wanna911

From talking to a few Rolex guys, the Grand-AM GT Cups are pretty much narrow body rsr's. Whats confusing is that I have yet to see an appreciable time difference anywhere with all the mods.

Anyways, I like that Grand-AM GT will stick around, its a strong field with lots of variety. In fact the strongest field of any of them. Would be pure stupidity financially to ax it or change it. Fits right where it is. At the back. More tub frame true GT cars are racing too.

What I question now is manufacturer commitment to the two GT series. If they can cut budget by focusing on one class, their presence/support in the other may dwindle. Thinking Porsche, GM in particular. Seems like it could go either way.

fleadh

It's because of the tires.

-mike

TrackDays247.com

Sure is. 100% -

GTgears

Yes and no. Historically, GA has allowed a chassis to compete for 5 years. The big top teams like TRG, Brumos, Magnus, and Alex Job will have 991 chassis cars in 2014. But, using TRG as an example, at Daytona this year they had 4 entries. Their top car had the RSR gearbox (4.0l engine wasn't allowed until halfway through the season). Their 3 other cars all still had the Holinger box. There were 24 Cup Cars entered at Daytona this year. Only 1/3 of them had the RSR gearbox and there were quite a few 2009 and 2010 chassis cars running the race.

I expect the same sort of thing going forward, especially now that we have this North American Endurance Championship as a series within a series. I suspect Sebring and Petit will be added in addition to Daytona, The 6 Hours of the Glen and Indy (though this race may get dropped from the series). Those races will bring out more budget limited teams who want to run only the endurance portion of the season and a lot of them will do it on 2012 or 2013 chassis cars.

I guess we'll have to see what the 2014 Cup Car really is. We know it is 4.0l. We also know it has an all new gearbox. Is it going to be as fast as a current GA Cup? Will it be as fast as the rest of the GT class GA cars. It obviously won't be ALMS RSR fast.

wanna911

Grand-Am tires that much slower than Yokos? Aren't GTC running Yokos?

Derek@TRG

two of the five cars had RSR boxes, 66 and 67.

<<<<<<<< there they are right there.

A lot of valid points raised in this thread, i am just going to sit quietly and watch it unfold.

GTgears

I stand corrected. I'd forgotten about the other "A" car.

Nordschleife

All I can see coming out of this complete clusterf*** is two Sebring races, one TV friendly 3 hour race on a Sunday afternoon for Grand-Am/ALMS cars and a 12 hour race on the Saturday for Le Mans spec ACO cars. Hard core fans can stay over for the next few days whilst the Le Mans bound cars do their extra 12 hours of running at race pace (between Monday and Wednesday).

AS far as our friend from the rust belt is concerned, any car he doesn't like will have to have 8 wheel nuts and every time they win a race they will have another wheel nut added. Genetically modified multi-armed pit crew will be outlawed.

R+C

Fishey

There is no way in hell they are going to allow only ACO cars in the 12 hour race.. I think its going to be far more play by our rules or get the hell out of our sandbox and F the ACO. Regardless of what happens its going to follow the golden rule.

brake dust

Surely hope that the WEC expands it's races in North America. I would anticipate the Flying Lizards and Corvette racing and a few of the other team will join the WEC. The 24 hours of Le Mans is what they want to race in.

As we all know in business - there is no such thing as an equal "merger".

Flying Finn

I know it won't happen but the best would be to just kill the DPs.

If they'd do that, there would be plenty of P2 teams which could lead into more US Le Mans entries (they could do multi team teams as dose before by ALMS GT teams).

My fear is the focus actually will be DP and then Sebring will be watered down as Daytona 24 already is (no big manufacturers, just bunch of spec "prototypes").

Look what status Daytona 24 had back in the day when Porsches etc. competed there, it was up there with Le Mans with big international interest. Nowadays?
Not even in a same ballpark with Le Mans.

Horus2000

Agreed. I've tried to get into it, but when DP's are in the "focus" portion of the GA broadcast I find myself wandering off. But, you're right, there's no way it will happen.

Streak

I hope not. Since the ALMS teams are competing on a world wide set of rules unlike GA I sincerely hope the ACO requirements are incorporated into the new series so our American teams can continue racing at the very highest levels of the sport.

Fishey

Why do people keep thinking DP cars are Spec cars like GTC.. There is nothing more spec about a DP car then a P2 car. The chassis are built by a manufacture to fit within the rules as are the engines. If you do not like any of the current chassis or engines you can have one approved a licence to do so.

Nordschleife

I don't know who Fishey is (there are two things that smell like fish?),but I don't have him down as big on irony.

If the view expressed above is representative of those involved in GA, then real world endurance racing will say goodbye to the US of A. I don't think many folk round here want that, regardless of which side of the Atlantic they are located.

'To win Le Mans, first you have to win Sebring' as several of my Le Mans winning chums all too often say.

R+C