IMSA TUSC 2015 Entries, Schedule, and Rumors

[MoMedic9019]

Originally Posted by DeezPutz

You're pretty hooked into this series. Can't you just ask him instead of saying you had a thought?

Not any easier than you could. There is no other meaning to that post, seriously...I have no idea. It's enough to wonder though.

I've only talked to him once...even at that, we aren't' ever gonna know the truth.

[ger80]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

You mean the number of cars available or the number of cars expected to join the series in 2015?

PC is likely less budget than GTD, so without cap I guess most cars ready to race will be offer it for a ride...

[Deleted]

Dagys reporting that Road America, Mosport, CotA and VIR events have all been reduced by, erhm, five minutes (), while Lime Rock is two hours.

I bet Scott and boys wasted the whole work week in "negotiations" for those huge entertainment increasing + cost saving calendar adjustments that will no doubt make the difference (for FOX ads)

[MoMedic9019]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Dagys reporting that Road America, Mosport, CotA and VIR events have all been reduced by, erhm, five minutes (), while Lime Rock is two hours.

I bet Scott and boys wasted the whole work week in "negotiations" for those huge entertainment increasing + cost saving calendar adjustments that will no doubt make the difference (for FOX ads)

Basically, they reduced it by two laps.

What did they get in return? That's two more 90 sec commercial breaks...

[joeb]

Had anybody else been following the conversations on Twitter regarding driver ratings in PC and gtd? Today I saw DHH mention IMSA may have actually not released their rules correctly and they will clarify on Monday.

I see two possible scenarios here, 1) they honestly put out a press release that didn't release the information in their new rules correctly or 2) they saw the backlash from teams and pay drivers and are now reconsidering. I'm not sure which scenario is better?

[Danske]

Originally Posted by joeb

Had anybody else been following the conversations on Twitter regarding driver ratings in PC and gtd? Today I saw DHH mention IMSA may have actually not released their rules correctly and they will clarify on Monday.

I see two possible scenarios here, 1) they honestly put out a press release that didn't release the information in their new rules correctly or 2) they saw the backlash from teams and pay drivers and are now reconsidering. I'm not sure which scenario is better?

Or knowing Twitter:
3) The bulletin is a little unclear in its legalese wording and people are freaking out about what they imagine it's saying.

New rule appears to be: only one Silver/Bronze driver required, except if you have five drivers at Daytona in which case you need two S/B drivers. You can have more if you need the money.

ETA: Oh, there's a big messy table of minimum drive times that looks ripe for confusion/errors.

[Matt]

Reduction of five minutes will put a whole race into a three hour time slot.

Good move.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Matt

Reduction of five minutes will put a whole race into a three hour time slot.

Good move.

But it always there

5min FOX pre-race
2h45min race (of which ~30-45 minutes are commercials (+informercials around 10 minutes me thinks))
5min FOX post-race
= 2h55min
+ rounding up the end with more commercials
= 3 hours

2h40min changes nothing really, same 3h slot with different ads placement

ESPN used to have longer pre/post for ALMS few years ago, even if for web, so there it could've worked bit better maybe

edit: of course, if IMSA were orchestrating GWC finishes in those races, it might make "sense" for TV

[Maelochs]

Five-minute difference makes no real difference except to free up five more minutes for commercials--or a few commercials and a few more minutes of talking, where fans would prefer more racing. These clueless losers seemingly cannot get anything right.

Really, who wants Less racing? And for those parties which do (say, small-budget teams struggling to pay for the longer season) is Five Minutes going to get their budgets in line?

The top class has been a joke since before the first race, top teams are pulling out to go to other series, so why not rearrange the deck chairs?

Even if they managed to make Fox happier ... Unless it means more races on Fox1, it doesn't really mean anything, for fans or for sponsors.

I am tired and cranky and being harsh, but sometimes i get fed up with this stuff. How about some positive news, TUSC? Since September 2013 the only good news has been hiring Hindy and co.

