Quote:
Originally Posted by Maelochs
Because, economics.
Please do not see this as an "inflamatory" post, but I have to say this: It makes a Lot of sense to have a worldwide sportscar formula, because manufacturers cannot afford to build (or really, to research and design) many types of cars for many series, and teams cannot afford to pay for the research, testing, design, and construction when the construction run is so small.
This is one of the lessons we could and should learn from the past: fragmented competing series are no longer sustainable (if they ever were--not many sports car series have lasted a decade.)
To make racing make business sense in today's world, options have to be limited, as does development. I hate it, but I am not blind or entirely stupid, so I accept it.
It simply costs too much to build a competitive car to modern safety and performance standards. A Jim Hall-type character can't cook up some crazy idea in his back shed and conquer the sportscar world (or at least radically alter it.) No more chassis rails chalked out on garage floors, or fire-pump engines converted to F1. Sorry.
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I can agree with you up to this point, but I will point out that with computation fluid dynamics and computer-aided design that one could easily enough design a car. Carbonfiber is getting cheaper all the time to buy and manufacture, and if multiple chassis makes can be made to work for pretty much every formula there is, I can see it being possible that a North American sports car series could survive on its own. It doesn't have to be that crazy expensive, and the fact that teams like SMP and Strakka did it for LMP2 cars says that it can be done if there is the will to do it.
The limiting of chassis options (such as in the proposed 2017 P2 rules) is idiotic. Natural selection can - and should - be what drives technical development. But being that the ACO has less interest in advancing the technical development of the P2 category than they do in sustaining the bank accounts of Oreca and Onroak, that didn't happen. And yes, IMSA is far too pricey for such a more open formula to work. But even with these rules, I rather suspect that if somebody went to IMSA and wanted in with a large enough check, IMSA's gonna cash the check and tell them to have at it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maelochs
If we didn't go with ACO, where would we go in North America? Another generation of "cost-effective" DP dinosaurs? Sorry, the genie is already out of that bottle---fans have seen modern P2s and would never accept another decade of tube-framed throwbacks.
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It seems rather obvious to me that you have never even looked at a DP car to make a statement like this one, Maelochs. Call it inflamatory if you like, but statements like this show you have a bias. The tubes on a DP are massively reinforced by carbonfiber panels, and on all the modern cars the tube frame bases and the carbonfiber reinforcements are both absolutely vital to the car's performance. DPs may not have CF tubs as bases, but beyond that the tech difference between them and P2 cars is minimal. Anybody thinking that a DP is a Trans-Am car with the engine in the back has never looked at one in depth.
And as far as the fans not accepting "another decade of tube-framed throwbacks", I'd bet money you and some other diehards care about it far more than anybody else does. I have nothing against ACO cars, but after thirteen seasons and a lot of development in every way possible, this crap about the DPs somehow being intrisically inferior to the LMP2s has got to stop. Seriously folks, if you've seen both, its rather obvious that both are different ways of accomplishing the same objective.