Among the popular benefits of a membership in the Sports Car Club of America is a subscription to SportsCar magazine, the official publication of the SCCA that is a sister publication to RACER produced out of the same offices here at Racer Media & Marketing. And for many years, an additional perk that goes along with that subscription has been the annual SportsCar wall calendar, which ships polybagged with the February issue of the magazine now making its way to the club's members. For 2013, though, SCCA members have a special treat in store – a 13-month thematic journey through the club's rich past and present, as well as a look toward the future.

"This is the first time we've done a theme for the calendar," explains SportsCar Associate Editor Jason Isley. "In the past we've tried to choose great photos and the winners from significant events – the Solo Nationals, the SCCA Runoffs, the Rallycross Nationals. This year wasn't really about that – it was about people who've done significant things in the club or who started in the SCCA and moved on to other things.

"We sat down and thought about who were the heroes of the club – but we didn't just want to focus on people from the past. First, because there are so many past heroes that you couldn't possibly narrow it down effectively, but you've also got the folks who are out there doing it now who are already at hero status, as well as the people who are going to be heroes in the future. So we tried to take a sampling from across the club, all the different disciplines."

The selection was also about great images, drawing on the archives of some of the top lensmen in American motorsports.

"Pete Lyons helped out a lot – he's got a great archive,"  Isley notes. "The Bondurant Collection had some really good stuff, Tom Schultz – who's one of our contributors but also works with the Road America archives – had some great images. Rupert Berrington, Mark Weber – some of these folks have been doing this as long as the racers, so they have great archives to choose from."

That didn't make the selection process any easier, of course...

"It was challenging – with Mark Donohue, for example, do you go with a Can-Am or a Trans-Am car?" Isley adds. "Eventually we decided this car [the epic 1100hp Can-Am Porsche 917/30 featured in January, ABOVE] was the right call. Some of the others were easier – Roger Johnson [a legend of National Solo competition] is always associated with Corvettes, so that was a no-brainer.

"We ended up with 13 people – so we're ready to go through January 2014!"

Captions provide information about all the cars and stars presented, while the calendar also lists the dates of major SCCA race events during each month. So, it's a useful tool as well as a enjoyable stroll down Memory Lane.

Associate Publisher Steve Bottom added his thanks to the calendar's sponsors for helping make it all possible.

"We would like to thank The Bondurant School of High Performance Driving [www.bondurant.com], Brembo [www.racetechnologies.com], Mazdaspeed [www.mazdamotorsports.com] and Tire Rack [www.tirerack.com], Presenting Sponsors of the 2013 SportsCar calendar," Bottom noted. "None of this would have been possible without their enthusiastic support and encouragement."

• SportsCar magazine is the official publication of the Sports Car Club of America, and a subscription is part of the membership benefits. To learn more about the SCCA and to become a member, visit SCCA.com.