Zoxxo

Really? If they have a race and there's no one there, do the cars make any sound?

Aside from the participants, NO ONE CARES! The cars are slow and ugly as pig butts. There is nothing to differentiate them from each other besides paint. In fact, the only way that the average "fan" can tell them apart is with a program. The only things that really do differentiate them at all is 100% invisible - the motor. Sure sounds like NASCAR to me.

Btw, precious few racing fans want to watch "average guys" race, much less pay good money for the opportunity

But the old IMSA had INTERESTING cars that were fast, fun to watch, fun and challenging to drive, etc. Porsche 935s were pretty freakin' cool and the GTP cars, well... And anyone who has stood outside the entrance to turn 4 at Laguna Seca and watched the ALMS P1 and P2 cars whistle through there at speed will not soon forget it.

If you look at the past 50 years of American sports car racing and chart which series had big crowds at the races and which ones didn't, one fact shines through - the fans want fast, interesting, cool-looking, cool-sounding, technology-driven race cars. Can-Am (#1), IMSA (Camel GT especially), IMSA GTP, etc.

Lou (rightly) looks at this from his own perspective as a privateer whose fundamental concern is his own race team. ALMS has to look at it from the standpoint of building and maintaining a successful business that balances numerous, conflicting elements. If all you want is a place for relatively well-off privateers to race semi-fast cars against one another, then the SCCA offers numerous ways to do that. Fast, fun, "cheap", etc. Of course, the public will offer up a collective yawn and the manufacturers who are working the "win on Sunday sell on Monday" angle will yawn with them.

Tangent: I think it's very short-sighted of manufacturers like Audi and Porsche not to support ALMS in this time of difficulty. ALMS is the only place for them to display their technical prowess in the states and if it were to go away...

Z//

AU N EGL

We may not like Grand AM, but Billy France and investors HAVE THE MONEY to keep GA running.

Now were not most of the GA investors bought out by NASCAR ( France Family of business)

Plus how much time they BUY on Speed TV.

Racing may not be the best, but as in all racing he who has the BIGGEST CHECK BOOK . . . well you know the rest

rfn026

It's my understanding that Grand Am doesn't need spectator one to turn a profit. The entire series is funded by the entrants. When they open the gates they've made money. We won't even get into the Speed contracts.

I think we need to hold off on making quick judgements here. If the FIA comes to play it's going to be a whole new ballgame in the states. The series is Europe is doing really well. I've heard nothing but good things about it. Besides Tim Mayer knows what it's all about.

A neat model for a driving event is what Alois Ruf does in Europe. At least once a year he rents a track where all of his customers can come out and play. It's sort of like Woodstock for Porsche owners.

I think we should convince Lou to do the same thing in the States. God knows there are plenty of LGM cars out and around. Then if you bought a set of LGM long tube headers (and a few other things) you could play too.

Another model is what Brian Redman does with his Targa 66 group. They run a really nice event. You get to drive and coaching is available. It's not like a track event because you get all your meals provided and they buy out a local hotel. It's more of a total event than the usual track day. Here are a bunch of pictures from a recent Targa 66 event.

Richard Newton

xsiveone

That's precisely why we need racing from series like the ALMS instead of another France family racing series. Besides being a great racing series, the ALMS is breaking new ground on alternative fuel technology. I love what Corvette Racing was doing with cellulosic ethanol. It's amazing to me that the Audi can build a diesel engine for a sports car that doesn't smoke, isn't noisy and doesn't smell.

Cobra4B

I agree... Audi's clean diesels are finally coming stateside. Last year they did a coast to coast drive w/ the diesel A3, A4, and Q7... the gas mileage figures were astounding.

Joe_Knesek

I choose not to limit myself to one form of racing. I'll watch Daytona Prototypes, NASCAR or just about any other form of racing. Heck I even attended a belt sander race once! Each form has merits & baggage regardless of how "technically advanced" they are.

Gatorac

Take a look at some of the entry lists for the LMS.

http://www.lemans-series.com/en/s01_...01p01_home.php

They have no TV coverage either. What if the ALMS did this and it was televised to the world? Would some of these teams not come?

Too many full course cautions in GA. What's the big deal about a close finish in an endurance race when you stack the field up every hour with full course caution? The 24 hours at Daytona was boring. Much of the drama of an endurance race comes from having to pit under green. Everytime I see a full course caution in GA I'm thinking, yup, this is nothing but Nascar with ugly cars. Next thing they won't let 'em race in the rain either.

AU N EGL

now that Audi work out those 15 year muffler / particle filters

rfn026

"Next thing they won't let 'em race in the ran either."

Actually that's already happened. A few years ago they stopped the 24-hour because of rain. They said they did it for safety reasons. The truth (I think) was that Goodyear ran out of rain tires. I forget which year it was but I'm sure others remember it as well.

Richard Newton

drivinhard

Yeah but when you are standing next to the fence in T9 at Road Atlanta, and you watch the R10 go by, and then the C6.R, your ears swear up an down the C6.R was going 30 mph faster, and not 30 mph slower

mikahb

Wow - lotta hate for Grand-Am on here! I personally will watch just about any kind of car racing as long as it turns both ways. Grand-Am pulled in the most spectators EVER at VIR for the race there a few weeks back, over 15,000 fans at the race if I remember right.