[Purist]

Just for the fun of fleshing it out, the five fewer minutes corresponds, as follows, under green flag conditions (for P cars):
Road America= 3 laps
Austin= 3 laps
VIR= 3-4 laps
Mosport= 4-5 laps

Roughly, what are the fuel windows for each class? With all the caution they so frequently have, it can be tough to get a good read on that. Also, I can't follow the T&S screens like many of you guys can.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Purist

Just for the fun of fleshing it out, the five fewer minutes corresponds, as follows, under green flag conditions (for P cars):
Road America= 3 laps
Austin= 3 laps
VIR= 3-4 laps
Mosport= 4-5 laps

Roughly, what are the fuel windows for each class? With all the caution they so frequently have, it can be tough to get a good read on that. Also, I can't follow the T&S screens like many of you guys can.

The fuel windows will be a factor. DPs could already stretch it to 2 stops last year and this will only make it easier.

[Maelochs]

Ahhhh ,... this is being done as a precursor to new BoP machinations. If the P2 cars get an edge in speed, the DPs will reel them in with better fuel mileage and the management can tell the complainers, 'Well, we made the P2s faster. If they can't win they just aren't as good as DPs. Not our fault."

[Rcz]

I think they should use the Laguna Seca 2hour split race model for throughout the 2016 season. Except for the Eduros and Road America

Proto/PC
GTLM/GTD

[jasonjessica09]

Originally Posted by Rcz

I think they should use the Laguna Seca 2hour split race model for throughout the 2016 season. Except for the Eduros and Road America

Proto/PC
GTLM/GTD

2015 appears to be set now. The last adjustment to move LMPC to Detroit made sense because car counts are down in P and GTD and it guarantees an all GT race at VIR. The LMPC teams obviously did not like the format running with IMSA lites.

I think you idea is a good one though and should be considered by IMSA in 2016. It will be feasible by then with full GT3's coming in. So yeah more all GT's please in 2016.

[BullMan]

VIR will be $85-90 again and with 15 total GT cars confirmed now, it's not worth it at all.

[Purist]

I still have to stick with my sense that, if the track can hold them, the full field should be running. Yes, I would rather have one 160-165-minute race with all classes than two 120-minute races with things split, whenever such is feasible. I want to see my favorite classes running for the maximum amount of track time; 160 minutes is more than 120.

Also, Austin would look pathetic with only half the cars out there. At tracks like Laguna Seca and Mosport, a huge amount of the spectacle is the graphic illustration of the speed differentials between the GTs and the Prototypes. In addition, at a track like Laguna Seca, if it's the GTs and Prototypes together in their separate races, the lack of speed differential makes overtaking quite difficult, even, sometimes, traffic from the other class.

VIR is more open, which helps overtaking, and let's face it, the drivers take just that extra measure of precaution there, because they know what consequences WILL be awaiting them if they throw it off the road. VIR also just has so many particularly tricky places, compared to a number of the other tracks, where if you throw it off the road, it is going to be a big off.

[Lagunaseca_4life]

At this point with the low car counts so far they should just run all classes together at laguna for four hours or at least three would be nice.two split races with less than 20 cars each is not looking good right now,might as well make ctcs the head line race with more cars and a longer race,heck even the gt3 cup will have more cars if the grid continues this way.

[HJJ]

From Autosport.

Michael Shank Racing has become the first Tudor United SportsCar Championship team to swap from Daytona Prototype to LMP2 machinery with the purchase of a new Ligier.
MSR, which won the Daytona 24 Hours in 2012, will field the Ligier JSP2 built by French constructor Onroak Automotive in next season's USC in place of the Riley-Ford EcoBoost DP it ran this year, starting at round two at Sebring in March.
The car will be raced in the full USC by MSR regulars Oswaldo Negri Jr and John Pew.
Shank said that he was making the change for multiple reasons, including a desire a prepare for 2017 when new rules for the USC Prototype class are due to come into force.
"We are going towards what will be happening in the future: the direction we are heading is a P2 car, or some version of that," he told AUTOSPORT.
"But we were also looking for a new challenge after 11 seasons running DPs and one of my drivers expressed an interest in racing a P2."
Shank said he believed the balance between the upgraded DPs and P2s was now "there or thereabouts" after a Honda-engined Ligier run by the factory OAK team finished second at the penultimate USC round at Austin in September.
He would not be drawn on which engine the car would run and whether he would continue his relationship with Ford and use the 3.2-litre P2 version of the Roush Yates V6 twin-turbo that powered his Riley (pictured below) last season.
"There is nothing announced on that and I can't comment further," he said.
It is unclear whether MSR has any plans to swap engines, but it is known that Onroak is working on a Ford installation for a car that has so far raced with Nissan V8 and Honda V6 power.
Shank stressed that the reason he would run a Riley DP at Daytona in January was purely down to the delivery date of his new chassis.
"Don't read anything into that: Onroak is a small manufacturer and Tracy Krohn [whose deal to buy a Ligier was announced in September] is ahead of us in line," he explained.

