Combine ALMS and LMES ?

[xterra48]

The idea hit me yesterday, Why not combine series? LMES has a lot of cars to help fill out the field, and ALMS has Sebring and a larger tv audience. Both LMES And ALMS are under ACO rules, so the cars could run w/o mods. It would be like a world championship of endurance racing, with events in Europe the Americas, maybe even Asia. There are only two problems. 1. The events: in the AlMS you have mostly a bunch of short events, and the LMES has some long events. For the unification scheme to work you would need to cut some events, to have a doable schedule, and have a mix of 2:45, 6, 12 hour races, and why not get the ACO to make the Le Mans a sanctioned too. The other issue would be cost. Transcontinental travel would make it more expensive to race, and more cars makes it harder to win $$$.
But I think that this idea has a lot to offer, primarily more competition and larger tv audience with Europeans and Americans watching the events as they do Le Mans.
Just seing thous corvettes walk away with no competition at mosport, then seeing all those red Ferraris at the nurburgring made me think. And only 2 P2 entries at mosport was pitiful!
SO what do you guys think, is this doable, beneficial...?

[Kicking-back]

This has been mooted before, but the ALMS teams are largely American based - and if they don't enter the current series they won't enter this.

[jhansen]

I don't see it as being doable. Not without a large influx of sponsorship money, which doesn't look likely for sportscars at this time. The smaller European teams wouldn't travel to the U.S. and the small U.S. teams wouldn't travel to Europe. The net gain in field size wouldn't be worth the expense of combining the two series. The majority of the teams running in either series are not big-budget operations. Minus out Champion, Veloqx, Goh, the GM Corvettes and maybe Larbre and Konrad and who else is considered big-budget? Seems a bit out of reach at this time IMO.

[GT-Eins]

Why not as the following:
- 4 races from each series count to the world championship
- a team which intends to score for this championship will have to participate 6 races at least
- if a team runs more races only the best 6 will be counted
- so this limits efforts to a minimum of 2 transcontinental races for each interested team.

That should be a cost-efficient start for a WC - and would encourage works-teams to step in

[Fogelhund]

As far as manufacturers are concerned, there already is a World Championship, though most just call it LM.

I don't think I like the idea of making certain events "World Championship" status events, and others just regular LMS events.

While field size isn't of concern today, there has been entries turned away in the past, and hopefully we will get back to having this type of sized field again. I wouldn't want the series to be in a position to have to turn away a regular entrant, to appease an entry looking for that "WC" status event.

A similar idea is combining LMES and ALMS manufacturers points in some manner, to create a world manufacturers title is doable though. This ensures that manufacturers interested would have to field teams in both the ALMS and LMES, without worrying about displacing regular teams from either series.

[Chevyguy]

I hope I never hear about LM becoming part of a championship ever again. If that were to happen, FIA would be ignored in the invite, giving them only to ALMS/LMES competitors, then it's Daytona all over again.

I don't think it would be feasible for most teams to go jumping the water four or five times a year. Even the high dollar Vette team opts just to leave a couple of cars in France to save on shipping. Then you have teams like Dyson, with no interest in running in Europe at all. They would have their championship run taken away. By forcing so much on the teams, you would see a mass pilgrimage to FIA and GA.

GT-eins, your best 6 suggestion is good at first glance, but is it fair to those that put twelve great races together to be beaten out by somebody who only made it to the podium on six occasions? Let's say in 10 races, team 1 gets four wins and six second places. Team 2 gets six wins and DNFs the other four. With the "best 6", system, team 2 wins the chamionship, even though team 1 had the better season.

[GT-Eins]

I would only apply that system in case for a "4 regular & 2 invitation" system as described above (at 8 races for the "worldcup" status)

Otherwise I agree it makes no sense

counting effectively 2 "oversea"-events will make it more feasible for the smaller teams to participate

[JAG]

We already have an unnofficial WC of sorts with the Sebring, LM and PLM events.

Many teams can just about fund an LMES/ALMS program. Travelling around the world would force them out.

For LMES teams, many already compete in FIA GT and 2 or 3 ALMS events.

[GT-Eins]

Originally posted by JAG
We already have an unnofficial WC of sorts with the Sebring, LM and PLM events.
....

So why not make that official? These 3 (& a possible 4th in Europe) would be a fine and feasible start for a WC

[Mal]

At the moment Le Mans and to a lesser extent Sebring are the only ones that really matter to the manufacturers.

[BSchneiderFan]

And Sebring's importance is in large part founded on current wisdom that it's an important proving ground for Le Mans.

[Tim Northcutt]

We've covered this ground on many occasions....

Question:

How many european teams have the budget to come over to America twice a year to run Sebring & PLM????

