What Does the Term "Motor Racing" Mean to You

[Sam48]

Over the past couple of years, and after visiting multiple different racing events, this question always seemed to come to mind. It seems as if every racer has their own opinion on what the true definition of "Motor Racing" is. So I want to know, what does "Motor Racing" truly mean to you, and if you could create a racing sires around your definition of "Motor Racing", what would it be like?

My Answer: First, let me say that I'm a purist when it comes to motorsports, the less rules and regulations, the better. If I could create a racing sires, it would probably reflect the soon to be merged ALMS. The major differences I would make, however, is that the only rules pertaining to prototypes would be the dimensions (In a broad sense). Teams would be aloud to use any engine, and wouldn't be cost capped either. GT, on the other hand, wouldn't be restricted at all. I would put all the power in the hands of the manufacturer. Therefore, if the manufacturer wanted to be competitive in GT, they actually would have to build a fast road car in their lineup to build upon and race (No tube frames aloud). Now although such a sires would have less emphasis on the drivers (And probably not much passing), I personally prefer to see manufacturers go head to head, rather than seeing close racing on track.

That's my dream sires, what's your guy's take on "Motor Racing"?

 

[hawkeye122]

*series

*allowed

I think mine would be more an evolution of GT4- Cars must be purchased from a showroom floor, for less than $90,000. The only thing you can ADD is a roll cage, and a racing fuel cell. You can take off whatever you want (door cards, stereo, etc)

Each car would have to be a PRODUCTION car. No new manufacturer specials designed to barely meet the regulations.

Four wheel drive would incur some kind of weight penalty.

To keep some kind of competition, the success ballast would be 1% of the car's weight as of the first race of the season.

The average driver weight would be 260. So if you weigh less than that, you must carry the difference in ballast. This way, rather tall or overweight people would still have a shot at doing well toward the end of the season

The purpose of this series would be to see who really has the best production car.

Your M3 has adaptive traction control? Go ahead and use it. Same with other factory driving aids.

After a few seasons, the success ballast would be changed to a BoP formula of some kind. The point would be to keep car diversity amongst the competitors

 

[Ardius]

I personally prefer to see manufacturers go head to head, rather than seeing close racing on track.

I'd rather see the opposite, basically. But not artificially created like with "cautions", DRS, KERS or whatever.
The racing I've really loved watching is when its a close, hard-fought battle where you can visibly see that the competitors are giving their all trying to win. That doesn't necessarily mean 10000 overtakes per lap, a hard-fought battle can mean 0 overtakes. It just needs to be close, enough that you can tell they are giving it everything and that even if positions don't change, its because both competitors are doing a brilliant job rather than because one has a particular advantage.

That said, I do also like racing where you have two or more variations of car with different strengths and weaknesses. Such as in touring cars with RWD vs. FWD - RWD gets great starts and has better tyre wear but FWD gets temperature into the front tyres quicker and is more easily savable (such as in the rain).

I don't care at all whether manufacturers are involved or not. It means nothing. The only thing it represents for me is a boost in sponsorship and general interest which are good things. But I'm quite happy to watch a series filled with privateers - in fact its usually a lot more entertaining and involves less politics. The whole "Lotus-Team Lotus" affair in F1 sums up the ludicrous side of manufacturers and what they really represent. 99% of the time, manufacturer involvement is simply a name, a name that brings in some money to enable a privateer team to increase their budget. It seems quite rare these days for manufacturers to actually have any direct factory-to-race track input in the performance of the car beyond money.

 

[Bo]

Touring Cars, Super GT, NASCAR... anything that involves insanely close racing, rivalry, crashing & smashing, and they look cool and have cool sponsors. I don't care what cars are used, as long as it ticks those boxes, it's perfect.

 

[SagarisGTB]

For me, motor racing is any sort of organized competition of speed between 4-wheeled vehicles of abiotic propulsion. There are many forms, and I enjoy the variety greatly. From true spec racing like the Netz Cup or GP2, to heavy BoP like FIA and SRO GT3, to (relatively-)open formula like LMP1. From 20 minute touring car sprints to 24 hour endurance races. From the cutting edge tech of F1 to the relatively prehistoric stock car racing. From road based GT4 to the silhouette racers of GT500. From the short simple Norisring to the long expansive Nordschleife. Everything has their spot. Because there is no perfect form of motor racing.

 

[Peasantslayer]

Moto2, close aggressive racing and the form guide seems to go out of the window from weekend to weekend so no one completely dominates over a season.