IMSA TUSC 2015 Entries, Schedule, and Rumors

[ATLFalconsFAN]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

I'll be a 3rd driver in the NAEC. The team will release more details when they're ready....

-mike

Mike, does this mean you are more, or less likely to be racing in France on June 13th?

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by ATLFalconsFAN

Mike, does this mean you are more, or less likely to be racing in France on June 13th?

Hah, thanks guys.

So far my 2 programs for 2015 are directly related to my goal of getting to LM24 (and being able to win, not drive around) but it probably won't happen for 2015. Still holding out hope, but I need to get faster and be surrounded by strong programs to show it to enough people. Then, maybe if I'm lucky, I'll be able to find a ride in France!

-mike

[schmidder]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

I'll be a 3rd driver in the NAEC. The team will release more details when they're ready....

-mike

You gonna run the Thunder hill 25 this year? I hear it's going to be the 5 mile two track combo...

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by schmidder

You gonna run the Thunder hill 25 this year? I hear it's going to be the 5 mile two track combo...

No plans at the moment, but a few people have asked if I was interested in driving. I believe NASA announced it was using the traditional config for the 25 Hour this year. The newer section needs more work to be safe/productive for an overnight race.

-mike

[rich07]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

I'll be a 3rd driver in the NAEC. The team will release more details when they're ready....



-mike

Wonderful to hear Mike

Can't wait to hear more about it when the team decides to share all. Love the new avatar btw. That is an awesome livery for the Ferrari.

[nasportscar]

GTD Entry List tracker 2015 GTD entry list tracker: http://nasportscar.com/entry-list-so...usc-gtd-class/

[pederb]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

I'll be a 3rd driver in the NAEC. The team will release more details when they're ready....

-mike

[Koenigsegg]

Originally Posted by nasportscar

GTD Entry List tracker 2015 GTD entry list tracker: http://nasportscar.com/entry-list-so...usc-gtd-class/

I think you've missed Muehlner Motorsports America in your list.

[nasportscar]

Originally Posted by Koenigsegg

I think you've missed Muehlner Motorsports America in your list.

You are right, thanks. I've missed them in a couple of the trackers actually, thanks for pointing that out!

[Danathar]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

by Gordon Kirby:
"The Tudor United SportsCar seres. The TUSC has a number of things going for it--a good schedule of races, a brace of committed manufacturers who want to race sports and GT cars, and plenty of willing teams--but it's lost the spectacle and technical allure that the ALMS briefly enjoyed and has created plenty of ambivalence among America's traditional sports car fans.
Those fans are only too aware of the spectacular hybrid LMP1 cars that race at Le Mans and in the World Endurance Championship and would like to see something similar in America. It seems to me that as time goes by the WEC and TUSC will continue down divergent paths and the TUSC, like IndyCar, will be consigned forever to lingering on as nothing more than provincial backwaters. Again, I hope I'm wrong. "
http://gordonkirby.com/categories/co..._is_no456.html

Look, I'd like LMP1 like every other former ALMS fan out there, but the WEC has sucked P1 out of every other series. Even if the series said "WELCOME LMP1 TEAMS!" do you think any more teams would show up other than maybe Dyson? Certainly not a manufacturer except for Sebring, Daytona and Petit.

[MagVanisher]

You know, they could just introduce some innovation like putting hybrid technology other than putting bodykits in the Prototype class.

Honda can pull that one off with their NSX GT500 car so why not apply it to LMP2 cars.

[hondafan37]

Originally Posted by Danathar

Look, I'd like LMP1 like every other former ALMS fan out there, but the WEC has sucked P1 out of every other series. Even if the series said "WELCOME LMP1 TEAMS!" do you think any more teams would show up other than maybe Dyson? Certainly not a manufacturer except for Sebring, Daytona and Petit.

