IMSA USCC in 2016 and 2017

[WolfsburgRS]

I thinK that there are too many variables in the real (analog) world to avoid or conceive of every possible pitfall or problem. Problems happen, period. This is in racing and real life, and a modern racing tire has an insane amount of work asked of it. Sometimes people get it wrong. maybe it was engineering, maybe it was production, maybe it was something else that wasn't accounted for...supplier of materials, how the tires were handled by a shipper (not temp controlled) and so on. It could be down to a million things.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Matt

To be fair, an ELMS race has never been impacted by a Tropical Storm.

We were a few hundred miles north in Maryland on the sea that weekend, that was a whole different kinda rain to your run of the mill rainstorm.

Fair point! But if it was so bad, why was it the one class that didn't run Contis worked fine? That's not a coincidence.

Originally Posted by Maelochs

I was referring to this: As I understood it Akropovic was saying that TRG couldn't field a team because the tires were so bad.

I didn't say that - Buckler and the article said that. I just posted it here. What Buckler implied was the tyres blowing caused his drivers for Sebring to pull out.

Also, something we haven't mentioned yet is Continental has promised a brand new GTD tyre for next year. If the tyres are just fine and really aren't a problem, why is Conti doing that? They've also changed the tyre for Sebring to have a tougher shoulder and sidewall. Why did they do that if the tyres were fine? In the S365 article, the first time the word safety is used is actually in a quote by Continental.

It's for the good of the series that IMSA tells Conti to get the product sorted.

[jimclark]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

I was referring to this: As I understood it Akropovic was saying that TRG couldn't field a team because the tires were so bad.
The inference I made was that the tires were too dangerous to race on, because they might blow at any moment —while Buckler never mentions danger, certainly having a tire explode at speed—particularly on the banking would be a safety issue.
Perhaps not—perhaps it is just an inconvenience.

'Not simply an inconvenience. When you have to trust your results to "luck", it's rather disenheartening. My shot at the 24 was screwed by a self indulgent driver that had the need to "impress" (or whatever) and blew our transaxle.
'Ticked the rest of us off as we had been up to 5th and , if we had finished, could've (not "of") been on the podium. The owner knew he wasn't what he wanted but needed the rent-a-seat revenue. If I thought this a-hole would be back next year, I wouldn't have wanted to do it again either.
That's the point of Kevin's "reason" (or whatever). That kind of "luck" justifies not wanting to do it. I wouldn't want to rent a seat knowing our "luck" depended on crap tires either.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Also, something we haven't mentioned yet is Continental has promised a brand new GTD tyre for next year. If the tyres are just fine and really aren't a problem, why is Conti doing that? They've also changed the tyre for Sebring to have a tougher shoulder and sidewall. Why did they do that if the tyres were fine? In the S365 article, the first time the word safety is used is actually in a quote by Continental.

It's for the good of the series that IMSA tells Conti to get the product sorted.

Is this the quote from S365 you were referring too?

***The exclusive tire provider for the P, Prototype Challenge and GT Daytona class has also made available an updated, more robust GTD wet tire, following issues selected teams faced at Daytona. Continental’s Travis Roffler told Sportscar365 that as a good-will gesture, they will take back and replace all unused GTD wet tires in teams’ inventory free of charge, while offering a credit for two sets of tires at Sebring for each GTD team that competed at Daytona.

If I had to guess, I'd say Conti wants to make a safe tire for their competitors. They also don't have an unlimited development budget. So I wouldn't be shocked if they had old rain tires from the GA GT class days and have been trying to use them up. They do realize that the current GT3 cars are a much different beast than those old cars and have developed a new rain tire. But at Daytona they were still trying to get rid of the old ones it sounds like.

[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Fair point! But if it was so bad, why was it the one class that didn't run Contis worked fine? That's not a coincidence.

At Petit in 2015? It's not necessarily that the Conti's were worse in the wet than the Michelins (though, they probably were... Michelins are a development tire that cost much more to design, build, produce, and use). However, a major factor in the Factory Porsche team winning overall, over the Privateer prototype entries, was the fact that the weather was so colossally poor any power and downforce advantage the DP/P2 class had were gone.

