I'm sorry, but why exactly? Its only four races in comparison to the WEC's 8 rounds so its not even big enough to be its own championship individually.
That article you wrote off as a....
long winded way of saying "you can run you GT3 car here without modifications and a stable rules package"
... was about more than just that. They specifically mentioned that all of these teams leaving GTD for PWC made that point that they could run the entire 19-round PWC season and the Daytona 24h would still put more hours on equipment. And yet despite that, many of the teams considered that if they were going to run in TUSC, it would most likely only be for the NAEC. At that point, why not consider just breaking it up?
This way a team can elect to run just the normal TUSC races and still be in contention for the championship without needing a massive budget from all the hours put on the cars by running the season AND the NAEC.
On top of that, they can sell programs to more drivers between the two series, which would help them cover costs and could potentially allow them to participate in both series (TUSC/NAEC) anyways.
It'd be really no different than the BSS/BES twins, giving a bonus to those who participate in both as well.
Then add more! You have 4 very traditional and hallowed races in Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Road Atlanta...why not create a few more? Spread it out over the course of year, and make it worth while. Maybe add three 6 hour events at Road America, Indianapolis, and Miller...have it a 7 round championship worth something. But I'm realistic, and sadly that won't ever happen. But a WEC structure for NAEC would be very...very cool. NAEC has more potential than Tudor possibly. Makes the money spent on an endurance race worth it, as seen by more part time entries for NAEC than for the Tudor regular season.
No, this would undo the whole point of breaking them apart in the first place. At the very least, it would be one event for a total of five (Possibly bring back the 6h Laguna Seca Race for a West Coast event). But the whole point of separating them is to reduce the amount of track time.
If you ever look at a race car for sale, you'll notice that the engine says how many hours are on it since it's last rebuild. There's a reason for that. And a longer racing season means more hours on a race car, which means more money they have to ask for from Gentleman drivers, which means fewer available drivers, etc.
And as much as adding full-spec GT3 cars will help lower costs a bit, it will remove the GT America, which was a complete
bargain compared to every car it was racing against. There's a reason there were so damn many of them.
