at Road America the fastest P1 was 25 seconds faster than the slowest GTC car.

25 SECONDS!!!!!!

yikes.

so yeah, that gap needs to be closed up a bit.

 

Yep. And think about a small track like Lime Rock where lap times are sub 1 minute. There, even Conti GS and ST cars have issues with lapped traffic really early in a race.

 

I am actually a happy spectator of Grand Am on TV. I prefer it to ALMS, because I do not like watching more than 2 or 3 classes in the same race. I want to watch racing that I can imagine I could do - sports cars and P2 prototypes and DP cars are great for that.

P1 is too overblown. VW owns most of the car companies in Europe, the US makers are not very focused on pure motorsports, and even if there were 5 serious manufacturer teams and 5 privateer teams, I actually think that racing gets *less* interesting to watch as speeds get up to 230 mph+. And I do not get a charge out of the mechanical dramas of cars breaking.

So if a cool GT team has two tube-frame cars that can go 165 at Road America, that's great. If one car gets into some difficulty, it is cool to see if they can overcome it, but they have another car. And there are 15 other GT cars, so the race will be competitive even if there is some attrition.

Large speed differentials are annoying in racing just like at a DE.

My vote would be merge P2 and DP, make prototypes all closed for safety reasons. Bump up the speed so the P class is about 5 MPH faster than G1, which would be the ALMS GT class. GT2 or whatever you want to call it would fit with what I think is G3 globally. While I have no problem watching cars like Mazdas in GA GT, I do think that homologation rule should apply. Otherwise there is something non-sensical about a Riley chassis with Camaro or Mazda bodywork.

It may be that there is a series to be created for 150mph catch-all "Challenge" cars that only meet certain BOP specs, but that can be one-off creations or converted production cars. I personally am much more likely to actually run a frankenstein car like that in a real race, but it is not a GT car as classically known.

 

What is a big budget for you guys? I know some Conti teams putting more than a million$ per season.
ALMS GT2 is not for privateer in my opinion!
ALMS LMPC is getting more and more popular and the season budget is very reasonable.
Grand-AM GT cars are much slower than ALMS GT2 cars even without continental tires and the season budget is not close to the GT2 ALMS teams.

I just hope they won't **** it up!

 

Agree! That's why if they truly take the strengths of both series, they would focus on ACO classes, link to Le Mans (not WEC), technology focus (OEM interest) and NASCAR marketing. GTE is some of the best racing currently, yet J France had to defend the GT class of Grand Am in the news conference - there is no comparison between the 2. With a stronger series, we might see interest from Porsche and Toyota in LMP1. And if they came - so would Audi. It's too big of a market to ingnore.

 

With Watkins Glen in the mix, would have to think that Lime Rock will be at risk for being dropped in a combined schedule.

Would also like to see more 6 hour endurance races which allows for more strategy.

 

The mixed classes and speed differentials and the variety of classes and simultaneous class races are what make the series what they are, ALMS and GA. If you have trouble with that NASCAR has a nice option for you, go watch stock cars. It was common for GA to split races when the fields got too big GS and GT and prototypes separate. If you get the entrys it would be the natural solution and keeps the option open for fledgling teams.

And for you guys that think LMP is dead, couldn't be more wrong. The August WEC race at silverstone had 7 LMP1 (Audi, Toyota,Lola, honda), 15 LMP2 (Nissan,Lola,lotus) and 13LM GT cars (Ferrari, Aston,Porsche RSR, Corvette) the cars and teams are there still, you'll see them at the series tracks that are all around the world including Sebring. You can pretty much guess that Dyson, MMilk, level 5 won't just go WEC? Top drivers in the world still run the series.

If we really want true world class racing LMP has to be there, and you can't dumb it down to DP being the top class. The bottom line is they just aren't that good of a racecar compared to any LMP, and I'll bet more expensive to run than a Lola. Just too hard to put grill and headlight stickers on that Lotus....

 

If NASCAR got really smart, they'd invite over the DTM cars. As it happens they are OK at enduro racing and could run ovals just fine.

R+C

 

Word is that the WEC will not be at Sebring in 2013. There is talk of a double header weekend at the new Austin circuit. ALMS on Saturday and WEC on Sunday.

 

Sure, it might get dropped. It was just an example. The WG short course is an equally valid example, that will also probably be dropped from the new schedule. They will likely only go to WG for the 6 Hours.

I totally agree with the desire for more long races. While they have kind of alienated themselves from both series, Miller would be a great venue for a 12 hour race.

 

NASCAR and smart don't belong in the same sentence. Hell, it's only been in the last year that they've gone fuel injected and even then there's been all kinds of chaos about legal ECUs because they are trying to limit modifications under the "new" fuel delivery method. If those ding dongs had one lick of sense they would be giving them a "spec" ECU along with the fuel injection. But again, I digress off topic...

 

I want some of what you're smoking...

 

The new Austin circuit has no value to European teams, unless they can be assured the surface will have broken up and the surface will be uneven.

R+C

 

Excuse me they have got a spec ECU, its done by McLaren, but can any of the teams use it?

R+C

 

I wish, I wish.

But seriously there was (is?) a plan to bring the DTM to the States, it was announced in 2010.

Honestly, I think it would be brilliant seeing the DTM cars going for it at Talladega and at Road America, they could mix it up a bit. They have 4 litre engines with restrictors to keep the power down to 500 bhp (small changes would give them an appropriate bhp to run on level terms with the NASCAR cars), Hewland gearboxes and weigh 1100kg, including driver, their chassis are designed to let the driver survive crashes.

R+C