A.Wayne

based on the current tube chassis Mazda's and Pontiacs maybe BMW should bring this tube chassis beasty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Cab...eature=related

Bri Bro

It is a three rotor engine, the street RX-8 is a two rotor design. That car was shooting out flames every time the throttle closed.

"fire-belching 20b rotary under the hood had to be the icing on the cake! According to Steve the 3-rotor is making approximately 350 horsepower"

http://www.triplezoom.com/news/publi...nter_311.shtml

jaholmes

That caught my attention too. I had to pause/rewind a few times to make sure they didn't stutter.

Flying Finn

I love close competition and don't want to see different color Porsches race each other (Supercup) but it's friggin frustrating and ridiculous bull**** to have to watch some crappy Mazda go by Porsche on a straighaway and outbrake them!

mdrums

I was washing my 997S this afternoon and a guy in my neighborhood has a hoped up RX8 that I kinda know a little so he drives buy and yells out at me Zoom Zoom Zoom! ARRRGH!

fastmover

1st off the gt3 platform is long in the tooth today, the current version is not much different then the 1st version, from a chassis standpoint. Both tubs from the 996 and 997 series are very close, the suspension design is also very close, only slight changes through the years. For a motorsport application it is due for a redesign entirely. Porsches reliability is slipping also, as witnessed today. Porsche is having a tough time against the newer cars racing today. Speedsource's car is at a great advantage with the tube frame. their chassis's are not dictacted by production tub designs, better weight distribution etc. Speedsource also used to run Porsches back in 2001 and 2002, they won Grand Am cup championships for car , team and driver. Sylvain and Dave are very talented and have lots of race victories to validate their performance. They would be successfull in any make car IMO. Porsche needs to wake up and get ahead of the game, maybe supply a tube chassis with a lower power output to compete or redesign the suspension and chassis all together, if they dont in 2-3 more years the 911 will not be competitive.

Semper fi.

bgiere

Grand-Am is not going to allow the Rolex series to become a "Porsche Supercup race"...to that end they will allow Mazda and Pontiac to use tube frame cars. I really can't stand to see a Riley built Mazda pulling a 997 Cup on the staights. Hey, at least they beat the Pontiacs! I will watch an ALMS race over a Grand Am race any day.

mdrums

I took a bunch of pictures at the race. Here is that fire breathing Mazda!

Flying Finn

+1

Gator_86_951

The street Rx-8 and the car they were running this weekend, as stated here, are not related really at all. My hatch is essentially as fast and a whole lot more fun to drive than a street Rx-8.

IIRC the mazdas didn't finish last year, correct?

Nifty

I am sitting here thinking why I even go the the Rolex anymore. I guess it is fan friendly and all, but I wonder if all the rule changes over the years have not really achieved the goal the "Grand Am" people were hoping for.

I've noticed over past recent years the flavor of the 24 is moving more and more to NASCAR. Last year every yahoo waited in line hours to get Jeff Gordon's autograph. I saw Montoya walk right past a gaggle of onlookers who were waiting on Jeff to pop out of the truck, They didn't even know who he (Montoya) was. This year they were lined up - all decked out in their "NASCAR" gear, waiting on Pruett to show up. And of course, there is a ton of Daytona 500 stuff for sale everywhere you look.

Nothing against NASCAR, but the 24 isn't what it used to be.

The DPs are boring. This year there were only 5 Porsche powered DPs. I recall the whole idea behind DP was to make it more affordable. BS. All it's done is allow any team to run a cheap car. No technology, no innovation.

And the GTs, well we did have a Ferrari.

Thankfully there is AMLS.

MTosi

If I read correctly I saw that they had 5 1/2 hours of caution mostly during the night when they weren't on air. That would make it the 18 1/2 hours of daytona. Im getting fed up with the absurd amounts of cautions they throw it takes away alot of the endurance aspect. It was sort of like the second year of the DP's and they had a 8 hour red flag and yet only 2 DP's finished ahead of the GT's and had they let the race stay green the porsches would have definatley won that year.

vladie22

those RX8's are ear piercingly loud too. my ears are still ringing from 2 days of hearing those things go by .

Bryan Watts

Thankfully there is ALMS AND Grand-Am. I love both series. Racing is racing. ALMS is more car technology focused, Grand-Am is more team and driver focused. The number of quality drivers and teams and race car builders competing in Grand-Am is proof enough that it's a good concept whether the "snobbish" portion of road racing fans want to admit it or not.

500

I think it is going a little far to label people who don't like the Grand-Am format as snobbish.

If you are into racing to see car manufacturers battling it out in classes that at least try to have relatively equal footing amongst the class competitors, than you may simply prefer ALMS. Whether you feel it is “better” than Grand-Am or vice-versa is a personal, subjective observation.

For me personally, I much prefer ALMS. And it has nothing to do with snobbery.

EDIT: And I am not thrilled that there is Grand Am AND ALMS, as sportscar racing is far too fractured as it is IMO.