2014 United Sports Car Championship

[IforceV8]

https://twitter.com/mulsannescorner

 

[RACECAR]

So basically, just like the Open Wheel Merger (at least according to his word). Still abit sketchy stuff at this point.

 

[iMikeTheKing]

This is my take on the classes and schedule.

Classes:
P1- For WEC prototypes to participate (only Sebring)
P2- Normal P2 cars
DP- Normal DP cars
GT1- ALMS GT-E Cars
GT2- Grand-Am GT cars

Schedule:
Jan: 24 Hours of Daytona
March: 12 Hours of Sebring
April: Long Beach
May: Lime Rock Park
<24 Hours of Le Mans/Summer Break>
July: Six Hours of Watkins Glen
July: Mosport
August: Mid-Ohio
August: Montreal
September: Laguna Seca
September: Road America
October: Petit Le Mans

*EDIT* Took out Virginia International Raceway or Baltimore for Road America.

 

[Blaze_409]

What a disaster for the series. They'll drop the name too so we won't even know that its ALMS.

 

[Patrick]

I don't like where this is going.

 

[Jav]

I really hope it's not as bad as some people are making it out to be. Afterall the ALMS side is the one with actual manufacturer involvement wich is directly dependant on their cars going to Le Mans.

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

I don't like where this is going.

Stop. This is offensive to a Rolex fan, like me.

What a disaster for the series. They'll drop the name too so we won't even know that its ALMS.

I doubt that. This is EVEN MORE offensive to a Rolex fan, like me.

I really hope it's not as bad as some people are making it out to be. Afterall the ALMS side is the one with actual manufacturer involvement wich is directly dependant on their cars going to Le Mans.

This^^.

I can't speculate on anything, but, consider it! SO many more tracks to race at! North American sports cars finally have a big chance to race at most of/all of the best tracks in North America, instead of picking and choosing.



ALMS:

Sebring
Road Atlanta

Rolex:

VIR
Barber
Daytona
Indy



I mean, if THAT's bad, then, go enjoy your WEC... Yeah, WEC has better tracks, unless the two N.A. series join together. Seriously, I'm happy for them. Rolex at Sebring. ALMS @ Indy... Rolex at Daytona... Honestly, it's the greatest thing to happen in a while, IMO.

 

[Blaze_409]

Stop. This is offensive to a Rolex fan, like me.

I doubt that. This is EVEN MORE offensive to a Rolex fan, like me.

This^^.

I can't speculate on anything, but, consider it! SO many more tracks to race at! North American sports cars finally have a big chance to race at most of/all of the best tracks in North America, instead of picking and choosing.

ALMS:

Sebring
Road Atlanta

Rolex:

VIR
Barber
Daytona
Indy



I mean, if THAT's bad, then, go enjoy your WEC... Yeah, WEC has better tracks, unless the two N.A. series join together. Seriously, I'm happy for them. Rolex at Sebring. ALMS @ Indy... Rolex at Daytona... Honestly, it's the greatest thing to happen in a while, IMO.

But I mean you have completely ignored the issues. It is no as simple as simply dumping all the cars on one track and merging the track calendars...

GTE cars are the same speed as DP cars. LMP is miles quicker but there are only two cars in that P1 class. Which class gets put on top. No amount of BOP will make LMP vs DP look good. It will be like gatrs ALMS GT5 championship where the BMW(DP) has 592 hp and the Ford GT(LMP) has 400 hp...Blowing buy on the straights without challenge vs drilling the guy in the corners.

The ACO regs will not be used. If you like ugly DP cars then ok. But that would be an ugly face of american sports car racing...


If you listen get a chance to read about some of the teams thoughts I found this from the ALMS forum from a team member of Alex Job racing.

