John H

A rumor circulating: Penske will shut down the ALMS program in 2009 and enter GA with two Dallara's.

Any substance to this or just another rumor?

I heard his contract with Porsche expires next year. Intereesting, but sure will leave a hole in ALMS.

MTosi

I have no doubt they will, especially if Acura is going to run a P1 as its rumored.... Once they've tasted overall victories there is no going back....

chrisp

a threat to get ALMS to bend on more favorable rules for the GT2 cars?

ajcjr

that would suck! Would porsche ever go P1? How about penske in GT2.

I was also reading on another website that the ACO wants to do away with GT2 and have GT3?

Alan G.

Wouldn't be a surprise. It would probably help sell some P2 Spyders. Its kinda hard to figure that Dyson would go in knowing that he would always have to compete with the Penske factory connection.

Jarez Mifkin

He's giving it all to me. Who wants to be my co-drover?

DrJupeman

Ugh, GA.

Alan G.

Right! Why G.A.? Unless some motor manufacturer is bringing in truck loads of money to kick something off.

Jarez Mifkin

hmmm.... A porsche powered Dallara that could run at Daytona and possibly win overall, like they used too....hmmmm Why would Porsche or Penske want to do that? That would be lunacy... hmmm...

Jarez Mifkin

wanna911

That would be really retarded, to get rid of GT2 and make GT3. Why not just change the rules in GT2? Because if all the racing sanctions that use ACO rulings change as well, then GT2 would cease to exist anyways and the name change would be for kicks.


On another note, I'm sick of Penske and his "make it so we can win overall or I'm not going". That really irritates me. They make different classes for a reason. It is exciting to watch the Spyders duke it out with the R10's but realistically, ALMS should be just like Lemans where the P2 cars cant hang with P1. Otherwise there is no need for two classes.

Veloce Raptor

BINGO.

Responded to your PM...

Bryan Watts

Probably because the teams and drivers all love the competition and the ability to compete for a championship with various chassis/motor configurations without having to be factory backed and factory controlled. Perhaps they, as an organization, enjoy developing and racing cars rather than serving as the support crew for a factory effort? I know that's some of the feedback I've heard from or about folks involved in GA.

Alan G.

That is very understandable, but unless Penske is just looking to do something different it does not seem consistant with his usuall racing M/O. Unless Porsche changes face and developes a V8, it would have to be for the competitive challange.

I don't mean it as a knock on G.A at all, but he has plenty of challange and competion in IRL and NASCAR. At this point in his career, I guess anything is possible.

Matt Marks

Anyone think that there's a chance that he would run GA with VW power? It might fit with a the Porsche/VW tie-in.

There's probably a motor that they could borrow from Audi to work with, and VW is trying to double or triple their sales her in the next couple of years...

BlueRiver86

GA is a joke, even in Rolex alot of the drivers just lack the ability. It's not the same level of competition as ALMS.