Nordschleife

Well that was a terrible weekend for Porsche!

Panoz won in Atlanta, beating 8 GT3s, including some very serious entries

and

TVR had a 1-2 at Spa in the Le Mans Endurance Series 1,000 Km race beating 6 GT3s

Panoz, TVR - what is the world coming to........

R+C

trumperZ06

Competition is GOOD for racing!!!

It's nice to see other marques now able to challenge the Porsche juggernaut!

mdbickell

Porsche has been so dominant the last few years that sometimes it seemed like ALMS was starting to look like a 1-make series with a couple other makes filling in as backmarkers. As Trumpeter said, competition is good. If Porsche starts to feel some pressure from Panoz & TVR, then they'll respond w/ a faster development cycle.

I love watching competition and Porsche just happens to be my favorite marque... but I really watch because of the competition.

Look at what happened in F1 w/ Ferrari. They made it almost unbearable to watch because there was no competition. This season, on the other hand, is much more interesting.

Lastly, props to the little guys... Panoz and TVR.

painkiller

Was anyone else surprised by the black flag for the GT3 in the ALMS race? Don Panoz owns Road Atlanta, obviously the Panoz car company, and has a controlling interest in ALMS. I saw the incident as a racing accident and while I have nothing against Panoz I dont think the officials should have thrown the black flag. I saw it as a homer call.

Noel

I was actually waiting for the black flag and not surprised. From the aerial view it looked like the GT3 turned into the rear of the Panoz on purpose. Hard to tell. It was a great fight up until that point. I look forward to seeing more close battles as the season continues.

JBH

The black flag was deserved. There was enough time to execute the pass, but the driver seemed to get impatient and forced the issue.

Besides, it was good to see some competition. I like the Panoz

JohnnyBahamas

It was a racing accident... if it had been anything else IMSA would have hung Timo. IMSA and the ACO are VERY serious folks. IMSA's iron rule gives the ALMS as much credibility as the ACO's involvement. Dr. Panoz, as creator of the ALMS, would know that IMSA's involvement is priceless.

I would encourage everyone who doesn't have one already, and who loves professional racing, to consider supporting IMSA by getting a membership at www.imsaracing.net. They make it all possible.

BrandonH

At least they are renewing their commitment to serious racecars...

http://www.americanlemans.com/News/A...spx?NewsID=932

I don't follow the series as closely as I wish I could, but had the following thoughts for those who do:
1) Is Porsche rattled by the success of Rolex/Grand-Am, where the Daytona prototypes are too spec-racer for their marketing purposes? The NASCAR model is all about the sponsor's brand, with little differentiation between equipment. That isn't helpful to Porsche's market postioning.
2)Is Penske equally worried about the the France/Nascar hegemony extending too successfully across other series? By all accounts this year's Daytona was one of the greatest IROC-like matchups ever, I'm sure sorry I missed it. Is this Roger coming out against the nascar-ization of other series?

Bob C.

1) I doubt it. Thus far, Grand-Am's success has been in car counts, not in fan turnout. Perhaps that will change in time, but until it does, I suspect Porsche is quite happy having its cars where its fans (and future customers) are tuned.
2) Keep in mind that Penske has a NASCAR team. Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman each run a Penske Racing South Dodge in Nextel Cup. Also, keep in mind that Grand-Am is the France family's series. Penske is a shrewd businessman, and if he sees an opportunity for his sponsors, he'd be remiss to pass on it. I suspect if Marlboro said, "Let's do a Daytona Prototype program in Grand-Am. Here's $10 million for the first year," Penske would say, "OK."

Bob C.

Counterpoint: Porsche has now lost exactly twice in ALMS GT2 (formerly GT) competition since the end of 2001. With race outcomes a foregone conclusion, GT2 ran the risk of boring its fans into oblivion. That's all changed.

Now, Porsche gets to stare down a legitimate nemesis. Even better, the nemesis gets to play the role of Riesentoter, a role that Porsche perfected almost a half-century ago. Make no mistake; this will be fun to watch, and I suspect Porsche will have a few tricks up its sleeve to keep the rear-engine cars in the front and the front-engine cars in the rear.

Regarding TVR and Spa... I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from that. The TVRs were 1 and 1.7 seconds off the GT2 pole respectively. Race conditions coupled with mechanical problems and a wreck by the lead Porsches all were contributing factors to the TVR victory. Yes, it was an excellent showing by the TVRs, but I don't think they're near the threat to the GT3 RSRs as are the Esperantes.

FWIW. IMHO. YMMV. etc...