I just looked at the ALMS entry list for long beach and Bell Motorsports has withdrew. americanlemans.com didn't say anything about it in the news.

No series ever makes notice of a car/team not being at a race...

Did you expect it to be a major headline?

I hope this doesn't mean they quit. Yeah they didn't give Corvette any run for their money but still seeing that Aston did bring up great memories of just a few years ago.

They took a hard crash in St.Pete. And they have a small budget, I'd bet that they either didn't have the money and or resourses to fix it in time. Or that they don't want to risk another wreck in a concrete canyon.

Hitokiri2 - 13 April 2008 08:52 PM

I hope this doesn't mean they quit. Yeah they didn't give Corvette any run for their money but still seeing that Aston did bring up great memories of just a few years ago.

Who said anything about them quitting? The team is a FULL season entrant. There's a reason why the they're racing the car they have and it's not to quit after the second race.

AMR_DBR9_007 - 13 April 2008 09:05 PM

They took a hard crash in St.Pete. And they have a small budget, I'd bet that they either didn't have the money and or resourses to fix it in time. Or that they don't want to risk another wreck in a concrete canyon.

Money or resources are a couple of things that team doesn't lack, time is...

Tsk, tsk, tsk. You're so condescending.

I'm sure its as simple as not having the time to repair the car in such a short time. It was a pretty big impact. I wonder if Primetime Race Group or the Field's Lola will be ready. That Lola really took a good lick.

Primetime and Intersport will be there. Intersports impact was primarily suspension components and bodywork, which probably could have been repaired within hours. According to Chris Hall on the ALMS forums, Primetime rebuilt an ex Speed World Challenge Viper with spares and parts leftover from the crash. There are hints of Bell Motorsports adding a 2nd chassis sometime this year, but unfortunately for Long Beach we are back to the Corvette parade.

I think Primetime IMO was the surprise of Sebring and I'm really routing for them. I think Primetime bought some of the Woodhouse Vipers and made it there own. Woodhouse was on of the Dodge power houses lask year in the WC GT so I'm sure the cars are good even though they didn't perform well in the couple races they partcipated in ALMS GT2.

Well Primetime probably won't have the kind of success that they are going to hope for, if they are the only ones developing that car. Not anything against the team, but when trying to build you're own GT2 car, it's really not as simple as using your ex World Challenge GT car and hitting the asphalt. According to what Lou Gigliotti has said on corvetteforums.com, he really can't use anything that he did on his World Challenge Corvette's in GT2, completely different rules and a completely new ballgame. Lou atleast has Riley Technologies to help him develop that machine. Looked better at Sebring than it did at St Pete.

As for Primetime, the sebring broadcast made it sound like Primetime was looking into the P2 category, so who knows how long they intend to even use the vipers. They may not even be willing to attempt to develop a car they don't intend on racing very long.