Unfortunately, the only racing we get to see is the racing that is economically viable. That means (relatively) low cost of entry and broad exposure for the sponsors are the keys. Love 'em or hate 'em, the NASCAR guys know how to do this and that's what they're doing with Grand-Am. It costs $20M/year to run a Sprint Cup team, probably 1/4 that to run a competitive DP team, and probably 5 times that to run an ALMS P1 team (that's a guess). I also hear tell that many of the GA DP teams are only funded for the first half of the season - fields might shrink a bunch later in the year, we'll have to wait and see.

The sponsors pay for racing, and the sponsors will put their money where people will see it, and right now more people are looking at Grand-Am than ALMS. If the series do combine, I wouldn't necessarily assume that GA will just maintiain it's current structure - hopefully there will be a place for the P1 and P2 cars to run.

For the record, I think the DP's are cool, and a 1:19 at Road Atlanta sounds pretty frickin fast to me!

SIK02SS

i like the DP cars as well, but I also agree, they just aren't that fast. Especially considering the DSR track record at Road Atlanta is a 1:18.282 set this year in a Stohr chassis (gorgeous cars). Essentially, that makes an amateur prototype style car faster then a DP pro racecar.

for the sake of good racing, i hope both GA and ALMS stick around for a long time (although i too don't care for the France family )

Z06_BluByU

I like both... for different reasons!

TLGunman

I've never heard any proof to that rumor, but I have heard from people at the track, that the water was deep in places. Problem with rovals, is all the water flows to the inside, and the transitions from the infield to the oval had pools forming.

Zoxxo

But then the C6.Rs qualified at last year's Petite Le Mans (Road Atlanta) at 1:16.5xx

The P1 Peugeots and Audis at 1:06.xxx

The 2008 Formula Atlantic pole (Summerton) was 1:14.1



Z//

steve J06

While watching the rained out qual for indy last week on versus (what channel is that?) they were interviewing various team engineers who made the point that right now development and innovation aren't driving the series, it it advertising. And i would postulate that with the current economic situation many series will follow this path unfortunately. I mean, crap, even F1 is talking limits and playing hell with the tech regs. The action is good in grand-am but it is suspiciously nascar-ish with the rubbin and playing up the arguments between drivers oh and don't forget the excessive cautions to nullify 2 1/2 hours of previous racing. My wife, who is not into cars, thinks of nascar as the WWF of racing. I agree and am fearful that France is moving GA more that way. Entertaining but not exactly developmental prototype racing in GA. More like a spec series. BUT having said all that, the GA race this weekend was more entertaining than the ALMS race in Utah i'm currently ignoring on the DVR. Maybe ALMS could be the sports car series that is focused towards car afficianado's who appreciate the innovation and technical developments it brings and loosen the ties to the ACO regs.

my $0.02

AU N EGL

did they also not say they had too fix some guard rail and that took them 2 hours Plus the fog was so thick it was a safety hazard to race. Being from 2 am to 4 am, it was no big deal as there wasn't any TV coverage at the time.


Oh well the racing we all seem to love changes every 10 years or so. Can-Am was fantastic, but the Porsche came in with the 917K flat 12 twin turbocharged 1200 some BHP and no one could compete. Can Am died

Next IMSA, for a few years, that eventual died ( but those were really cool cars )

ALMS and ACO have been running over 10 years now in the similar format- The economy and technology costs have limited to only a few teams now.

Grand AM RR - Stock or spec type prototypes that are "relatively" affordable to anyone with a 5-7 million / year budget.

Solofast

Part of the problem is that the TV market (where all the money is made) is saturated with racing. You can watch NASCAR, IRL, F1, ALMS, Grand Am, NHRA, Super Bike, and on and on. In any market like that you need to have something to get the customers attention. Right now there isn't anything to do that as far as fendered sports car racing is concerned. If you want to see cars go by fast, you can watch any one of the various races. You don't need to see sports cars with fenders that really aren't all that different in concept than an open wheel car, but have fenders.

Remember that in the early 1960's interest in sports car racing waned. The cars had to be based on production cars and to qualify you had to make 50 of them. The manufacturers weren't making cars that could be tweaked or modified to be as fast as the "specials", and people were losing interest. The organizers came up with the idea for a class of cars that would potentially be road legal (ground clearance, reasonable turning circle, room for 2 in the cockpit and room for an overnight bag). While it wasn't like there were going to be a lot of them made, the IDEA that they could be driven on the street was behind the class. They called them "prototypes" and the golden age of sports car racing was created.

Right now we have a rule set for prototypes that really defines a class of cars that has about the same utility as an IRL car. Is it a surprise that nobody is interested? If the public (not just the limited racing freaks) can't get interested in the cars, then there isn't anything to differentiate the product from any of the other racing venues, and unless you are racing in the top series you aren't going to attract any sponsorship....

I for one would be a lot more interested in ALMS or Grand AM if the cars were "streetable". That is, if when a car got obsolete it could be driven on the street. Lap times really don't mean that much, so long as they are quick and loud that's fine, just give me something I can relate to and I'll watch.

Gatorac

Where did the 1:19 at Road Atlanta time come from? I believe the 1:19 time quoted above was at Laguna Seca.

Gatorac

I agree. The ALMS needs to return to a true endurance racing series. Those are the races that are so enjoyable to watch. Those are the races that more teams show up to. The 12 Hours of Sebring was an incredible race this year. There was so much action that was not on TV. We had the track video feed in our area. With 2 TV's we could go from corner to corner and see on track battles that never made it on Speed's coverage.