"Our car won't be ready in time for Daytona and we don't expect to start testing until February."
Shank said that the Daytona line-up would "look familiar", which suggests that Justin Wilson and AJ Allmendinger will returning to the team to share with Negri and Pew.

.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by Gulf

I wonder if nascar bought the car as a way to keep a few P2s around and that's why he has had a sudden turn around on how he feels about P2 cars.

His client, John Pew, drove the decision.

[BullMan]

Flying Lizard confirmed for Daytona only:

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/tusc/fl...daytona-plans/

OAK probably not going to run much in TUSC:

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/tusc/oa...uture-in-tusc/

With Shank getting his car after Daytona, this means we won't have any full-season P2 cars in the series, and likely won't have a team that could compete for an overall win. I wonder if they can rig up an online stream that shows everything but the P class since it's not really worth watching at this point?

[jasonjessica09]

Originally Posted by BullMan

Flying Lizard confirmed for Daytona only:

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/tusc/fl...daytona-plans/

OAK probably not going to run much in TUSC:

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/tusc/oa...uture-in-tusc/

With Shank getting his car after Daytona, this means we won't have any full-season P2 cars in the series, and likely won't have a team that could compete for an overall win. I wonder if they can rig up an online stream that shows everything but the P class since it's not really worth watching at this point?

I think that is rather harsh to say. Prototype will be interesting enough in 2015 to get by I think. Shank's guys in a Ligier will be interesting to see. Plus I still don't get sick of watching the Corvette DP's run around. I think they are good looking cars and I am interested to see the C7 styling queues. The Mazda folks will be a tad better I think because Bomarito will be driving. And the DW will be competitive now, although I can see them skipping Long Beach and Detroit. ESM and Krohn looks like they will be enduros only. The big question is Starworks. What the heck is up with them? Notice that accept for the DW all the full season teams will be ex-Grand Am teams.

GTLM will be the same minus the Viper which really stinks to be honest. SRT leaving I think is by far the biggest blow to the series. Much more than ESM, Oak, Turner, or Flying Lizard. It still feels like a punch in the gut to this day.

LMPC I could care less about. Same for GTD because 2015 is essentially the last year for this category as we know it.

[Danske]

Originally Posted by jasonjessica09

Notice that accept for the DW all the full season teams will be ex-Grand Am teams.

MuscleMilk, Dyson, Tucker, and ESM were the only full-season P1/2 teams left at the end of the ALMS, eh? Two of them have business factors which could have prohibited them from racing any more regardless of the merger. And really all of them are only in it for the fun of finishing on the podium, not as a professional team.

[joeb]

In other series news, Falken ran at Daytona for the first time in preparation for their first race their.

Also, in GTD news TRG has announced the driver lineup for their Aston, Nielsen and Davison.

[Dodge_Swinger]

Fewer proto and GTLM cars, same stupid Grand-Am pit and FCY rules. Ed Bennett was right. The fans ARE the biggest winners!

[jasonjessica09]

Originally Posted by Dodge_Swinger

Fewer proto and GTLM cars, same stupid Grand-Am pit and FCY rules. Ed Bennett was right. The fans ARE the biggest winners!

Currently what I have by my count for full season entries in the professional categories:

Prototype (9): 5 Corvette, 90 Corvette, 10 Corvette, 31 Corvette, 01 Ford, 60 Ligier, 07 Mazda, 70 Mazda, 0 Delta Wing

GTLM (8): 3 Corvette, 4 Corvette, 55 BMW Z4, 56 BMW Z4, 62 Ferrari 458, 17 Porsche 911, 91 Porsche 911, 92 Porsche 911