C.J. Ichiban

I saw him last weekend, he sure did look like racing was catching up with him

who will the new guard be?

OG- don't answer that.

viperbob

The Porsche factory has focused almost all of their attention on the Penske effort while sacrificing help to all the other ALMS / Rolex teams running 997 Cupcars (wonder why RSRs are no longer competitive against Ferraris?). I think this in a way is a good thing that will help the Porsches get back to the Podiums in something other than a P2 car.

Spyderidol

Here is an interesting article:http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=312187

Antonov

Earlier this season when asked why Penske isn't attending La Mans, Roger responded by saying that they have no chance of taking overall at the 24hours, so they spent that month developing the car to be as competitive as possible for the remainder of the 08 ALMS season. Perhaps Porsche isn't satisfied with class wins, and wants to concentate on consistently fighting for overall victory, especially at Le Mans.

.02

OldGuy

Surely someone else besides Flozell Adams!

COuldnt help it CJ

Cory M

Didn't a 911 just win the ALMS GT2 championship??

and another World Challenge GT championship?

I agree that 911's aren't dominating as much as they used to in GT2 but the competition is good. Expect it to get a lot tougher for Porsche with Factory BMW and Corvette's entering GT2 next year.

Cory M

Didn't 2 Spyders compete at Lemans this year? Didn't one of them win LMP2??

Cory M

Did you guys actually watch any races this year???

OldGuy

Cory I watched every race I could on Speed (including LeMans and Petite LeMans)and Fox and TNT and ABC and ESPN and even went to a NASCAR race at Fontana and the ALMS race at Long Beach and I cant remember if Michael Waltrip won Petite Lemans or Helio CastroNevies got out of Jail to run the 42 car at Daytona!!!!

Cory M

I heard a rumor that Waltrip and Helio were teaming up for the Daytona 24 in a Penske Hybrid COT

LA964RS

Porsche has a lot on their plate to launch a new very expensive Panamerica.....remember when they were developing & launching the Cayenne? No racing, no nothin.....they are introducing a luxury car in the worst possible market. A market which will drastically reduce sales at Porsche and VW.....

I'm guessing (and have been told) Penske will only run 24 of Daytona.....

By the way, things are not good in Charlotte for any and all of the teams. The market is going to drastically redefine what NASCAR properties are worth here over the next 24 months and it will certainly be a shock to the owners/drivers....they are currently so overvalued as a marketing buy its not even funny. I think you are going to see a significant dip in dollars to teams and a HUGE dip of fans in seats. Now w/HD....why go to the races, especially when cost will be a giant determining factor for most znascar fans. The networks are going to be loving it as the TV #s will be very good so they should be able to move their ad inventory....Nielsen raitings however still won't push the needle for sponsors to spend w/the teams....its gonna rain and rain hard on NASCAR....so if it rains on Nascar, then open wheel and sports cars will drown...sorry for the gloom and doom, but it is what it is....

mjb

Yep, if Nascar and F1 are ringing alarm bells then it won't bode well for the lesser series....

RSA333

Folks-

Having once served at IMSA, and knowing the demographics - there couldn't be a larger discrimination between NASCAR fans and fans of "the lesser series".

Quite the opposite - Formula One, which is not that popular in the USA, has much more overlap with fans of the sports car series. However, F1 may also be in trouble...

mjb

I think the main issue is sponsorship and ad $$, not necessarily paying fan base (although that may suffer as well)...

944CS

Porsche RS Spyder team members have a job until Dec. 31st of this year, after that it is uncertain, some will probably move to the DP team
Penske will run a V-8 Powered Porsche in DP to win overall at Daytona