I dare you to explain to the casual fan ANYTHING about Sports Car Racing. Racing in itself is already a niche sport.
And this is what is holding sports car racing apart. Not enough people have the attention span to understand it. Most of the people at races have no idea about and/or could care less about what material the chassis is made of, what BoP is, or what tires are on the cars or what driver requirements are in place. Most people go (from experience going to plenty of Rolex and ALMS races) to drink beer and watch cars race. They don't care what's there as long as it's a decent race.
Making the sport understandable to more people is what will grow the sport. Making the sport so complicated only the people that already would follow it can understand it is pretty counter-intuitive in my books not saying you've made that claim.
My personal opinion is that grand am was much more entertaining to watch as well as easier to follow than the ALMS. That doesn't mean grand am was perfect, and it doesn't mean the ALMS is all bad. Grand am had a rope of sand for officiating for years, and never was very consistent with penalty calls. Grand am also kinda hit the nail on the head one too many times with the DP as well because the engine selection was a take your pick of 5.0L V8s which sound very awesome, but it's the same sound out of every car that looks pretty much the same regardless of chassis. The Corvette DP was their best idea where each mfr. can come up with a specific bodywork based off of a street car making the class more easily discernable as to who's racing what. They also had great grids. I don't think there were any subsidies except possibly in 03 trying to get the series going by helping teams get the DP chassis. Believe what you want there.
That's fine if they do that, but when it goes away you don't get to complain about it.
I don't know. I really think a budget that's now more than double what it was subsidies or not is reason enough to be a little salty
Ed Brown was never guaranteed a good result.
3rd isn't good if it's a class of 4 cars. They know that.
It's not as hard to beat 1 other team.
Even if you aren't as good as the one other team, all it takes is enough races and you'll win a few. Harder to do that in a class that's got plenty of teams. I can't say I blame them when you have the kind of dough Ed Brown does.
Except 2 of those cars are funded by a sole business at the discretion of their owner/driver. All of the P2 cars in the ELMS and WEC (except SMP) are paid for on a business basis.
That just shows just how few renters there actually are in the sports car racing business when there are as many teams able to run pro-pro lineups in a regional as there are renters worldwide
I don't think paying people to show up counts as working.
Better call the ALMS, ELMS, WEC, AsLMS, etc. failures too then.
You missed the point. Rebellion have enough money that they WASTE cubic dollars on their own P1 car with no chance of winning. Are they in the press whining about cost? Nope. They're upset with the lack of entrants.
Nah, you're missing the point. They're mad that no one else is racing a class taylor made just for them.
Not necessarily
Did they? They had to buy out a competing series. If the product was so good, they would've let the ALMS sink itself.
Regardless, the buyout was supposed to stop people from "Getting by" and start creating something awesome. Why do you just want to get by? Let's grow the fan base! Let's have manufacturers spend money! Let's have customers lining up to buy the cars!
The buyout was to lock in all the big sports car races under one series in hopes of growing the sport beyond the divide that had grown. Not to mention the ALMS ship was taking on water fast, and Panoz sold out for a bargain while he still could. IMSA has done a better job of marketing than Grand am or the ALMS ever did which is the biggest positive out of the whole thing.
Only DP teams were receiving subsidies as I recall. Regardless, this comment was made intentionally in such a way to be a bit condescending. Kind of upsetting that you're trying to make this personal, when I'm only putting facts on the ground.
I believe MP put out an article where Felix Sebates' ex wife made the claims of subsidies in court. If that's true (I wouldn't be shocked or surprised), once again, it's a matter of fact deal. Can't really argue with a woman filing for divorce
It's nothing personal, but that's not guaranteed facts. Don't know why I would make anything said on an online forum personal. Just a different perspective that usually isn't the popular one
If the manufacturers leave then the marketing stops, and the sport can't grow. Nobody is going to rally around Jeroen Bleekemolen, if anyone becomes a household name, it'll be from a Factory car.
I'd venture to say more people know about Patrick Dempsey in America than every factory race car driver on the planet
One is closer to the road car, driven by rich guys, the other is more of a custom-built race car, a bit harder to drive, but faster. Designed for the pros.
If they can't handle that explanation, then they aren't cut out for anything. Either they accept what it is because they want to be a fan, or they aren't interested anyway and it doesn't matter.
I think simplification only helps people out. My dad has followed sports car racing for years, and he can't tell you the difference between an LMP1, LMP2, and a FLM/PC chassis without seeing the class identifier and having known what that means and where to look. He couldn't tell a Riley from a Dallara or a Coyote in grand am either before the gen 3 update.
You seem to dwell on the glory days of Grand Am, that's gone now. If they were doing so well, they wouldn't have needed to buy the ALMS out. If the ALMS were doing it right, they wouldn't have let themselves be bought out.
From the way I understood the buyout, Panoz made an offer that grand am/NASCAR would've been dumb not to take. Plus, the general fan consensus was that the 2 needed to become a single series. I was always in the one series boat and still am. I'm positive about what's to come. I think we'll see some really good stuff here towards the end of this season and onto next.
