IMSA USCC in 2016 and 2017

[mariantic]

Originally Posted by Matt

that website is so frustrating to navigate through

Suggested improvements gratefully received

Mariantic

[hondafan37]

Originally Posted by Matt

that website is so frustrating to navigate through

I disagree with you, I like the website.
It is very good to find some old news that you've read in the past and when you need to remember this, here is easy to find.

[canamman]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

I disagree with you, I like the website.
It is very good to find some old news that you've read in the past and when you need to remember this, here is easy to find.

I like the straight scroll down ,it's quick. The page loads easily as well
for each class.

[Bob Baldwin]

I am curious if there will be a common meeting place for 10 tenths members at the Rolex 24 hour event at Daytona this year ? Starting to make our plans now .

[BrentJackson]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And as far as IMSA throwing away the prototype classes, it'd take a total meltdown of the prototype market in North America. And even then, it'd take a similar fallout on the ACO/FIA end, as prototype, much like GTLM running broadly to ACO tech specs, it lip service to IMSA's agreements with the ACO and FIA. I don't forsee a change happening where the GT classes would be the main classes in IMSA like it was in the 1970s.

Considering that the combined P1 / P2 / DP / PC car count has gone from 30+ to less than fifteen in the space of two seasons, everyone needs new chassis in the next two years and absolutely everyone is whining about the costs, I'd say if they are not at critical mass they can't be far off. Spending huge sums to develop bodywork that has to be used on a psuedo-spec chassis isn't gonna be liked by many people, the rich guys who want to play race car driver are gravitating towards GT cars and want Pro-Am categories (and IMSA prototype cannot be that, for a variety of reasons) and aside from Mazda all of the factories in IMSA are engaged in the GTLM arms race. Of the current IMSA P teams, the only ones not having to toss their long-time suppliers on account of this move are WTR and MSR. In both the P and PC categories, the question is this: "What is this doing for us?" The answer for most is nothing. Simply letting natural selection move guys into new cars would have eventually done well for IMSA in the long run, but that hasn't happened. Instead, they made ridiculous rules to try and get European teams to bankrupt themselves racing P1s and ensure Oreca and Onroak dominated the markets, and watered it down for IMSA to use, hoping the teams would take it. It didn't work, and IMSA is gonna have to face that reality at some point.

Facing that reality gives them three options - maintain the status quo, build your own new prototype rules or dump the prototype category altogether. The status quo has the most short-term benefit, as nobody has to scrap their current machinery OR their current suppliers, and those teams, makers and cars orphaned by the new rules in Europe will be able to race in North America. The new rules option is high-risk but potentially high-reward, and has the problem of the ACO making sure those new cars never see Le Mans or any other ACO-rules series. The GT Series option is also a risk, but there is no rules issues to deal with and the cars already exist and are popular, and race-winning GT cars could see both an expansion of GTLM entrants and manufacturer interest in the series, particularly since IMSA already allows GT3 cars to be built for GTLM duty. Which path they take will determine the series' future look and image. Any of the above will work better than the proposed 2017 rules because they will likely cost less, get more interest or both. As it stands, the 2017 P2 rules are gonna be a mess, but IMSA can NOT let that hurt them. They can't take too many more hits.

[chernaudi]

One can argue that if IMSA killed the DPs off when the merger happened and stuck with the ACO's tech rules in full, this wouldn't be happening. But there's a trade off there. Most of the companies that were building customer LMP1 cars have either gone under (namely Lola) or have switched to other programs. Also, no one's exactly banging down the doors of Audi Sport, Porsche Motorsport or Toyota Motorsport GmbH for customer versions of their LMP1 cars, and for good reason. LMP1 hybrid cars are too expensive for private teams to run without at least some serious factory support. Combined with the fact that Audi, Porsche and Toyota aren't selling customer cars--and have no intention of doing so--we're not a ton better off if IMSA strictly followed the ACO's format that works currently for the WEC/LM24.