A someone who works for an ALMS team (AJR) this makes me nervous. If the rumors are true then I'm going to be out of a job, probably. A LOT of people are going to be out of a job. We were just talking about this in the team trailer right before the start of the race yesterday. AJR, as you may know, ran a DP car in GA for three years. It was not, on the whole, a wonderful experience. Lots of frustrations with the rules, how things were run, how sponsors were treated by Grand Am, etc. Alex said if the merger actually happens he would sooner move to Europe and run the WEC before he ever went back to Grand Am again. I think you would see less than half the current ALMS teams stay and make the transition to Grand Am. The two series are so different in scope and vision. ALMS is about innovation and cutting edge technology, the freedom to develop. The complete antithesis to anything NASCAR. Grand Am, like all of NASCAR, is all spec classes. It's all controlled with an iron fist. You will be assimilated. There's no way to merge the classes as I see it. ALMS GT is on par or slightly faster at some tracks than Grand Am DP cars. There is no way GA would allow that so they would limit and restrict and dumb down the ALMS GT cars to make them slower.
I don't see how this benefits either party, really. ALMS would be done for sure though, I think. The France family is too controlling. You can forget about anything running to ACO rules or anything close, for sure. (Huh, I just realized how ironic the name of the family that owns NASCAR is...) Maybe there's the pretense at the beginning that the new series will be run in a collaborative way but I fear given a little time it will all just turn into Grand Am again. You will be assimilated.
If this "merger" is true it really pulls the rug out from all the ALMS teams and their plans and sponsorship deals. I doubt there are any ALMS teams that would welcome such a "merger."

Sorry if this was a bit rambling but my head is spinning right now.

This isn't a "merger". Its more of a consensual takeover. And many teams are not happy about it. ALMS GT teams have little to no interest in running in a Grand-Am spec racing series.

Behind the scenes GRand-AM is one big sham...Paying teams to race. Ugly spec proto's with little to no innovation is not the future of american sportscar racing.

 

[Jav]

Grand Am and NASCAR need to get on with the times, not handicap the cars and technology like they do. It's silly that their prototypes are running almost the same times as GT-E cars, slower at some tracks:

Road America this year:
LMP1 - 1:50
LMP2 - 1:54
LMPC - 1:57
DP - - 2:02
GTE - 2:04
GAGT - 2:12

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

But I mean you have completely ignored the issues. It is no as simple as simply dumping all the cars on one track and merging the track calendars...

But, it would be cool.

GTE cars are the same speed as DP cars. LMP is miles quicker but there are only two cars in that P1 class. Which class gets put on top. No amount of BOP will make LMP vs DP look good. It will be like gatrs ALMS where the BMw has 592 hp and the Ford GT(LMP) has 400 hp...Blowing buy on the straights without challenge vs drilling the guy in the corners.

And your proof?


Also, you should know that I took part in that very ALMS series, last season.

The ACO regs will not be used. If you like ugly DP cars then ok. But that would be an ugly face of american sports car racing...

So, since when has racing been about aesthetics? Someone forgot to tell Formula 1 teams.

If you listen get a chance to read about some of the teams thoughts I found this from the ALMS forum from a team member of Alex Job racing.

Yeah, scary thoughts. I'm so sure that the three or four ALMS teams wouldn't last too long anyways.

This isn't a "merger". Its more of a consensual takeover. And many teams are not happy about it. ALMS GT teams have little to no interest in running in a Grand-Am spec racing series.

I don't think Scott Pruett is pleased, either.

Behind the scenes GRand-AM is one big sham...Paying teams to race. Ugly spec proto's with little to no innovation is not the future of american sportscar racing.

Neither is a car that was made, and developed in Germany, and started its life in France. 💡

 

[Blaze_409]

But, it would be cool.


And your proof?


Also, you should know that I took part in that very ALMS series, last season.

Thats Exaclty why I brought it up 💡.........

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

Thats Exaclty why I brought it up 💡.........

So, your point is that the specs don't lead to good racing in the ALMS series gatrs's running? 👎 Now you know how I feel about ALMS, in general. It doesn't lead to as close, nor exciting racing, as Rolex/Grand-Am. IN FACT, I rarely/never watch ALMS, and watch every Rolex race, AT LEAST once. There's a reason for that.


