|
I can't imagine any team wanted to see a 4 tire change and optional refueling. Sprint X is lame as it is and this just makes it worse.
Before you start with, "That's what they do in Europe", I want you to go do a season in Europe and then in the US. You'll find that you'll be racking up about 10X the amount of distance traveled from race to race in the US. Multiply that distance by the number of crew. Then add into that, the truck. This doesn't count that everywhere you race in Europe is like CoTA. You have a nifty garage and don't need to set up the massive awning, 3X the amount of pit equipment and all of that stuff which is related. Guess what, that takes people to set up and tear down.
If you ran the ELMS, your total travel for the season will total the distance for the first three IMSA races. Run the ADAC Masters series, that travel area is half the size of Texas or equivalent to the geographical area of the SCCA NE region which is run by SCCA Club racers.
I know what will happen. Teams will start with 35 minutes of fuel and put in the remaining 25 minutes during the stop. They just want a lighter fuel load. That makes the tire thing confusing because lighter fuel load equates to less tire degradation. In the end, if you have two Sprint X races, you will need four sets of tires as opposed to two. Add into that the new two sets that you'll be using for practice. So, six sets of tires for 120 minutes of racing and 60-80 minutes of practice/qualifying or a total of 180-200 minutes of total track time. Tires for a GT car are around ($2700-2800/set). So, a $16K tire bill for three hours of track time. Good news for Pirelli. Then you need extra guys suited up for dumping in 25 minutes of fuel.
This is called nickel and diming the teams. A litter here and a little there. In the end, it adds up when you do it season after season.
|