Maybe if IMSA followed the Le Mans Series deal of having LMP2 as the top class, that would've been an easier sell. But even then, there's problems, even if they wouldn't end up being as severe as what happened with the ALMS/GA merger into the "new" IMSA. DP teams (and some ALMS prototype teams) would've had to buy new cars to be class legal, which isn't a good thing unless you consider that the mods for the DP cars made DP cars, which were already at least as expensive as the cost capped LMP2 cars, cost tons more on top of that, going up to $750K per car vs $440K max for a LMP2 car.

In the end, there was no optimal Prototype solution for IMSA aside from having LMP1 being the main class with LMP2 and DP as separate classes. But even that's a bit of a non-starter with a lack of serious LMP1 entries. Or keeping the ALMS and GA as separate series until a true, unified rules package could be put in place. But even that would've had issues with cost and logistics.

Thus, I'd argue that Don Panoz and Jim France eff'd up the whole merger by fast tracking it, mostly due to personal greed probably, namely, trying to get quick financial ROI.

[DeezPutz]

Please join other fans in bringing this to the attention of ISC.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1032371846826658/

[BullMan]

LOL

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

Considering that the combined P1 / P2 / DP / PC car count has gone from 30+ to less than fifteen in the space of two seasons, everyone needs new chassis in the next two years and absolutely everyone is whining about the costs, I'd say if they are not at critical mass they can't be far off. Spending huge sums to develop bodywork that has to be used on a psuedo-spec chassis isn't gonna be liked by many people, the rich guys who want to play race car driver are gravitating towards GT cars and want Pro-Am categories (and IMSA prototype cannot be that, for a variety of reasons) and aside from Mazda all of the factories in IMSA are engaged in the GTLM arms race. Of the current IMSA P teams, the only ones not having to toss their long-time suppliers on account of this move are WTR and MSR. In both the P and PC categories, the question is this: "What is this doing for us?" The answer for most is nothing. Simply letting natural selection move guys into new cars would have eventually done well for IMSA in the long run, but that hasn't happened. Instead, they made ridiculous rules to try and get European teams to bankrupt themselves racing P1s and ensure Oreca and Onroak dominated the markets, and watered it down for IMSA to use, hoping the teams would take it. It didn't work, and IMSA is gonna have to face that reality at some point.

Facing that reality gives them three options - maintain the status quo, build your own new prototype rules or dump the prototype category altogether. The status quo has the most short-term benefit, as nobody has to scrap their current machinery OR their current suppliers, and those teams, makers and cars orphaned by the new rules in Europe will be able to race in North America. The new rules option is high-risk but potentially high-reward, and has the problem of the ACO making sure those new cars never see Le Mans or any other ACO-rules series. The GT Series option is also a risk, but there is no rules issues to deal with and the cars already exist and are popular, and race-winning GT cars could see both an expansion of GTLM entrants and manufacturer interest in the series, particularly since IMSA already allows GT3 cars to be built for GTLM duty. Which path they take will determine the series' future look and image. Any of the above will work better than the proposed 2017 rules because they will likely cost less, get more interest or both. As it stands, the 2017 P2 rules are gonna be a mess, but IMSA can NOT let that hurt them. They can't take too many more hits.

Reality? Is that there is a rule set, and it has been being moved towards since the merger took place. DPi/P2 is not going to be abandoned! Nor is the 4 class structure.




L.P.

[chernaudi]

Screw repaving Sebring. The only reason any European team would test there--let alone try and run the 12 hours--is to get ready for Le Mans. Same goes for most of the GTLM teams that go to LM every year.

[chernaudi]

Like it or not, IMSA won't abandon their current class structure until it's at the bottom of the ocean along side the Titanic.

The 4 class structure is lip service to the ACO (a more symbolic link than anything else, but still...), and as long as there's enough teams out there willing to invest in running prototypes, the prototype classes are here to stay in some form.