And, I mean, what's wrong with Spec Miata? What's wrong with Jetta Cup? What's wrong with spec series? Are you some sort of elitist, who only watches the fastest cars? You don't care about passing? You just want to see cars run as fast as they can?

 

[Jav]

And your proof?

Proof? Proof of what? It's pretty obvious that a DP will never be on the same pace as an LMP car, not LMP1, not LMP2, not even LMP-C!
Prototype racing has always followed the same trend where they become too expensive to survive and they die a very slow and painfull death. The solution to this problem is LMP2, if Grand Am fails to see this prototype racing in the US will be dead in a few years.

 

[Blaze_409]

So, your point is that the specs don't lead to good racing in the ALMS series gatrs's running? 👎 Now you know how I feel about ALMS, in general. It doesn't lead to as close, nor exciting racing, as Rolex/Grand-Am. IN FACT, I rarely/never watch ALMS, and watch every Rolex race, AT LEAST once. There's a reason for that.


And, I mean, what's wrong with Spec Miata? What's wrong with Jetta Cup? What's wrong with spec series? Are you some sort of elitist, who only watches the fastest cars? You don't care about passing? You just want to see cars run as fast as they can?

I'm not sure how you got this from what I said .


I also think we both have slightly different understandings of "spec" racing. In Gatrs ALMS we did not race LMP cars vs GT cars balanced to do the same speed. that would be silly right? Well thats what balancing LMP cars to race DP cars is. DP is no quicker than ALMS GT. In all racing series. F1, GRand-am etc there are "specs" and rules etc so on your logic I must not watch any racing.

What manufacturers would build LMP cars if they could not go faster than the GT cars. GT cars are alot cheaper.

You seem to see "spec" racing as running the exact same car. You mentioned Spec Miata, Jetta Cup...
Then how could Gatrs series also be spec racing. In fact your logic makes little sense because Gatrs series replicated the real ALMS. You have already deduced that I watch the American LeMans series. So is ALMS spec racing or not? You say GAtrs series i spec btu ALMs is not? I'm sure its just a simple misunderstanding...

 

[RACECAR]

Proof? Proof of what? It's pretty obvious that a DP will never be on the same pace as an LMP car, not LMP1, not LMP2, not even LMP-C!
Prototype racing has always followed the same trend where they become too expensive to survive and they die a very slow and painfull death. The solution to this problem is LMP2, if Grand Am fails to see this prototype racing in the US will be dead in a few years.

What makes you think it wasn't already dying to begin with? The LMPs have been basically already on the way to death, look at the amount of cars LMP2 and LMP1 get without Sebring.

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

I'm not sure how you got this from what I said .


I am not against spec racing. I also think we both have slightly different understandings of "spec" racing. In Gatrs ALMS we did not race LMP cars vs GT cars balanced to do the same speed. that would be silly right? Well thats what balancing LMP cars to race DP cars is. DP is no quicker than ALMS GT. In all racing series. F1, GRand-am etc there are "specs" and rules etc.

You complained about how Rolex is a spec series... WELL, if you're going to complain about that, why have specs in the ALMS? Why not run Group C over again? Answer: because Group C lasted about as long as LMPC.

 

[Blaze_409]

This is not an issue about "spec" racing. All racing series have "specs"


We all have our own taste. I loved the ALMS GT class. I don't think that ROlex DP can fill that void. Especially when every car looks the same and ugly. Oh well. There are other ways to see GTE cars.

 

[RACECAR]

We all have our own taste. I loved the ALMS GT class. I don't think that ROlex DP can fill that void. Especially when every car looks the same and ugly. Oh well. There are other ways to see GTE cars.

Funny thing is, that also will soon go out. Its pretty said by many that the optimal way to go is GT3. GTE is gonna go the route of GT1 with all the politicing and spec things. GT3 is faster and supposedly, cheaper. Its quickly become a very popular GT platform and I would not be at all surprised if GTE was readily dropped.

Also, have you actually recently watched the DPs or only seen it once and never actually seen it recently?