Not many....or you would see lots of them over here....

and as of now, there aren't many ALMS teams...maybe a few at most...who could handle the Trans-Atlantic trips needed for a "World Championship...."

I would love the idea, but it is just too costly....

The long-discussed and suggested on this Forum "Title Sponsor" that is an international shipper -- Fed Ex, UPS, DHL, etc. -- would be the only chance of this happening....and they would have to be the ones to transport the teams as their "fee" to be the Title Sponsor....

I'd rather see both series serve their own audiences in theri parts of the world, have everyone who is invited from each to compete together at LM...and....

Take the top teams in the Season-ending points from each series, plus a few "Wild Card" picks from LMES and ALMS that would be chosen by their respective leaders to compete in an "All-Star 1,000 K race" at a warm-climate circuit in the late Fall....alternate it between North America and Europe every other year....

Make it Sebring or Laguna in the USA..

Do something is Spain or Italy in Europe...

You might get a big "Title Sponsor" for a "one-off" All-Star Shootout event with the best from each Series...

But a "combined" season will be too cost-prohibitive for competitors to afford......

Period....the travel cost would kill their budgets...

[jhansen]

Even if what you say is doable Tim, which it probably is, I say why waste the effort?

There isn't enough money in either series as it stands right now. If time and effort is going to be put into attracting sponsorship money for a world championship, or one-off "all-star" race, I say put the money towards each series. The ALMS and LMES need to get stronger and not sacrificed for the chance of some world tour IMO.

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally posted by jhansen
Even if what you say is doable Tim, which it probably is, I say why waste the effort?

There isn't enough money in either series as it stands right now. If time and effort is going to be put into attracting sponsorship money for a world championship, or one-off "all-star" race, I say put the money towards each series. The ALMS and LMES need to get stronger and not sacrificed for the chance of some world tour IMO.

I agree with you.....I believe that both Series would benefit from getting stronger in their own markets....

I really don't see the "All-Star" thing as being doable or even desirable, really....

But if the idea of the thread is to do something "combined" at all (which I also don't agree with BTW), at least an All-Star event matching the "Best of the Best" from each Series would have some degree of attraction for a big sponsor...It sure would be cheaper for all considered to do a "one-off" event than to try to do a combined "global" series...

[holgerson]

What if the schedule off ALMS,LMES and LM wil be so that you only have to ship one time????? That meens that you ship after sebring and you will be back after the 4 rounds off the LMES.Only thing is that last race off the LMES must be in the second weekend off august,then ALMS can restart end off august

[gttouring]

combining them isn't a bad thought bt this is where the idea started
the ALMS was the ELMS and teams could contest those rounds for ppooints as well and it was too expensive for US based teams to reall do this and LeMans- Champion spends 3 millionUS dollars to race only at LEmans! (the fill cracks and resourface their pit stalls to have better performance)
so imagine combing these other events- a global LeMans series would rule, however this is still crazy expenesive.
anyway since th ELMS and ( the ill fated Pacific LMS or AsianLMS whatever it was called ) were all attempts to make a global championship and it could be pulled off by enough teams.
so the ACO went with the Lemans Endurance series- from what i understand.
it certainly is good to have a few championships floating around with our beloved prototypes at least they duke it out in france and sebring a couple times a year to show who is best.
whay not add suzuka? and brno or spa to these big races? or Nurburgring

[Liz]

The problem with that "combination" is that it leaves North America with no racing at all until August. That would kill the series, as we would have to have all the races on the West Coast due to weather, and that would cut the audiences even if people remembered it even existed after a whole summer with no racing.

Why not leave the two series the way they are, and enjoy the one near you?

[Kicking-back]

Absolutely right, Liz. Both can thrive, and we'll all come together at La Sarthe each June.

[Pete Fenelon]

Looking at the way things are going, I think the ALMS will emphasise GTs more and more, and LMES will emphasise prototypes. I can see both series being open to all four categories, but the big money in Leftpondia will be spent on the GTs with the prototypes run largely by enthusiasts/journeymen and vice-versa in Rightpondia. There is no need for the series to ever clash - if you want to do both the dates should be arranged to allow that - but there should be no obligation on teams to do both series. I suspect there'll be substantial crossover at Le Mans (as kicking-back says) and Sebring - it'd be nice to see more LMES/euro entries at the Petit, too...


If any series need merging, it's ALMS and Grand-Am, but as long as the France family are interested in sports-car racing and DPs exist, I just don't see it happening

It'd be interesting to watch the JGTC's possible evolution into an Asia-Pacific series, for a start if the rules converged with Le Mans we might see some interesting Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas in the mix in at least GT...