[Dyson Mazda]

Originally Posted by DeezPutz

Please join other fans in bringing this to the attention of ISC.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1032371846826658/

Just NO

[BrentJackson]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

One can argue that if IMSA killed the DPs off when the merger happened and stuck with the ACO's tech rules in full, this wouldn't be happening. But there's a trade off there. Most of the companies that were building customer LMP1 cars have either gone under (namely Lola) or have switched to other programs. Also, no one's exactly banging down the doors of Audi Sport, Porsche Motorsport or Toyota Motorsport GmbH for customer versions of their LMP1 cars, and for good reason. LMP1 hybrid cars are too expensive for private teams to run without at least some serious factory support. Combined with the fact that Audi, Porsche and Toyota aren't selling customer cars--and have no intention of doing so--we're not a ton better off if IMSA strictly followed the ACO's format that works currently for the WEC/LM24.

Maybe if IMSA followed the Le Mans Series deal of having LMP2 as the top class, that would've been an easier sell. But even then, there's problems, even if they wouldn't end up being as severe as what happened with the ALMS/GA merger into the "new" IMSA. DP teams (and some ALMS prototype teams) would've had to buy new cars to be class legal, which isn't a good thing unless you consider that the mods for the DP cars made DP cars, which were already at least as expensive as the cost capped LMP2 cars, cost tons more on top of that, going up to $750K per car vs $440K max for a LMP2 car.

In the end, there was no optimal Prototype solution for IMSA aside from having LMP1 being the main class with LMP2 and DP as separate classes. But even that's a bit of a non-starter with a lack of serious LMP1 entries. Or keeping the ALMS and GA as separate series until a true, unified rules package could be put in place. But even that would've had issues with cost and logistics.

Thus, I'd argue that Don Panoz and Jim France eff'd up the whole merger by fast tracking it, mostly due to personal greed probably, namely, trying to get quick financial ROI.

Considering the sum total of P2s running in North America was four at the time of the merger, by two teams and all of them of the same make and model, the idea of telling all of the DP teams to junk their multi-million-dollar investments in favor of the P2 cars was never a possibility. It would have been more feasible for ESM and Level 5 to abandon their P2 cars in favor of DPs, but that was never an option either for the same reasons. The Gen III DPs had only come a year earlier, and teams wanted (understandably) to use those investments. Tossing either the P2s or DPs out was never an option, they had to be made to work together. Either way, that's academic now. What matters is what happens next.

The 2017 P2 rule book has been a rushed, not-terribly-well-thought-out idea that leaves a lot of people currently in the sport out in the cold. If they had other options they might have considered moving up and trying to gain a foothold, but it says much that Ginetta has given up on much of its LMP programs. I fully expect the Riley and Dallara proposals to not be ready for Daytona 2017, the time frame involved is too short and Riley/Multimatic's climb is too high, plus they have the problem of Multimatic being really, really jammed up with work. Dallara is in better shape and has more experience and manufacturing facilities, but they have a mountain to climb too. But those problems, of course, don't apply to Oreca or Onroak....which I would bet money is the point of the exercise. The people buying P2s for 2017 can't wait for Dallara or Riley to get it working right, particularly since the car has to be homologated and is subject to a development freeze. If either of those two get it wrong on their first try, their history - particularly Riley, who has already lost the Dodge Viper GTE program and now is having to rush replace their DP program with a P2 car, based on a carbon tub and chassis design they have not done in a while. So, does anybody think they'll go that route? No, they'll go for an Oreca or a Ligier. But that knocks Riley out of the game (along with Multimatic, and Coyote and HPD), leaving the guys who have supplied IMSA for years with no options in IMSA. Knowing that there isn't exactly a huge market for road racing cars in North America, that's quite possibly the end for the business.

