Next year this would only apply to Road America and COTA since Indy is gone.If the tv time can be figured out then it would be a good idea at R.A. The schedule at a joint event like COTA w/WEC they would have to start at dawn.
As the first paragraph of my post stated, these were changes that should've been implemented before this first season was even run. Additionally, if the grid's were large enough the schedule could've been been adjusted to have Road America, COTA and Indy as standalone rounds for either of the championships (opening the door for one of the series to potentially stay at Indy, and one or the other to run at Mid-Ohio and Barber).
DP's and P2's have their own separate championships, and the DP's are given fewer required upgrades to retain as many DP teams as possible, with BoP slowly adjusted to bring the two closer together, thus spreading out costs for both teams over the course of the season, rather than dumping it all on them right at the start. The separate P2 championship would also be attractive to more P2 teams, especially racing with the possibility of racing in a Prototype-only series. (All references of "P" herein will refer to DP's and P2's) 600hp vs 490hp,the BoP is a close as it will ever get time wise,the concept is flawed. Looking at the raw numbers I thought this merger would work but the difference in corner speed and acceleration is just too much. IMSA will either split the class next year and have new cars and teams or leave it the way it is and its Grand-Am 2.0 with 6 DP's,2 Mazda toaster ovens,and the DW.
I don't feel like you're responding to what I've written at this point. It's clear that the DP's may not have needed as many upgrades as they were given (if anything, I'd love to see the Corvette's go back to a 5-speed gearbox, which would no doubt have saved a lot of money and kept DP/P2 teams even more competitive). Had IMSA just bit the bullet and kept the two separate, with the goal of slowly balancing them to be closer and closer, they could've seen that it wouldn't have worked out. Bottom line is, both classes would still be competing for overall wins, but wouldn't have to directly race against each other. Either could've won the Prototype overall championship, while the other wins it's class championship, and it rotates between the two until they're both merged with the future Prototype regulations.
Tough to do if they have a huge field at the start of the year.
Explain this, I don't understand what you mean. By running either of my proposed NAEC methods I had listed below, huge fields wouldn't be a problem for any race aside from the NAEC events, which still would've been settled.
You're right, suddenly adding two additional endurance races to all the teams schedules is far less abusive than only adding one.
GTD-Pro and GTD-Am I could see but they should be allowed to run wherever they can find the funding.
While I agree with you, allow me to explain my reasoning. The majority of the teams participating in GTD at the moment were used to, and quite happy with, running a spec car. The only reason GTD is as big as it is comes down to the affordability of the Porsche GT-America, which the majority of the former GTC teams purchased. Costing around half the price of most GT3 cars, it was easy for GTC teams to hop on the band wagon. But I don't see GTD keeping it's grid numbers up when those teams are forced to go from a $200,000 car to a $400,000 car, unless the 991 GT3-R is very competitively priced. So opening GTC back up seems like the best idea, unless you force GTD-Am to run used GT3 machinery in an attempt to help keep costs low by buying pre-owned and/or older spec GT3 cars. So if most of the teams could only find funding for a GTC car... then you make a class for them. Why not have three classes in the GT championship?
No,dump the PC cars and move on to the new car when they are available.
That's just not considerate thinking. I see no need to shove a middle finger in the face of teams that just bought PC cars all because a newer formula is out that we don't even know will be better. If my concept of separating the Prototypes and GT cars had been implemented, it'd be even more exciting in my opinion to have one of the only racing series in the world where four different specs of prototype cars all run at the same time.
The only thing I disagree with is prototypes only as a series. That might not work really well (Group C did, but Group C was ******* insanely awesome to watch). But that's what I had been thinking, just leave DP as lower prototype class than LMP2 (deservedly so). And actually Snaeper's secondary plan for NAEC I like more.
I did not intend to suggest that the DP's would be treated as a lower class. They have the pro drivers, the higher car counts, the larger manufacturer support. Those cars should get treated as the premier class. I merely meant that DP's and P2's should've had more time to develop racing alongside each other, remaining as separate classes to encourage more P2 teams to try out the series, and DP teams to stick around.
And really, why wouldn't a Prototype-only series work? The only reason I can think of nobody doing it at the moment is because there are never enough car counts to fill a grid. But if you have 16-20 DP/P2's, 14-16 PC's and the DelatWing, you've got a pretty good grid to not need GT cars to supplement it. And it gives more air time to the two-three classes, rather than trying to cram the goings-on of four classes into a single broadcast. Same goes for GT, which is even better because now all of those high-dollar manufacturer programs in what is easily the best GTE series in the world are front and center for everyone to see.
What might also have helped, would have been allowing straight FIA GT3 cars from the beginning,and not that stupid move of there's. International GT3 teams would be all over (and will be) the oppurtunity to dun the NAEC rounds. But thankfully the change is coming in 2016.
No, as much as I hate that we don't have full GT3 cars, I know exactly why GTD happened the way it did, and that's because of those high-dollar GTLM programs I mentioned above.
The last thing IMSA wanted to do was piss off BMW, Corvette, Dodge/SRT and Porsche by having a hot-shoe in the "lower" class out running them on half the tracks due to how close GT3 and GTE specs currently are. I believe the Asian Le Mans series had quite a few occurrences of the GT3 and GTE cars racing hard against each other. They could afford to do that, of course, since there weren't any factory programs to lose running in GTE.
Question is...I don't remember PC (or LMPC) being this much trouble in the ALMS days...
Because that was before DP teams were expanding or jumping ship seeking PC as a lifeboat that ended up being forcibly made small enough so as not to fit everyone.[/QUOTE]
. And the DP class around 10. We should have turned DP into something like a LMPGT.
IMSA should have done that. 
Curious as to what the Honda DP will look like, being modified for the V6TT in the car.