It is not my opinion, This is a part of the note published by Gordon Kirby the last monday. This is about Motor racing's identity crisis.
http://gordonkirby.com/categories/co..._is_no456.html

[Rodger Davies]

Curran and Dane Cameron in the Action Express / Whelan car, could be a strong combination at some rounds.

http://www.racer.com/imsa/item/11012...ameron-in-2015

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

Curran and Dane Cameron in the Action Express / Whelan car, could be a strong combination at some rounds.

http://www.racer.com/imsa/item/11012...ameron-in-2015

It couldn't be slower than in 2014, that's for sure.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by Danathar

Look, I'd like LMP1 like every other former ALMS fan out there, but the WEC has sucked P1 out of every other series. Even if the series said "WELCOME LMP1 TEAMS!" do you think any more teams would show up other than maybe Dyson? Certainly not a manufacturer except for Sebring, Daytona and Petit.

At some point in time some of these guys have to focus on the real problem. It isn't LMP1 cars, or the lack thereof, or LMP2, or DP, Hybrid or no hybrid, BoP, or any of the other red herrings.

Bad Management. That's it. Top down, clean house... it wouldn't matter which cars, or which rules these guys presided over, they'd screw it up.

[Deleted]

Then again they could have the most brilliant management staff of all time and no one would care if the grid was filled by NASCAR trucks bopped together with spec Cup Porsches and IMSA Lites.

[David Land]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

At some point in time some of these guys have to focus on the real problem. It isn't LMP1 cars, or the lack thereof, or LMP2, or DP, Hybrid or no hybrid, BoP, or any of the other red herrings.

Bad Management. That's it. Top down, clean house... it wouldn't matter which cars, or which rules these guys presided over, they'd screw it up.

Therein lies the problem, most people involved in NASCAR are all related to one another. Cleaning house would cause major Christmas card issues in the France family.

This is the main issue of NASCAR owning sportscar racing, not the fact that its NASCAR, but the fact that nepotism and greed drives every decision.

IndyCar has the same problem.

[Maelochs]

IndyCar and TUSC—Comparison and Contrast of Symptoms

Not sure I agree about IndyCar having the nepotism problem. Tony George has a few friends on the board but the sisters and Mari seem to have been sufficiently scared by Tony's profligacy and the economic downturn (which, I hear rumors, hit them pretty hard) that he doesn't actually run anything, and his decisions don't matter much.

Mark Miles and Derrick Walker seem to be in charge—one is a real racer and the other, I think comes from professional tennis—not long-time Hulman associates.

IndyCar's worst issues are manifold, but the two biggest I see are too long with no thought of profit and too long with no one in charge of the teams—the opposite of the situation at NASCAR-land, where there is ample money and the teams pretty much toe the line.

In IndyCar the team owners recall the days of CART when (they thought) they ran things (right into the ground eventually.) The teams won't always play along for the greater good of the series, even if it would eventually be good for the teams as well, because they aren't good businesspeople or in any way objective (IMO—and as with all generalizations, it is not specifically applicable in detail or in whole to all the teams.)

Most telling, half of IndyCar was run with no thought of profit for about 15 years, and the other half was taken over by a few people who wanted all the profits, all the trophies, and all the say. (Hard to figure how that didn't work.)

With no one really thinking of how to build a strong series for the sake of the series, and no one really caring if the series was healthy so long as the next check cashed (or the other half's next check didn't) no one bothered to listen to the fans or to watch what was happening to the series; it was all about either "winning" the Split or raking in the profits, not about the racing or the fans who supported the racing. Hence ... very few fans, no money, and even though the management now knows what the fans pretty much want, they can't deliver because they don't have the cash to promote, to modify, to open the rules, to experiment ...

NASCAR can't change the management because it is (I think) such a solid (inbred) team, where personal loyalty makes the difference ... and also, because NASACR has its own "Vision" of how to market race-affiliated mass entertainment–screw racing, it's an entertainment corporation, more akin to Disney than to the NHL or NBA. (HSN instead of NFL?)

No one has the cojones to question the "Vision" even after it has plainly failed in certain cases ... it's like Pontiac going ahead with the production of the Aztek even though a blind corpse can see everything about the car sucks. No one can see past the corporate "Vision," so the Emperor is naked And he has a crappy ride.

But ... the LMP1 issue is a thorny one.

