaker.

Callaway has laid out plans to scale back its involvement as a factory team following next year, in order to focus on customer sales for both PWC and potentially the WeatherTech Championship.