IMSA Racing
01-29-2018, 07:41 AM
#16
01-29-2018, 09:30 AM
#18
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Torque. Unless the RSR's were mic'ed up differently than in previous years, it sounded like they were turning at least 500 more revs at redline. If IMSA is going to try and balance the cars according to what their strengths would be under "unrestricted" rules, the Porsche is going to suffer from a lack of grunt. Not HP, torque. The Vettes are 5.5L, the Ferrari is a turbo, the Ford is a turbo, and the BMW is a turbo. If the BOP were perfect, they would be able to account for this, but it's not a perfect science so by having access to torque, you have another bullet in your gun that can keep you competitive if they botch the balancing. I saw an RSR battling the 67 Ford and coming on to the banking I couldn't believe how the Ford had closed. I figured the Ford would sail by but it never did. The RSR stayed in front, but the gap was smaller after it came on to the banking. This is the argument for a turbo engine, which Porsche shunned because 1) they considered it to be too complicated and heavy and 2) because they explicitly said IMSA and WEC were going to get better at balancing (this comment was made after the 2016 Le Mans 24 where Ford and Ferrari ran away after sandbagging).
This brings me to my next point where I can't help being a conspiracy theorist. Gannassi was the grand marshal, he's got 199 wins (and wouldn't a crown jewel race be a nice 200th), he has a history of being able to negotiate the BOP in IMSA better than his competitors (see the Lexus and BMW-powered prototype days), and Ford received BOTH a larger fuel tank and air restrictor before the race. To best illustrate the point, Ford retuned their engines prior to the the 2016 Le Mans to lower the IAT which gave them a boatload more power. They apparently had no idea how to keep temperatures in check prior to Le Mans, and oddly enough, the IAT's were something that the BOP didn't keep an eye on until after the race........ Either IMSA is really ****ing bad at their job or they were okay with giving a little more leeway to Ford during this particular race and figured "we can always go back and adjust later".
This brings me to my next point where I can't help being a conspiracy theorist. Gannassi was the grand marshal, he's got 199 wins (and wouldn't a crown jewel race be a nice 200th), he has a history of being able to negotiate the BOP in IMSA better than his competitors (see the Lexus and BMW-powered prototype days), and Ford received BOTH a larger fuel tank and air restrictor before the race. To best illustrate the point, Ford retuned their engines prior to the the 2016 Le Mans to lower the IAT which gave them a boatload more power. They apparently had no idea how to keep temperatures in check prior to Le Mans, and oddly enough, the IAT's were something that the BOP didn't keep an eye on until after the race........ Either IMSA is really ****ing bad at their job or they were okay with giving a little more leeway to Ford during this particular race and figured "we can always go back and adjust later".
01-29-2018, 09:47 AM
#19
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Watching it with my own two eyes I saw the fords just disappear on the banking. One example was a ford came out of the pits behind a Porsche that was on track and the ford caught and passed and gained a 4 second lead on the Porsche in 1 1/2 laps. And it wasn't just a driver or a ford it was all of them and both of them. They drove passed the Ferrari like it was standings still. Ford also had a faster fueling rig I understand. As I watched and looked at lap times etc the fords were consistently .5 to 1 seconds faster than everyone else. On every lap I checked. Once they came out of the infield it was game over.
01-29-2018, 09:52 AM
#20
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Also- regarding sales plummeting: http://press.porsche.com/more_about/statistics/
Not so much......
01-29-2018, 10:17 AM
#21
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I watched probably 12 hours, casually while around the house. Very clean racing, but really not a very interesting race this year.
Fox Sports running the same idiotic 3 commercials over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again made me want to eat my gun...
Still quite the spectacle, loved seeing Fernando get his feet wet, great drivers, etc.
PS - if you have never been in person, you really should attend one of these. It's really quite an amazing deal in person.
Cheers
Matt
Fox Sports running the same idiotic 3 commercials over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again made me want to eat my gun...
Still quite the spectacle, loved seeing Fernando get his feet wet, great drivers, etc.
PS - if you have never been in person, you really should attend one of these. It's really quite an amazing deal in person.