So, does IMSA let the chips fall where they may and become completely reliant on Oreca or Onroak? They'd be stupid to do that. Thus, they end up having to look at other options for the category. But with HPD stuck with just aero work and with a floundering Indycar program and having sunk millions into P2s that will never race, they are out. Lola's bankrupt and the company that bought their assets has their hands full with the Ford GT40. Do they get Coyote back in the game, or Swift or Crawford? That means tossing the four-chassis rule out, doesn't it? Or do they rely on Oreca and Onroak for chassis, and hope that the bodywork modifications, which have been quite specifically designed to not fundamentally change the car's aero design, differentiate them? Fat chance of that - Mazda will probably be there, but GM is 50/50, Honda maybe and nobody else is really out there, and will they shovel out the investment to make new bodywork on somebody else's chassis? They don't really have a whole heck of a lot of options, do they?

If IMSA wants to keep prototype racing - and knowing the ludicrous stupidity of the new P2s, the P3s going nowhere quickly and P1s being many orders of magnitude too expensive for IMSA, I'd be closing out the era and going all-GT right about now - they MUST get more options than the four the ACO demanded. That means making their own rules, or allowing everything out there now to keep racing for years to come.

What should have been done in the merger is a matter of debate, and really it doesn't matter all that much now. That history is written. What is still to come has yet to be determined, and I don't like IMSA's odds. The series' ROI is pitifully bad, the gentleman drivers want to run in Pro-Am classes for the most part, costs are too high and can't be cut down all that much without sacrificing some of the exposure, and the exposure cannot be raised with lipstick-on-a-pig modifications of psuedo-spec cars. IMSA can take the 2017 DPi rules as they are now, but they will most assuredly rapidly find out how few people are willing to throw money at them. Sure, there will be a few. But after a couple of seasons of nobody giving a crap about them and loving the ever-faster increasingly-exotic GTLM cars, IMSA will probably just cull the category while teams can still sell the cars back to Europe and be done with it. And this says nothing about the PC class - LMP3 is dead as a doornail in North America and the FLM09s are getting really long in the tooth now, thus leaving a second problem for the prototypes. All at a time when GT racing is growing in popularity pretty much worldwide, and the GTE rules are getting faster and more exotic just as the best field of them in the world - IMSA's GTLM category - is injecting some much-needed dollars and attention into the series. They would be stupid to focus on the prototypes in such a scenario, and wise to drop them as fast as possible in favor of the new reality. But then again, if the last three years has taught us all anything, it is that smart people can be really bloody dumb at times....

[TF110]

Le Mans is now a billiard board compared to Sebring. There isn't much left to resurface. The public roads are/have even been done.

[DeezPutz]

Originally Posted by TF110

Le Mans is now a billiard board compared to Sebring. There isn't much left to resurface. The public roads are/have even been done.

And Le Mans is bigger and better than ever.

Repaving Sebring will make it better. ISC needs to step up to the plate.

[Coach Ep]

Don't fool yourself, especially Mulsanne straight sees a lot of heavy traffic by trucks and such which undoubtedly deteriorates the road pretty quickly, I'm sure the grooves were coming back as soon as they put the new tarmac down.

Originally Posted by DeezPutz

Repaving Sebring will make it better. ISC needs to step up to the plate.

Hahaha.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by DeezPutz

Please join other fans in bringing this to the attention of ISC.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1032371846826658/

NEVAR!

[chernaudi]

Well, that's my point. The ALMS/GA merger was rushed which lead to contrived rules and bizarre events in the prototype class especially. And the same guys are in charge of IMSA's 2017 Prototype rules. Did we really expect anything different?

Of course, IMSA and the ACO/FIA faction could tell each other to pound dirt, if not for the contract that IMSA signed with the ACO to at least broadly follow their tech regs. But then again, it can be argued that contracts aren't worth the paper that they're printed on in today's world, money talks and this whole deal does show the indifference that the ACO/FIA and IMSA pretty much have for each other. But would IMSA spend the cash to buy out their contract with the ACO? I don't think so, and for the same reason why the rushed the merger and rushed the DPI regs, trying to get short term ROI whilst not considering longer term impacts.

