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| The New Golden Age of Racing? ALMS / Grand-Am Merger | |
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|  | | September 04 2012 02:24:07 PM EST | Drew Phillips Photography |
| Anyone who has been following ALMS GT racing recently will tell you that is is an incredible sight to behold. Our man Chris Draper was going to share with us his views and opinions on how we have gotten here and where he sees all of this going, then some massive news broke this past weekend. Here is what he has to say.
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Let me start off by saying that anything you read here is strictly my personal view and opinion based on my knowledge of all the years I have followed this series as a fan from the outside. I am very knowledgeable about the ins and outs of racing but am in no way an expert or an insider.
Many people consider the 1950's-60's to be the Golden Age of racing. I respect that. Those cars, and more impressively, the drivers, where incredible. In today's world, much has changed, but I believe we are starting to see a modern Golden Age starting right now.
GT2 has always been ultra-competitive but it was overshadowed by GT1. Many fans, especially Corvette fans, didn't really notice until Corvette Racing made the move mid-season 2009. Right off the bat we seen how close the competition was.
Each year the competition has gotten tighter and tighter. Each year more manufactures start looking at what is going on and decide to showcase what they have to offer. This year we saw the return of the Viper. They aren't competitive now, but I promise you they will be.
And that brings me to what I really want to talk about. Where is all of this going, and how can it possibly get any better?
Currently the ALMS GT class has Corvette, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus, Viper, and Aston Martin. All of these cars in production form are very different, ranging from a front-engine 8.3L V10, rear engine flat-6, mid-engine V8, and more. So how do they make all of these cars competitive with each other? The answer in this case is BoP (Balance of Performance) which takes into account vehicle weight, air restrictor size, wing height, fuel flow rates, fuel take size, and more. Each vehicle is given a BoP and theoretically all of the cars should perform equally. As we have seen recently in the ALMS, they have it perfected.
In the not so distant future there will (hopefully) be more manufactures. Some of the rumored manufactures are Audi, Acura, Lexus, McLaren, Mercedes, Nissan, and even Hyundai. There are some inside sources that say there are up to three new players either seriously evaluating or finalizing programs for as early as next year (2013) for either ALMS or WEC. Some of these players already have a GT3 car. For reasons I won't get into here, GT3 cars can not and will not be allowed into the ALMS or any Le Mans style racing, but with the ALMS/Grand-Am merger, it's anyone's guess what could happen.
Also in the not so distant future we will be looking at changing the (ACO) regulations in GT to allow for new things such as Hybrid technology, carbon fiber tub construction, and possibly other alternative fuels. This will not only allow new manufactures, such as McLaren, to compete, but it will also make the BoP a little more difficult.
I encourage everyone to sit down and read the current ACO LM-GTE Technical Regulations as well as keep up with the most current Balance of Performance regularly updated on IMSA's Bulletins.
These were my thoughts until SPEED's reporter, John Dagys, released an article that shook the sportscar racing world to the core. ALMS & Grand-Am are finalizing a merger. This announcement took everyone by surprise. Apparently even some of the people within the two organizations, as well as the teams and even some manufactures were left in the dark. An official announcement, with more details, will come Wednesday (9/5/12) from Daytona Beach.
These two series have very different philosophies on sportscars. Right now we are left with a ton of questions. Who will be in charge? How will the class structure be? Will there still be a connection to the ACO / Le Mans? Will the prospect manufactures still be interested? Who will leave? Who will stay?
This could be the death of a great series, or the rising of a great new era in North American sportscar racing. Only time will tell.
Leo Parente of the DRIVE network interviewed John Dagys in hopes to clear up some of the questions. See the interview here.
We will post a follow up after Wednesday's press conference. Hopefully we will get some answers.
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