Here is where TUSC and IndyCar share a problem: no cash for the advertisers. Not enough fans to make the RoI sweet enough to sell the series to the accountants. Porsche, Toyota, Audi know they can sell their cars just as well in America with or without a racing program (shoot, Toyota trades the top spot with GM (on GM's home turf) every quarter or two.)

And ... a P1 program is So expensive ... really only the Le Mans name can bring the kind of promo fodder the accountants can accept. Winning the Detroit Grand Prix just doesn't do it for a prospective Audi customer.

The only way to make P1 work in TUSC would be to allow P1L and if any P1H cars entered, to boost the Ls until they could beat the Hs—otherwise the series wouldn't get the privateer teams it needs, because it isn't going to get the factories no matter what.

Thing is, that would squeeze PC/P3 off the grid (Hurrah!) but since P2 is so expensive, the "entry-level" P class might be beyond the financial reach of most teams—and those teams need to show RoI to their sponsors as well, and can't either.

The last few years of ALMS were really the "Will Muscle Milk get its electrics right?" show—the car could lose eight laps at Lime Rock and beat Dyson, or four laps at Road America and only lose by about three-thousandths. The second Rent-a-Dyson was always about as quick as the middling P2s ... Rebellion could have won about everything it wanted if it had stuck around another season to learn the ALMS ways.

I am sure many of us enjoyed those races, but that doesn't mean that that is the standard we should aspire to—because that was a series crawling to the morgue and barely making it. Sure, it only takes two cars to make a race—but it takes a lot more to make a good racing series which can earn enough money to stay alive. ALMS proved that more than adequately.

NASCAR needs to do a couple things, I think: it needs to get a little creative (fat chance) and try a different formula for running (and sometimes killing) a racing series, it needs to lay out a little more cash to get TUSC into the magazines and onto TV both in ads and on Fox (or other) channels which fans actually can watch, and it needs to be talking with teams and P1 manufacturers about the possibility of bringing in a P1L class in the next few years.

Maybe, eventually, P1H teams would look over and see TUSC thriving and consider an entry, maybe not. Maybe P1L will fade away because everyone will be running hybrids in a few years (except IndyCar and TUSC.) Maybe no teams would be willing to invest in a P1 chassis to take a chance on racing in TUSC, which right now looks maybe sixty-forty to make it to 2017. Of course I don't know.

However, I am pretty sure (as is Gordon Kirby) that if TUSC keeps turning inward and backward by 2020 it will be running cars so pointless and worthless no one will watch its races even if they are on all three broadcast networks.

TUSC might survive until 2017, but if it looks like rumors have it now, it won't survive until 2025. No one cared about Rolex, and Rolex 2.0 will be received about the same.

[MagVanisher]

Originally Posted by David Land

This is the main issue of NASCAR owning sportscar racing, not the fact that its NASCAR, but the fact that nepotism and greed drives every decision.

IndyCar has the same problem.

I think most of the motorsports organization currently are driven by greed like in F1, NASCAR, and to a lesser extent the World Endurance Championship.

Still, no wonder that the tagline "one chance to get it right" will never ever happen in TUSC!

[EricS]

Per Facebook, Dorsey Schroeder is no longer employed by Fox. So, he won't be in the booth next year. Hopefully that means we'll see more of Tommy Kendall and Justin Bell.

[rich07]

Did Dorsey leave of his own accord?

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by rich07

Did Dorsey leave of his own accord?

No.

-mike

[EricS]

Originally Posted by rich07

Did Dorsey leave of his own accord?

https://www.facebook.com/dorsey.schroeder

Lost my job at Fox Sports today. I will no longer be associated with the Tudor Sportscar series. No reason given! Sign of the times? I gave it my best for 18 years since Speedvisions beginning. This is sad, and I could use some help. Silver rated driver with a ton of experience available for 2015. Thanks.

[Lagunaseca_4life]

Sucks to hear that,but why couldn't it have Been Calvin fish and bored varsha.lol

Wonder what's going on.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

No.



-mike

Originally Posted by EricS

https://www.facebook.com/dorsey.schroeder

Thanks.



I'll miss him more then the other two if they got let go. Should've got rid of Varsha instead.