Cheers
Matt
01-29-2018, 10:26 AM
#22
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I enjoyed watching some of the race. Didn't sit glued for 24 hours, but I did enjoy watching when I did.
Tried to get the wife and kids to watch as well, but no luck.
Watched a couple of hours of it at Porsche Dealer on really big screen on Saturday afternoon.
Was nice to watch the race surrounded by a ton of new Porsches. I sat in most of them during the commercials.
Not a bad afternoon.
Tried to get the wife and kids to watch as well, but no luck.
Watched a couple of hours of it at Porsche Dealer on really big screen on Saturday afternoon.
Was nice to watch the race surrounded by a ton of new Porsches. I sat in most of them during the commercials.
Not a bad afternoon.
01-29-2018, 11:02 AM
#23
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Regardless, the start of the race where the Fords just disappeared and then there was a clump of the rest of the GTLM field was pretty indicative of how it went.
01-29-2018, 12:24 PM
#24
Porsche will figure this out and come to fight for the win with this mid engine design before long!!
01-29-2018, 01:18 PM
#26
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PS - if you have never been in person, you really should attend one of these. It's really quite an amazing deal in person.
01-29-2018, 01:46 PM
#27
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Germans do not know how to sand bag...They are too absolute and play by the rules theses days..Norbert Singer woulda found a loophole somewhere and exploited it to a T....They are also not Chummy with NASCAR like Good Ole Ganassi is. The Ford GT's have been sand bagging for two years now...It's pretty evident isn't it ?
01-29-2018, 01:50 PM
#28
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Damn is there any faster way to drive true fans away then to have or have a perception of favoritism one mark to another. Say it ain't so 
Rich
Rich
01-29-2018, 02:33 PM
#29
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I attended the race this past weekend (It's been 8 years since I last attended). I agree that everyone should go to this race at lease once. It is a great event with lots of freedom to roam the track and view the race from all angles including visiting the garages where the teams bring the cars for more serious repairs.
If you are part of PCA, they have a great Car Corral with several giveaways, refreshments, etc.
As for the racing, it was pretty uneventful. The positioning didn't swap much, the drivers almost appear to be playing nice, and the percentage of DNF's appear lower than previous years. Yes, it's more exciting for teams to be on the same lap and dicing it up in the last few moments. But after 24 hours of racing it really isn't expected to be that close. Being on the same lap is actually pretty impressive after that amount of time.
What I will say is there was a lot of consistency. Cars aren't breaking as much as they used to over the 24 hour period, and it says alot about their development over the years, and how conservative they are tuning the engines to meet hp requirements.
It will be interesting to see what plays out as the season goes on.
If you are part of PCA, they have a great Car Corral with several giveaways, refreshments, etc.
As for the racing, it was pretty uneventful. The positioning didn't swap much, the drivers almost appear to be playing nice, and the percentage of DNF's appear lower than previous years. Yes, it's more exciting for teams to be on the same lap and dicing it up in the last few moments. But after 24 hours of racing it really isn't expected to be that close. Being on the same lap is actually pretty impressive after that amount of time.
What I will say is there was a lot of consistency. Cars aren't breaking as much as they used to over the 24 hour period, and it says alot about their development over the years, and how conservative they are tuning the engines to meet hp requirements.
It will be interesting to see what plays out as the season goes on.
01-29-2018, 02:56 PM
#30
I attended an SAE event last year with the Ford GT development team (Ford and Multimatic execs) and they detailed the process that they went through to determine the specs for the car. They wanted to win LeMans specifically and initially looked at Mustang based concepts. They came to the conclusion that because of the BoP process, minimizing frontal area and the associated drag was paramount. Hence the Mustang based concepts wouldn't fly and they went for dedicated platform with an extremely low roofline (and lots of thru/underbody aero management). They definitely seem to excel on the longer faster tracks where higher speed drag is more important.
To the Vmax comparison above, it would be interesting to see how long each of the cars spends at their top speed as well. If the RSR has ample top end power, but a torque curve and aero deficient it may take them longer to hit top speed than some of the others.
To the Vmax comparison above, it would be interesting to see how long each of the cars spends at their top speed as well. If the RSR has ample top end power, but a torque curve and aero deficient it may take them longer to hit top speed than some of the others.