Gatorac

It all comes down to the investment required to be competitive and the return on that investment. The ALMS needs to have a fan base that will justify the expense needed to be competitive with the Audi and Corvette teams. It will probably take more competition in these classes to increase the fan base. Therefore, "competition adjustment" is a necessary evil.

Whatever you think of Nascar, they have a successful formula for a race series. They have the top drivers and top teams participating. They never lack for entrants. It would be stupid for other race series to ignore this. Heck, if it wasn't for the ALMS convincing a couple of P2 teams to move up, the Audi would have been running by itself. The P2 teams didn't even have the appropriate body work or tires for the class at Sebring.

I don't think will see the ALMS change classes. The series is designed to be a mirror of the LMES in Europe. I don't want to see them change as it's cool to see ALMS teams be competitive with the rest of the world.

If you attend and ALMS race and hear the Corvettes, I think you'll know one of reasons Corvette will continue to race. They are the best sounding cars on the grid.

Bwright

My reference to GT2 being basically a Porsche parade was made in a historical and not a year specific sense.

If you have been watching this series since 1999 then you can remember that inaugural year when the 3 BMW M3s were outnumbered 4-1 by the 12 911’s entered.

Five years later things were little changed when at Mid-Ohio 10 911s contested a meager opposition consisting of a Panoz and a lone Ferrari 360 Modena.

In 2005 the class could have been thought of as a spec Porsche series as, with the exception of a lone 2-car Panoz team, the rest of the entrants at Mid-Ohio were 911s.

For the same reason that experienced racer and team owner Roger Penske wants the ALMS down to two classes, there are too many classes now to find adequate manufacturer support and sponsor dollars. Keep the two sports car categories because, as team Corvette and the popularity of the GT2 class proves, fans can readily relate to cars which bear some resemblance to their own rides. Leave one of the prototype car categories for bleeding edge technology.

BMW left ALMS because Porsche complained bitterly and had the rules rewritten after the BMW M3s mopped the floor with the Porsches in the GT2 (nee GT3) category of the 2001 ALMS season. Porsche had absolutely no chance of defeating the M3s on the track so they took it to the ALMS’ equivalent of court to get rid of their superior rival. What had Porsche so exercised? BMW’s 6-cylinder M3 would likely not have bested the Porsches but ALMS rules of the time stipulated that an example of a car being campaigned had to be offered for sale on two continents within 12 months of entry. So BMW created 10 V8 M3 GTRs and offered them for sale in Europe. They then dropped the V8 in the M3. For Porsche, the credits rolled. A furious and frantic Porsche insisted that the rules be rewritten to mandate 100 examples and 1,000 engines.

http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/0205_bmwm3gtr/

Nice. But now that the new M3 uses a V8 this will no longer be an issue. Porsche had better pray they don’t get around to campaigning the new M3 because those guys will be looking for revenge and this time around they won’t be able to legislate their opponents out of the winners circle.

The ALMS R-GT was campaigned by Krohn-Barbour Racing in conjunction with Lamborghini and their involvement in the program is well chronicled on Krohn-Barbour’s site. Krohn-Barbour indicated that they abandoned the program because they did not feel they received the promised level of factory commitment from Lamborghini.

http://www.krohn-barbourracing.com/n...dex.php?sid=37

I’m not surprised. The traditional V12 Ferrari flagships are really heavy luxury GTs ill suited to contesting a Corvette Z06 in either street or race battle trim around a track. Case in point, the current 599 flagship uses the GM/Delphi Magnetic Suspension system which GM has said is not included on the current Z06 because the performance envelope of the Z06 is too much for the system. Case further in point as was noted by Cavallino magazine in chronicling the sports car race history of the F50 (too flexible to be raced) and the Maranello which Ferrari said was never meant to be raced.

http://www.cavallino.com/articles/maranello.html

Ferrari carefully stage manages any and all significant appearances of even privateers racing their cars. Note that when ProDrive initially took the Maranello racing in ALMS, Ferrari, at the direction of Chairman Luca di Montezemolo who feared that the Maranellos would be eviscerated by the works Corvette squad, immediately took the extraordinary step of issuing a press release noting that the car’s performance should not be taken as a reflection on Ferrari since they were not factory cars. Imagine that. I read that in Car and Driver (also reiterated in the Cavallino link provided) with a degree of shock likely exceeded only by that of the stunned ProDrive team.

With not only no official Ferrari support but Ferrari effectively working against them, ProDrive could not realistically continue the program against the resources of GM.

Cadillac left ALMS because they did not have an adequate familiarity with direct injection technology which Audi was using to dominate Le Mans. GM freely admits this as is shown below in this article from Road and Track.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article....article_id=405

Since this time GM has significantly increased their knowledge of the technology. GM is also very familiar with diesel technology.

micro

I can hardly believe it.

The two GT1 cars on the entry list for this weekend's street race in Florida.

How can they just race against the other car?

http://www.americanlemans.com/Events...07/Entries.pdf

micro

There are fans who can relate to cars that are extreme and don't resemble production cars. Fans will notice the 5.0 liter Judd V-10 from Intersport Racing this year.

How can you have a privateer being able to compete and win races with with full factory teams in one prototype class? Honda will be their own P1 car for the 2009 season. P2 is designed for privateers.

I loved it when Ben Devlin, in his Radical SR9, was holding off one of Penske's RS Spyders for a few laps at Laguna Seca last year.

http://www.vandersteurracing.com/

1998 Twelve Hours of Sebring winner thinks Porsche should be in P1:

http://www.the-paddock.net/content/view/241284/49/

The ACO rules don't allow for sedan-styled coupes to race in GT2. The road-going V8 M3 didn't go into production until after the 2001 ALMS season. IMSA allowed the M3 GTRs in the GT class to mix things up. BMW has spents loads of $$$$ with the purchase of Sauber for their F1 team and the rest of the stuff that goes along with that. I highly doubt a new M3 will be racing in ALMS.

http://www.theracesite.com/index.cfm...e&mag_id=12333

http://www.supercomputingonline.com/....php?sid=12683

http://www.silicon.com/retailandleis...9164972,00.htm

Tests have shown the 599 GTB to be a very fast car on the track. The car has around 420 pounds of downforce at 200 mph without big front and rear spoilers.

The Prodrive-built 550 Maranellos also dominated LMES and FIA GT for a few years.