 

[Jav]

What makes you think it wasn't already dying to begin with? The LMPs have been basically already on the way to death, look at the amount of cars LMP2 and LMP1 get without Sebring.

Never said it wasn't, but at least there are new manufacturers like Lotus and Mazda that are coming into LMP2 as powerplant providers because they can showcase their technologies, contrary to DP where everyone uses the same chasis and engines regardless of the manufacturer producing them or not.
That's why there are no new manufacturers coming into DP wich BTW is also more expensive than LMP2 wich has more exposure and is more relevant to the manufacturers.

Funny thing is, that also will soon go out. Its pretty said by many that the optimal way to go is GT3. GTE is gonna go the route of GT1 with all the politicing and spec things. GT3 is faster and supposedly, cheaper. Its quickly become a very popular GT platform and I would not be at all surprised if GTE was readily dropped.

The ACO/FIA has already stated that GT3 will remain as a regional class and GT-E will be the international GT class used by the WEC and Le Mans.

 

[Mt. Lynx]

Expect the DP's to be ditched in favour of the proposed "DTM" class. The LMP will probably be allowed to race, but without the LM moniker.
To me, it seems this "merger" will force any team who wants to go to Le Mans into WEC, wich is as we all know very expensive.
It'll be sad to see the US GTE class die. And potentially the entire class, since ALMS basically is the only place that has a live and kicking GTE.

 

[Blaze_409]

Funny thing is, that also will soon go out. Its pretty said by many that the optimal way to go is GT3. GTE is gonna go the route of GT1 with all the politicing and spec things. GT3 is faster and supposedly, cheaper. Its quickly become a very popular GT platform and I would not be at all surprised if GTE was readily dropped.

Also, have you actually recently watched the DPs or only seen it once and never actually seen it recently?

...I don't want to turn this into a Rolex vs ALMS thread. I have been following both Grand-AM and the ALMS since 2006 so lets not even go here. The racing is great in both series. But ALMS GT cars look ten times better. Where as Mr. Melancholy actively denies watching ALMS. Have you seen ALMS lately? Did you see Lucas Luhr at Road America? The ALMS GT class at every event? *temper temper Blaze* ...

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

...I don't want to turn this into a Rolex vs ALMS thread. I have been following both Grand-AM and the ALMS since 2006 so lets not even go here. The racing is great in both series. But ALMS GT cars look ten times better. Where as Mr. Melancholy actively denies watching ALMS. Have you seen ALMS lately? Did you see Lucas Luhr at Road America? The ALMS GT class at every event? *temper temper Blaze* ...

I saw Baltimore... was bored. I saw Mid-Ohio... was bored. I've yet to see anything really "interesting."

 

[Blaze_409]

I saw Baltimore... was bored. I saw Mid-Ohio... was bored. I've yet to see anything really "interesting."

Have your pulse checked .

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

Have your pulse checked .

My pulse never goes up while watching racing. Well, okay, ALMS Laguna Seca 2009, at the very end, when the Porsche put the Corvette in the wall at the end... Spawned my hatred, and my wrath. Warning: don't do that.

 

[RACECAR]

Never said it wasn't, but at least there are new manufacturers like Lotus and Mazda that are coming into LMP2 as powerplant providers because they can showcase their technologies, contrary to DP where everyone uses the same chasis and engines regardless of the manufacturer producing them or not.
That's why there are no new manufacturers coming into DP wich BTW is also more expensive than LMP2 wich has more exposure and is more relevant to the manufacturers.

Yet unlike the LMP2 class, the DPs will be more Brand Identifiable (The Corvette DP being the best example). Also contrary to what you say, there is interest in DP, most recently from Aston Martin.

On a different note, lets be realistic. Is Lotus really coming onboard as an engine supplier or is this yet another badge job? Its hard to believe anything Lotus says anymore when their Road car plan and financial issues behind the scenes was iffy, their Indycar engine program was crap, their support for Alex Job is non-existant and basically, anything that says "Lotus" is usually a badge Job (Look no further then the Rebellion Lolas, which actually have Toyota Powerplants).