Granted, as long as there's teams willing to buy and run prototypes in IMSA, there'll be a prototype class of some type. But at the same time, IMSA's management know that after the screw ups of 2014 especially, they better get things most of the way right out of the box or risk similar criticism and recriminations.

Of course, one can say that the ACO either don't care about what IMSA are doing or are hoping that they screw things up so bad that they're willing to give control of the series over to the ACO. If the latter happens, that just causes as many problems as solutions, especially with the GT classes (ACO's regs currently have no provision for a GT3-based class in their class structure), and if the former, maybe just like with IMSA GTP vs Group C, they'll agree to disagree and agree to pound dirt to each others regs.

[chernaudi]

And we have to remember that the Porsche Curves at LM, especially the first several corners, are bumpy and rutted, and they see little use outside of the LM24 though it's a permanent part of the track.

Besides, there's been enough massacres of tradition at Le Mans, Sebring, and elsewhere in recent years. We can do without another casualty for a while.

[Matt]

Let's be real here.

Sebring's only "thing" is that it has a crap surface. It's a pretty mediocre layout that's only revered because a few times a lap it basically becomes a supercross track. It's signature corner is 17, which is only talked about because it's like driving over the surface of the moon, not because of it's actual design.

If it were any other track everyone would be clamoring for it to be repaved...which says a lot about the actual layout of the track itself.

[chernaudi]

Well, let's be real. Only reason why Audi even bothers to spend the time, energy, money and manpower to test at Sebring usually twice for 4-5 days in the off-season is because of how bumpy and nasty the track is. When they ran the ALMS, the thought was if their car can survive for 12 hours there, it should survive 24 hours at Le Mans with no major issues. If their cars can survive 30 hours worth of nearly non-stop testing there over a couple of days out of those 4-5 day tours, it should survive just about anything.

Why do other teams spend time, money and manpower to test at Sebring? Much the same reasons. Just the fact that Audi spend so much time testing at Sebring, when they can test just about anywhere in the world and even own their own track to test on in the literal backyard of their race programs' facility, obviously means something.

And even then, Sebring's layout is a lot better than most of the Tilkedromes and street courses out there. What do you expect for a former World War II USAAF B-17 heavy bomber training base that the USAAF abandoned in 1947 until someone bought it up as an airport and race track. I'd ask the same of Cleveland's old Burke Lakefront airport Indy Car track. Other than the insanely high speeds (average lap speed was nearly 150mph for CART back in the mid 1990s), was it's layout anything special?

[Rcz]

I don't have a Facebook account so I don't know what's happening here, can somebody fill me in.

[Bob Baldwin]

Get rid of all the hardtop and let the prototypes run and DIRT

[chernaudi]

In the years that it was dry at Spa (especially in 2013), they were already dirt tracking on the inside and outside curbs and kicking up tons of dust. They were running on the dirt on both inside and outside curbs. But I guess as long as they kept 2 tires on the outside of the track limits lines, it was legal.

That's why turn 7 at Sebring has that huge inside sausage curb like the last of the Ford Chicanes at Le Mans--too many cars were dirt tracking it though that section cutting the corner. And even then, as seen in the Audi and Porsche testing videos from earlier this month, they were still going off into the dirt on the outside of turn 8.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Matt

Let's be real here.

Sebring's only "thing" is that it has a crap surface. It's a pretty mediocre layout that's only revered because a few times a lap it basically becomes a supercross track. It's signature corner is 17, which is only talked about because it's like driving over the surface of the moon, not because of it's actual design.

If it were any other track everyone would be clamoring for it to be repaved...which says a lot about the actual layout of the track itself.

That's, like your opinion man.

Even discounting the historical relevance, and bumps, the layout itself always was in my favorites when it came to driving them in Sims. Such natural flow. And I do love the first corner and Sunset, yeah they are not sophisticated or anything but immense fun to drive AND follow. And they're DIFFERENT.

Too bad I haven't had desire to watch single Sebring since 2013.