MTosi

So amatuers who aren't good enough at baseball should be able to just write a check and play in the MLB? If they want to go beyond club racing they should practice hard, develop their skills, get coaching, and get good enough to race against the world's best. If they don't have the talent, and work ethic, tough ****, if they enjoy racing they can continue club racing, that's the way rest of the professional sports world works. I wonder if CJ's around here and would like to comment, I'm he'd have something relevent to add.

Unfortunately (and obviously) you are correct, there would be about three teams in DP, two in GT, and Koni Challenge wouldn't exist. If that line of thinking continues, so will the fact that NO ONE gives two hoots about sportscar racing. Are we forever locked into sportscar racing being a rich mans game? I hope not, but if no one steps up to the plate, unifies, markets, and manages sportscar racing worldwide it will. People forget there was a time when sportscar racing was every bit as big as Formula One and there is nothing but alot of large ego's preventing it from happening again.....

Veloce Raptor

Liek it or not, that is not the way MLB has evolved, whereas it IS the way racing has evolved.

MTosi

I think devolved would be the more appropriate term...

Also don't get me wrong, in terms of GA Koni doesn't realy bother me. They don't come off as acting like they are a 100% pro series, with a field filled front to back with the worlds best drivers. They are just a relatively affordable, fun, semi pro series, with some very good drivers at the top end of the field. I'm referring more to DP, GT, and sportscar racing as a whole.

DrJupeman

Devolved? I haven't read everything in this thread, but it is my impression that gentleman racers have propped up sports car racing since the dawn of sports car racing.

Also, I will 2nd Lewis here: I don't care much for Grand Am and prefer ALMS.

kurt M

How do you expect drivers to get the experience they need to become a paid pro? DE for 20 years? advance enough to feel confident that you can drive well enough to at least not be a total roadblock then get some seat time and exposure to the teams. Some will shine and move up, some will just continue to pay until some other pastime strikes their fancy or they run out of fun money. Ether way the paid seats help cover the entire series.

38D

Come on. Dirk Werner, Spencer Pumpelly, Paul Edwards, Kelly Collins...there are legit good drivers in the GT ranks. The DP ranks have several former F1 guys that could compete at any level. And to say the DPs are typical Nascar technology crap is absurd. Are they fugly? Absolutely. But there is some legit technology in the car. The Porsche DP engine is basically a derivative of the RSR, does that make ALMS GT2 crap? It's a carbon fiber monococ. the brake are top notch unit from brembo. I would say the technology is somewhere a little above ALMS GT, but below P1/P2.

Btw, I prefer ALMS also, but I watch GA too. My only 2 complaints are: 1) silhouette cars in GT and the DPs all look the same.

Bryan Watts

You realize there are or have been "pay to play" drivers in F1, ALMS, and every other professional race series, right?

The comparison to other sports is silly. Every sport you mention has junior leagues that cost just a few $$ to play from age 5 and up and school leagues that are totally free, including college scholarships where players get even more experience before turning Pro. Racing has no such system. Even at the lowest levels, a race car driver "costs" $200K or more in operations costs a year before there is even any thought towards paying him/her. That money has to come from somewhere, and there's not enough sponsorship or fan $$ to cover those costs for all drivers in all series. Get rid of drivers who pay to play either with their own or sponsor $$ and most of the "best" racing goes away...World Challenge, Koni, Rolex, and probably even ALMS.

Bryan Watts

DP's are tube frame, not CF monococ. Not that there's anything wrong with tube frame. It allows great reliable and close racing at a cheaper price.

Bryan Watts

MTosi - Don't you have aspirations towards being a race car driver? If you ever make it, chances are VERY good that it will "only" be as a gentleman racer.

Congo

There has been a rise in crossover drivers and team owners between Grand-Am and NASCAR in recent years. TRG has entered NASCAR and Andy Lally along with Colin Braun have both had success in Grand Am but have left for NASCAR.

Joe L

I say yes. This is good for Grand Am and good for the sport of road racing - as already noted NASCAR is a huge media/revenue machine and already has a bunch of cross-over with Grand-Am. If NASCAR decides that they want to begin promting Grand-Am, it will bring more exposure (Speed could decide to carry more races) and more sponsorship dollars. The increased revenues will attract big money teams and top level talent will follow...

I like ALMS too, but they are doing what they can to make the series more competitive and more attractive to international audiences - attracting better teams and more revenue. Grand-Am needs (needed?) to do something as well. Maybe with more cash and bigger sponsors - more teams will start to pay drivers bringing them into the definition of the 'pro' ranks, and y'all can stop hating on them for doing what we all would obviously love to be able to do - get paid to drive a racecar.

mikew968

While kind of a mess the NJMS race was quite entertaining to watch. I know a couple of very good PCA drivers that are working very hard but simply lack the resources to advance better than mid-pack in Koni challenge. Wasn't SCCA basically "Pro" back in the day?