The ACO/FIA has already stated that GT3 will remain as a regional class and GT-E will be the international GT class used by the WEC and Le Mans.

This is a major mistake in my mind. The ACO already blows off ALMS by not including Petit Le Mans in the WEC as they did the International Le Mans Cup while also bascially taking entries away from what was a once thriving ELMS and they won't accept GT3. I swear I do not understand the ACO.

...I don't want to turn this into a Rolex vs ALMS thread. I have been following both Grand-AM and the ALMS since 2006 so lets not even go here.

Wasn't trying to, usually I try to avoid that talk because I know I tired of the arguments, they are usually just as full of crap as the idiotic Open Wheel Arguments I've seen on other forums. I asked because you have people saying crap based on what they saw years ago, not now.

The racing is great in both series. But ALMS GT cars look ten times better. Where as Mr. Melancholy actively denies watching ALMS. Have you seen ALMS lately? Did you see Lucas Luhr at Road America? The ALMS GT class at every event? *temper temper Blaze* ...

Sad thing is, there isn't enough of those finishes in LMP. Also, the current Grand-Am GT class as mentioned by Jav is in its final homolagation this season so we won't see these next season (sans the Audi R8 and Ferrari 458).

 

[Blaze_409]

Why don't we have a little stroll over to the Le Mans general discussion thread and I will get you up to speed on all the action you missed Mr. M ...

 

[Earth]

Theres just too many questions and too many things that dont make sense.

Why were Grand Am officials visiting WEC events if they plan to completely break ties with that series by running their own rules etc? That would alienate many ALMS teams who want to compete at Le Mans. They would not join Grand Am but would rather join the WEC after the merger.

Grand Am could simply not care about those and just absorb teams who want to follow its rules. Or Grand Am could adhere to ACO rules and make its championship compatible with those who want to compete and Le Mans and the WEC.

I think Grand Am will do whatever is in its best interests. If Grand Am believes sticking with ACO rules will help them in the long run by attracting WEC events and teams, then they will go that route. If they believe its more beneficial to have their own set of rules, which are likely to be cost saving, then they will go with that route.

Theres a big difference in what we would like to see and what makes sense financially.

 

[Blaze_409]

Yet unlike the LMP2 class, the DPs will be more Brand Identifiable (The Corvette DP being the best example). Also contrary to what you say, there is interest in DP, most recently from Aston Martin.

I have heard very little in interest over DP body packages...

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

Why don't we have a little stroll over to the Le Mans general discussion thread and I will get you up to speed on all the action you missed Mr. M ...

Nah. Just saw Belgian Grand Prix. That's good enough racing. If this merger goes through, I'm done with Rolex after the 2012 season, and will go watch Ecclestone, Schumacher, Raikkönnen, Alonso, Vettel, Maldo-jumpstart, and... more Vettel... and more Raikkönnen.

 

[Blaze_409]

Theres just too many questions and too many things that dont make sense.

Why were Grand Am officials visiting WEC events if they plan to completely break ties with that series by running their own rules etc? That would alienate many ALMS teams who want to compete at Le Mans. They would not join Grand Am but would rather join the WEC after the merger.

Grand Am could simply not care about those and just absorb teams who want to follow its rules. Or Grand Am could adhere to ACO rules and make its championship compatible with those who want to compete and Le Mans and the WEC.

I think Grand Am will do whatever is in its best interests. If Grand Am believes sticking with ACO rules will help them in the long run by attracting WEC events and teams, then they will go that route. If they believe its more beneficial to have their own set of rules, which are likely to be cost saving, then they will go with that route.

Theres a big difference in what we would like to see and what makes sense financially.

It doesn't really make sense because its been a common sentiment that LMP's are way too fast for the Daytona highbanks. GRand-Am does not have much stick in attracting WEC teams because sponsors pay the bills. Sponsors/companies who don't exist in America don't really have any business paying to race there for an entire season.