waterboy_09 - 26 June 2009 11:25 AM

Maelochs - 26 June 2009 11:21 AM

This won't really save road-racing in North America. It will "Americanize" ("Nascarify") road racing, and eventually people will get tired of ugly low-tech cars circling slowly.

IRL is certainly doing well with the spec formula, eh?

The NASCAR crowd might not mind identical cars using 1950's technology trundling around in a circle, but most real road-racing fans look to the various LM series as the F1 of sports cars. Selling us the Formula Vee of sports cars won't get it.

I think the only reason people watch both series is because ALMS has a huge whole in their schedule, and because there is not enough good road-racing on TV, so fans suck up whatever they can. But if the best is gone and all that is left is a spec series ... will road-racing fans go the NASCAR route, and only care about the drivers' Media personae?

I doubt it. For sports-racing fans, the cars are a huge part of the draw.

Big manufacter involment cant survive in this economy, after this year its either Grand-am or no big time sports car racing in the country. I actually think grand am puts on great racing, and has world class drivers.

But the economy is showing small slow signs of recovery, so the current situation can improve and probably will.

For the record, Audi will be back in 2010 and that will add interest to P1. P2 may be a little stagnant,but look at how strong GT2 (or a renamed class called simply GT) could be with Porsche, Ferrari, Panoz, Dodge, and now Corvette?

But, if Acura leaves, who will they race?

Audi has said they would return to Le Mans, but they did not announce an ALMS campaign. It would be reasonable to assume that they will race at Sebring, but after that, it is more likely they will race in Europe, especially if VW/Audi decide to race in the IRL, which appears to be very likely.

Audi never says anything about next season until around Dec I believe that is the same as the annual share holders meeting for the fiscal 2009.

If this is it...

The rumor of Audi returning and "The Lion" at Petit and Laguna, if this is the swan song, it should go out with a bang and not a whimper...

However like Murphy I am not ready to give last rights to the ALMS and I do believe that the small faction of Road Racing Fans and Racers can support two series, even in this environment.

An ALMS buyout like the IRL "merger" would be a disaster. Show me one POSITIVE from the IRL merger. Most of the key CART teams already made the jump, so you can't say the level of competition increased. At any time the IRL could have ran at the same tracks the ALMS does and largely choose not too.

I still believe the IRL and ALMS should share events, not all, but a few. This series needs to be on TV and the gaps in the schedule is crushing the fan base, we hate it!

But to be honest ALMS/IMSA have been trying to fill those gaps with limited success and we lost the Houston race in 2008 and it has been said it will not return. Other races in DC and Road Atlanta were popular but the politics of putting on a race got into the way.

I don't understand why you can't run Sebring, 2 weeks then St Pete, Long Beach and Portland or return to Sears Point and one week off and then Utah.

I still say we need an event south of the border. The IRL has two options if it does indeed go down to Brazil, there's an oval and at couple of F1 level road courses. If the ALMS can hitch its wagon to IRL, maybe push for the road course(s)? But in saying that, wasn't the last CART race in Brazil on the roval there???

Anyway, longer races are not TV friendly if your paying for the air time. However you don't want them two short. The LMS has longer races but its coverage is broken up to interviews and race start and then then race end - 45 mins of 1000km race.

Hindy has often said you could do races tape delayed and loose nothing, but honest in this day and age of the internet, I don't know if that's viable anymore. Same Day coverage that's delayed is okay but not ideal. I don't think the answer is to have longer races, because to be flat honest the same 2-3 teams in GT2 and same 2-3 teams in P1/P2 would claim victory.

I think 2009 was a hold your water year and these "new" realities in the economy were years in the making, delayed by previous controlling parties here in America. Now that much of the "Rich" paper empires have now crumbled, the "real" Rich will return to their rightful place atop the heap, and its in their interest to have a serviceable if not thriving economy.

This series has always been looking for a title sponsor and that pull back started in roughly 2003. It will always look for one and may have found one in Patron, but its going to be hard to sell until the "show" is better and right now, its just so-so at best.

I have always said that the ALMS could survive as a GT only series as well, it seem to work for the FIA GT and GT Open.

The FIA has already approved the SRO as the promoter for the FIA World GT Championship and 2010 spec cars are already running somewhat between current GT1 pace and GT2 pace with limited development.

The ALMS already has a solid GT2 field that will be deepen by the addition of GM Corvette Racing. If Honda wants to leave, oh well. Its not their fault or the ALMS' that Audi demanded competition for years and when somebody finally steps up, they are a no-show for the seasonal series.