Mike

MTosi

Just out of curiosity has anyone ever read "fast guys, rich guys, and idiots" by Sam Moses? Thats a very good look into "pro" sportscar racing.

Amatuer ranks, club racing.... Buying a car and running it in club racing is alot different from buying a seat in "pro" series.

I have no intentions of paying for a ride, If I make it pro by some small chance on skill, great. If not I'll just continue to club racing. I'll say it again, I think running in a "pro" race if your not there on skill is a joke. I'm not going to pay someone else to put (or attempt) their car on the podium.

TeamWheels

Grand Am has always beein NASCAR/France sponsored so how is this any different?

Notwithstanding, Obama has always been sponsored by William Ayers so how could that be good for America?

Mcain/Palin '08 - proof that we're not really a nation of F'n wimps.

C.J. Ichiban

Mtosi- here comes a rant dude, sorry you're upset that there are a bunch of silicon valley millionaires or venture capitalists or McDreamy's in Grand-AM, or NASA pro racing, or whatever. It's always been that way, because racing is god-damn expensive! even gokarting at the national level is stupid- you've got to spend the green for those things and they don't even have seatbelts!

but seriously, racing is completely different from every other professional sport. How? The equipment is much more expensive (by 100x in most cases) and it's much more dangerous, and it's product oriented rather than entertainment oriented.

the entire nature of racing is marque vs marque as much as man vs man, whereas my sport and every other non-racing sport is man vs man and location vs location (meaning east/west, or city vs city, country vs country)

I'm sorry but if you won the lottery tomorrow and didn't use that money to pay your way via instruction, seat time, testing, equipment etc - and you say you want to be a pro- then you're a prideful moron.

if I won the lottery and could afford to hire jorg bergmeister and pat long and start my own ALMS team, I'm friggin doing it! who cares? every human has a different path, different skill level, etc. If I was broke, I wouldn't have been able to advance my driving skills as fast as I have. You CAN be economical, academic, and very professional about how you learn...but you have to MARKET yourself to sponsors, so that if you can't pay, maybe they can pay for you.

marketing himself/herself is really the newest evolution of the driver- everyone NEEDS support.

about money in the sport of racing- like everyone else has said- development costs money- you think schumacher didn't pay for instruction, or F3, or whatever other development series he ran in? do you really think that the kids in star mazda are all hired guns?

also- in order to be a MLB player (my sport so I can give 100% factual info on it)- you absolutely have to spend your parents money or get a serious job to make it. there are only 11.7 college scholarships in D1 baseball- and those are spread between 33 kids. so the rich kids at USC, or Stanford have to pay for their education and to be on the team just like any other college kid.

maybe you don't understand that there is no money to be made by a team owner just for having winning cars. He has to sell sponsorship, he has to get factory support, otherwise he'll be as broke as a joke in no time.

the nature of racing is: car companies want to make money, so they market themselves, and attach their brands to other brands (cross marketing benefits, macroeconomics 101, marketing 101). cars are moving billboards (marketing), and racing is entertaining (sometimes) for poor and rich folks across the world. some tickets are sold, some tv rights are sold, and cars go around and crash into each other for an hour or so, and then someone finishes first. drivers are needed at this point because they can't design robots to drive 10/10ths, and because people are cheaper to reproduce.

MLB revenue is about 6-7 Billion per year. Half of that is player salaries (~about 1300 players), which are paid by teams that sell 1.5-3.5 million tickets per season (81 games) and a lot of money is generated via media content (cable and network contracts and advertising).

NASCAR drivers are the only american racers that come anywhere near the MINIMUM salary in most of the other professional sports- because it's the only series that generates as much ticket sales and media content. F1 drivers make on average a similar salary to MLB, NBA, NFL athletes, but there are only 20 F1 drivers in the universe!

In summary, don't player hate. I've had to get baseball lessons, pay for tuition, equipment, travel, uniforms, tournament entry fees, etc to get to where I'm at. Getting to the top in any sport has direct and indirect costs- opportunity costs when you allocate cash or time away from something else. That being said, it's much easier to become a pro baseball or football player than to be a legit paid to
drive Pro racer.

if you clubrace, you're gonna have to pay for a car, parts, transport, etc and I bet if you add all that up, doing an arrive and drive against pros in endurance racing isn't that much more money, might as well just allocate it towards that.