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Old 19 Jan 2010, 20:18 (Ref:2615893)   #26
FIRE
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Originally Posted by ascarracinguk View Post
am i the only brit that actually likes grand am?? love the cars and class, however in europe there isnt enough room. now if ratel sitches the fia gt world series idea...which is rubbish with just 24 cars, they go to LMS and make a massive grid then there would be room for grand am
F1, WRC and WTCC do not better.
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Old 19 Jan 2010, 20:36 (Ref:2615900)   #27
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Hugewally should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
Wasn't the idea of bringing Grand-Am to Europe floated by Daytona a few ago too?
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Old 19 Jan 2010, 20:53 (Ref:2615917)   #28
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F1, WRC and WTCC do not better.
problem is tho that gt racing is endurance...should have 50 odd cars!!!....
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Old 19 Jan 2010, 22:05 (Ref:2615952)   #29
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... and the fact that there haven't been all that many DPs been sold lately in general.
That is one side effect of stable rules and cars that are almost to sturdy to total, you can buy a used chassis and be relatively competitive. Is this the 7th year of DP's? must be lots of cars sitting in garages in various parts of the country - maybe they can find a home in europe?
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Old 19 Jan 2010, 22:37 (Ref:2615969)   #30
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8th year for DPs in general, 7th for the Riley...
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Old 19 Jan 2010, 22:54 (Ref:2615982)   #31
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Over three dozen Rileys alone built so far too, with only a few written-off or retired. AIM did win two races in 2008 with Riley #001.

To be fair, the Dallara win at Montreal wasn't won on the drawing board, but I wouldn't say that SunTrust has been more than half a step behind Ganassi and Gainsco (two confirmed cheaters ).
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Old 19 Jan 2010, 23:09 (Ref:2615990)   #32
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Wasn't the idea of bringing Grand-Am to Europe floated by Daytona a few ago too?
Presumably that would be GrandEur

Something a few too many promotors are full of...
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Old 19 Jan 2010, 23:11 (Ref:2615991)   #33
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I spoke at length to Alana France and Dave Spitzer last week and an expansion of Grand-Am to Europe was not mentioned once.
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Old 20 Jan 2010, 00:20 (Ref:2616015)   #34
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Presumably that would be GrandEur

Something a few too many promotors are full of...
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Old 20 Jan 2010, 03:52 (Ref:2616069)   #35
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ACRUK, LMS is NEVER going to thin the LMP ranks just to make room for more GTs, so that method for making room for another series just doesn't fly. Not to mention, there aren't ANY tracks with enough pit stalls, and rated high enough (full FIA Grade 2 standard), to have 75 cars of this spec racing on them all at once. Daytona is an anomaly, and the only tracks I can think of that would be allowed to have 80+ cars based on their lap length are Le Mans (only 55 pit boxes), and the Nordschleife (not cleared to run anything higher than GT2). Sebring is 1.16-1.5 miles shorter than it was in the days when it had 80+car starting grids (it only has 60 pit boxes at present anyway).

I think you'll have to drop that 50-car field for GTs criterion. I haven't heard of a single GT-only race, except, perhaps, for the Spa 24H, drawing that kind of a field any time recently (and that's been with GT1, GT2, AND GT3 cars allowed in the 24-Hour).

The GT1 World Championship is limited to 24 cars to allow for one aircraft to take care of travel for the flyaway events, for which SRO is covering the costs. I doubt the BPR, aside from Spa 24H, had much larger GT1 grids than this, so why the complaint? Heck, even with GT1 and GT2 on track, a 30-car field for the 500k/3h FIA GT races was pretty decent. And, of course, the new GT1 races won't be endurance; deal with it.

Finally, even combined IMSA GTO/GTU grids would have usually fallen short of your 50-car, GT requirement.
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Old 20 Jan 2010, 10:10 (Ref:2616186)   #36
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problem is tho that gt racing is endurance...should have 50 odd cars!!!....
Can you show me were is written GT's is endurance only?
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Old 20 Jan 2010, 22:14 (Ref:2616596)   #37
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Exactly, Fire. The FIA GT1 World Championship isn't endurance racing. A 24-car grid isn't bad for a single-class championship (the WRC isn't).
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Old 20 Jan 2010, 22:16 (Ref:2616601)   #38
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I've never understood why NASCAR chose to create such an ugly class of car, was it simply a case of ensuring DP's didn't look as slick as the stock cars?

If second generation DP's look like a 962, or even a Salleen, they'd win over a great many new fans.
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Old 20 Jan 2010, 22:26 (Ref:2616603)   #39
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i dunno fire...haha i think i jus remember the good olld days of the fia gt when we had mclarens porsches, lotus etc...long races, lots of cars

dont get me wrong im still gona go to the fia gts, i jus think its a shame they have restricted the entry, although i can understand why
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Old 20 Jan 2010, 22:31 (Ref:2616606)   #40
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I've never understood why NASCAR chose to create such an ugly class of car, was it simply a case of ensuring DP's didn't look as slick as the stock cars?

If second generation DP's look like a 962, or even a Salleen, they'd win over a great many new fans.
I think they got somewhat outsmarted by the chassis-builders.

Here's an early sketch of what the Fabcar was going to look like:


Not that bad, eh?
But then there were a number of bad accidents at the beginning of the decade, especially in Open Wheel Racing, but also Sportscars (Alboretto) and NASCAR (Earnhard) and they decided to make the cars super-safe and mandated green-houses that were big enough to allow for helmet-removal while the driver was still in car.

At this point, I think, they didn't know what they would end up with and even with the current chassis-dimension better looking cars would have been possible. The greenhouse is not significantly bigger than on a GT-car, in fact the DPs are a good deal lower than the Grand Am GT-cars.
Their idea was "Less GTP, more GT40" - and on a car with basically a GT-body the greenhouse dimensions would not have looked out of place.