However if Audi confirmed a return in 2010 and Porsche Motosports get approval (Green Light) for its LMP1 program all this talk of mergers and such will stop.

Most of this talk is because there's nothing going on and Le Mans was settled with about 12 hours to go.

In ALMS favor is that the series still has eye balls, while the IRL has none.

I am a bit confused, dj.

In another thread you say you will not watch GA, because you "will not watch an inferior product."

But ALMS as a pure GT series, would not be inferior?

The GT2 class is often the best part of the show, no doubt. But it is the prototypes that really attract people. There are all kinds of stock-based series out there, which don't get a lot of attention. Why not? Because they lack the emotional appeal of the exotic prototypes.

Half the complaints I hear about GA DP is that the cars are ugly and all the same. The quality of the racing is often high, but the cars are low-tech and ugly. Real Sports-racing fans seem to like real prototypes.

But you would axe the P1 and P2 class and be fine with that?

Problem is, GA already has its own GT class, full of fine racing (and many of the same drivers.) What would get people to drive a lot of miles and spend a lot of money to see ALMS GT2 when they can do the same to see GT and DP?

Also: "Most of this talk is because there's nothing going on and Le Mans was settled with about 12 hours to go."

I guess I was watching a different race, because the Le Mans I watched was exciting until the end. That is not the cause of all this talk.

The cause of all this talk is that even before the global financial downturn, ALMS had been losing money every season. When the economy crashed and the factories cut back, things got worse, but things were not well to begin with. At St. Pete I heard that Dr. Panoz was fed up with paying out of pocket to run ALMS; I doubt he came to that position based on Sebring.

If factories get involved again, if the global economy picks up, if ... if ...

But really, unless ALMS gets a title sponsor as well as all those things, its future is shaky. This is not some Chicken Little, "The sky is falling!" sudden senseless panic.

This is the culmination of several seasons of financial failure, brought to a head by the global economy and the subsequent factory cutbacks, but the whole thing was headed for disaster already; these factors just hastened the trip.

For the record, I like both series, but ALMS is 1000x more important to me than GA. GA is what I watch because there is no other racing on that week. I think the buyout (which is still wholly unconfirmed rumor) would be a disaster which would destroy my favorite racing series. But I cannot pretend ALMS has always been healthy and just took a small hit because of the economy. ALMS has been in decline for a long time.

i don't think you could say that the ALMS has been in decline for a long time. 2008 was the peak year for the series, in terms of attendance and quality of entry.

it is true that the current ALMS situation is less than ideal, but it is also a fact that no other sports car racing series has had the same following. grand-am does not get the same support, and would not see a significant increase if it were to buy the ALMS. its product is just not resonating with fans in the same way.

perhaps a new set of rules is needed, but they do need to be internationally compatible. the success of the ALMS has largely been due to the interest of major manufacturers and teams in participating, and they participated because the rules matched those in europe, meaning they only needed one car. north american specific rules eliminate that advantage, and do not enhance the grid. also, if we were to use the north american specific rules dreamed up by grand-am as an example of what north american rules makers come up with, then it's pretty clear they're not very good at writing rules packages anyway.

i think that if a cut back was needed, then perhaps the prototypes would disappear, just because they're so expensive to initially campaign (although not substantially more to run day-to-day, according to the only published evidence i've seen). however, the current GT situation is rather muddled, with the manufacturers all wanting the current GT2 rules, and stephan ratel attempting to bring in his new lame GT1 rules. that said, GT racing would appear to be fairly well supported, and could be the core of whatever 'ideal' series people wanted to talk up. but it would need to be an internationally compatible class, to ensure the same manufacturer and major team interest...

If ANY of this is true, then SPEED needs to be seriously petitioned to carry LMS races (like they shouldn't already!)

bandeti - 28 June 2009 08:25 PM

If ANY of this is true, then SPEED needs to be seriously petitioned to carry LMS races (like they shouldn't already!)

Same ol'....they don't need to be petitioned...they need the slots sold to enable the coverage.

One thing about ALMS's decline:
Average prototype entry numbers went from around 20 to little more than 10 between 1999 and 2000 and has stayed close to that low ever since with occasional deviations towards lower numbers.
ALMS's big decline was from the first to second year and they've never recovered from that.

bandeti - 28 June 2009 08:25 PM

If ANY of this is true, then SPEED needs to be seriously petitioned to carry LMS races (like they shouldn't already!)

They do not show actual racing anymore, just reality shows.