The official press release says management will remain unchanged, the series will continue to operate independently, and Grand-Am will share the NASCAR marketing and communications.
Assuming that's true, one might expect more NASCAR-like "brand management, research, marketing and public relations" (also from the PR).

I for one think the Grand Am DP cars are the perfect Car of Tomorrow! Stick some Ford, GM, Dodge and Toyota face plate stickers on them and let em go as Sprint Cup cars! Can't be any worse than what's running now.

The cars are uglier than the IRL and the series does utilize alot of infeild circuits(some really nice road courses too)and it was a response tO IMSA and the ALMS Sort of like SCRAPCAR meddling in the open wheel rift. The bottom line is that this was a SCRAPCAR series from the beginning

Steve M - 04 September 2008 02:14 AM

If you owned a bunch of large oval tracks and only used them a few times a year you might see the point in putting in a road course to get more butts in seats on an otherwise black weekend. To assure that you had cars to race on that road course you could build or buy your own series.

The whole thing sounds like a sound business plan in progress to me.

The problem is that Rovals don't draw real RR fans. I dislike Indy's. The Daytona 24 race has become a joke to fans since LeMans type cars stopped showing up.

An interesting comment I heard was that NASCAR should use GrandAm cars on road courses.

I think that ALMS is kicking GrandAms butt and needs NASCAR affiliation for survival.

i just hope koni challenge doesn't die because of this. i actually enjoy watching that series. i think grand-am's problem was to try the "american formula" idea, reasoning that it needed to develop all new rules, and then developing rules which really didn't attract a crowd. the daytona prototype class ultimately is a failure, because although it got plenty of cars, no one came to watch.

as a professional racing series, that's what is the ultimate judgement.

i think grand-am would have been more successful as a series if it had never bothered with the daytona prototype class, and instead chosen to run either GT2 or GT3 rules, as well as the tube-frame GT's, and then allowed BOTH to thrive, rather than specifically encouraging the tube-frame cars at the expense of the production-based cars. there would have been more interesting grids, more manufacturer support, and fans would have had a more appealing product offered to them, i think.

but that's not relevant to the current issue. i wonder how long the series will last now that nascar has taken over, and what this means for their DMG experiment with motorcycles? they've had a VERY strong rebuke from the motorcycle industry as a whole over that one. they tried forcing the grand-am/nascar model down the throat of the motorcycle industry and that didn't work at all. i have to wonder how much longer things will survive. and how much longer the rolex series will survive, by extension. if no one comes to watch, i can't see people continuing to spend so much to compete over the long term...

^ what Marshall said.

With NASCAR's corporate environment, if Grand Am does not turn a profit for the shareholders, it will cease to exist.

TeamRMP - 04 September 2008 03:36 AM

The Frances own NASCAR,ISC and Grand Am and they are all in the same office in Daytona. They're buying something they already own, try to explain that one. Hell the COT's look like Daytona Prototypes anyway.

I wouldn't go quite that far, but the idea is there. All Cup cars look alike; All DPs look alike. Either way, the hands of NASCAR at work.

westsideclay - 04 September 2008 09:29 PM

The cars are uglier than the IRL and the series does utilize alot of infeild circuits(some really nice road courses too)and it was a response tO IMSA and the ALMS Sort of like SCRAPCAR meddling in the open wheel rift. The bottom line is that this was a SCRAPCAR series from the beginning

On many shots for some reason the cars look like football helmets to me. Maybe it's just me.

If nascar takes hold this year within two years we'll have the sports car of tomorrow, followed by eggcrate templates, restrictor plates for the fast tracks and homogenized road courses. All the Michigan-Texas-Las Vegas- California type tracks will be encouraged to put in the same interior road course layout for a very comparable piece of racing....I mean entertainment. The the sports chase will be put together and in time 2-3 oval tracks races will be held in conjunction with nascar stock entertainment series cars.....to return the favor of the road courses for cots.

They've ruined the 24, the ALMS cars are the group cars which are made for the 24, unless of course you want photo finishes. Not my cup of tea in sports car racing, bring on the technology.

Dopey

Justadope - 25 September 2008 02:28 PM

westsideclay - 04 September 2008 09:29 PM

The cars are uglier than the IRL and the series does utilize alot of infeild circuits(some really nice road courses too)and it was a response tO IMSA and the ALMS Sort of like SCRAPCAR meddling in the open wheel rift. The bottom line is that this was a SCRAPCAR series from the beginning

On many shots for some reason the cars look like football helmets to me. Maybe it's just me.

If nascar takes hold this year within two years we'll have the sports car of tomorrow, followed by eggcrate templates, restrictor plates for the fast tracks and homogenized road courses. All the Michigan-Texas-Las Vegas- California type tracks will be encouraged to put in the same interior road course layout for a very comparable piece of racing....I mean entertainment. The the sports chase will be put together and in time 2-3 oval tracks races will be held in conjunction with nascar stock entertainment series cars.....to return the favor of the road courses for cots.

They've ruined the 24, the ALMS cars are the group cars which are made for the 24, unless of course you want photo finishes. Not my cup of tea in sports car racing, bring on the technology.

Dopey

Some of us are old enough to remember when the Daytona 24 was worth the trouble of watching. No more. And it can only get worse: the Daytona Prototype of Tomorrow, comes to mind. Some ovals, like Lowes/Charlotte, already have infield road courses and given the similarity of all 1 1/2 mile ovals, they're likely to be almsot carborn copies of it - which is itself a carbon copy of Daytona's infield circuit. And that in turn would open the doors to more NASCRAP drivers and more NASTRASH domination. . .

No defenders of the new ownership on this thread so far. It seems premature to predict that NASCAR will change everything around. However, IF they did, indeed, NASCARize the Rolex series (more "rovals" etc), it would be the end of the series. They would be combining the WORST parts of each series.

I enjoy watching some of the Rolex races and I think the 24 Hours is still fastinating but I would not be at all sorry to see the ALMS become the only sports car RR series.