The Doran and the Fabcar (and the Chase) were somewhat built in that spirit and are actually quite nice looking.
But then came along Riley (a company with a corporate history of ugly cars) and ran everyone else into the ground, and here we are today.

In my opinion, the frantic racing really makes up for the somewhat different aesthetics, but I can understand those that disagree.
And only very few LMPs are beauty queens either. Those who say that there has been no good looking Proto in the last 20 years are pretty much right - except for some late 962s and the 90s GT1-cars.
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Old 21 Jan 2010, 21:46 (Ref:2617183)   #41
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I am convinced GrandAm would have much more fans if the cars looked better (something like the Fabcar). Not to like GrandAm because the green house is ugly sounds absurd but it isn't. Other series (touring cars, single seaters) are mainly about the drivers and racing itself but in GT's and sportscars the cars are much more important. In GT's and sportscars there's more emotion involved.

I think for Europeans the involvement of NASCAR isn't a big reason for disliking GrandAm. Here in Europe Formula 1 is the evil empire.

@Speed-King: The cars could even look worse
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Old 21 Jan 2010, 22:01 (Ref:2617188)   #42
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i like the look of the cars...theyre different and i like different lol...especailly like the riley
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Old 21 Jan 2010, 23:16 (Ref:2617225)   #43
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And only very few LMPs are beauty queens either. Those who say that there has been no good looking Proto in the last 20 years are pretty much right - except for some late 962s and the 90s GT1-cars.
I would argue that a majority of the modern LMP's are beauty queens... and engineering marvels, something the DP's will NEVER be even if they do become better looking. I prefer the look of the Pug, Lola, and Lola Aston coupes, plus the Porsche RS Spyder, Acura ARX-01b, & Zyteks to most of the F1 cars over the past 10 years. The DP's are too low tech for European fans to appreciate IMHO.
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Old 22 Jan 2010, 01:25 (Ref:2617275)   #44
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I would argue that a majority of the modern LMP's are beauty queens... and engineering marvels, something the DP's will NEVER be even if they do become better looking. I prefer the look of the Pug, Lola, and Lola Aston coupes, plus the Porsche RS Spyder, Acura ARX-01b, & Zyteks to most of the F1 cars over the past 10 years. The DP's are too low tech for European fans to appreciate IMHO.
I don't know if they are too "low tech" for European fans. They'll just have a heck of a time finding a niche market. Maybe in that they are powered by stonking V8s?

You mentioned the Acura and RS Spyder as a beautiful car, and that triggered a thought in my mind. I reckon the ARX-01 and RS Spyder are contestants for most beautiful race cars ever! Those two, along with the Audi R8 make for three LMP cars amongst the most beautiful cars ever IMO. But heck, the Lolas from B05/40 on, the Bentley EXP Speed 8, Dallara, the Zyteks, Ascari A410... the list goes on for beautiful LMPs.

Chris
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Old 22 Jan 2010, 17:06 (Ref:2617639)   #45
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i like the look of the cars...theyre different and i like different lol...especailly like the riley
If the Riley was a P1 with a big V8 I reckon it would have many fans, just as the Intrepid GTP, Panoz GTR-1/LMP-1 etc. were fan favourites, different is good.

The problem with DP's is every car is ugly, IMO.
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Old 24 Jan 2010, 00:40 (Ref:2618332)   #46
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At this point, I think, they didn't know what they would end up with and even with the current chassis-dimension better looking cars would have been possible. The greenhouse is not significantly bigger than on a GT-car, in fact the DPs are a good deal lower than the Grand Am GT-cars.
But that is the aesthetic problem. The cars are not dimensionally close to the GT's, but with GT greenhouses look terrible.
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The Doran and the Fabcar (and the Chase) were somewhat built in that spirit and are actually quite nice looking.
But then came along Riley (a company with a corporate history of ugly cars) and ran everyone else into the ground, and here we are today.

In my opinion, the frantic racing really makes up for the somewhat different aesthetics, but I can understand those that disagree.
And only very few LMPs are beauty queens either. Those who say that there has been no good looking Proto in the last 20 years are pretty much right - except for some late 962s and the 90s GT1-cars.
Personally, I'd disagree with that, just because I don't think most of the Group C cars were very good looking (pretty bad proportions really), and the Mercedes CLK-GTR is probably the ugliest prototype of the decade.

I can think of a lot of LMP900 and 675 cars that were quite attractive though...
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Old 24 Jan 2010, 01:24 (Ref:2618342)   #47
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Appreciate this might be a touch OT but if the criteria re a DP are that the helmet can be removed within cockpit dimensions how do they cope with the GTs - there sure as hell isn't the headroom in any of those cars to take a helmet off - and why should they be considered differently to the prototypes?
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Old 24 Jan 2010, 14:22 (Ref:2618582)   #48
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Personally, I'd disagree with that, just because I don't think most of the Group C cars were very good looking (pretty bad proportions really), and the Mercedes CLK-GTR is probably the ugliest prototype of the decade.
The second year CLK was ugly like hell. Looked like a dyed pancake straight out of a UFO series.

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Once Grand-Am finds that the ITR and Super GT allow materials other than iron, plastic and rubber, they will quit.


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I spoke at length to Alana France and Dave Spitzer last week and an expansion of Grand-Am to Europe was not mentioned once.
Thank you for the very good news Graham. Hope they continue that way.
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Old 25 Jan 2010, 14:27 (Ref:2619141)   #49
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Maybe the Grand-am cars would have a little space on the VdeV championship.... But I´m sure that we won´t see those cars in Europe
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