No one is saying the Continental tires are equal to the Michelin. But they are considerably cheaper. And Continental is not only able to supply vastly more cars than Michelin, but also spend more money on advertising the series than Michelin can, which is important.

The tires are also not nearly as bad as you make them out to be. Being a little slower, and whatever the issues at Daytona were, do not equal a spec ECU spontaneously combusting.

Chris

[Irie]

Werent the GTLMs almost as fast as the prototypes this year at Daytona in the rain?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Jonerz

The tires are also not nearly as bad as you make them out to be. Being a little slower, and whatever the issues at Daytona were, do not equal a spec ECU spontaneously combusting.Chris

You make a good point about cost and advertising Chris, and certainly advertising isn't something I considered - but an ECU combusting and a tyre blowing due to design failures (which is the issues at Daytona) are actually the same thing. It's a catastrophic failure (that's the term used in engineering for that type of failure, not me dramatising), and a failure which caused considerable damage to other components. That's the equivalent of an ECU combusting. Petit was a performance failure - the tyre was still a tyre, it was just a bad tyre. Daytona was both performance and catastrophic failures. Again, that isn't me dramatising - that's the engineering terms used.

But then again, the flip side you mentioned is there isn't an ECU provider who is putting that much money into the series. So where is the tipping point.

[TF110]

The tires aren't just a "little slower" in the rain, they're terrible. And in the dry they're not much better. We can talk and argue about why that is for days until someone from IMSA or Continental tell us. The facts are on pace, they were bad. It wasn't JUST pro drivers in the Porsche passing prototypes at PLM, Corvette was doing it too. And the Porsche beat Pro drivers in DP's as well. So that driver ratings was not a factor. Look at the WEC race at COTA when they got a torrential downpour. GTE's were running the same wet tire as IMSA, but they didn't drive past lmp2's.

Just because the TRG guy has questionable history doesn't make his claims any less valid. Especially with others saying the same thing, Conti realizing the same thing and evidence showing the same thing. There's nothing to argue imo. They either change the tire or not. It gets better or not. We'll just have to wait and see the consequences.

[chernaudi]

It also doesn't help that Michelin or Dunlop are unable (probably, actually, unwilling) to spend money on classes that have no relevant ties to Le Mans. Several GTLM teams go to Le Mans annually. I haven't seen many GTD or DPI/Prototype teams make that jump. Hence, no incentive for Michelin to do anything aside from provide tires to the teams that actually would travel to LM each year.

[TF110]

They're not allowed to (in imsa). They can only supply GTLM since that's the only open tire class.

[carbsmith]

The equally relevant point about PLM is not just GTLM outrunning cars 2 classes above, but that GTD was nowhere. Torrential conditions can relatively favor GT cars because of their lower aero dependance and mechanical grip but the highest GTD was 17th overall behind all the PCs.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by TF110

They're not allowed to (in imsa). They can only supply GTLM since that's the only open tire class.

It probably wouldn't be if Michelin or others ponied up the cash to satisfy NASCAR or IMSA. IMSA in the ALMS days had no problem with open tire in their non-spec car classes.

Oh, yeah, some of those guys went to Le Mans, and IMSA gave something of a damn about the ACO's prototype regs. Most of your current prototype and GTD teams don't have such aspirations. Between that and paying for the privilege, Continental gets away with being the spec tire in those classes.

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by carbsmith

The equally relevant point about PLM is not just GTLM outrunning cars 2 classes above, but that GTD was nowhere. Torrential conditions can relatively favor GT cars because of their lower aero dependance and mechanical grip but the highest GTD was 17th overall behind all the PCs.

I just think its awesome that a year and a half later we still are talking about the now legendary (maybe some call infamous) 2015 Petit Le Mans race! A glorious day for those of us who prefer GT racing over protos!

[Dyson Mazda]

This is great news

Turner Set for Full-Season GTD Effort:

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/tu...on-gtd-effort/

[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

You make a good point about cost and advertising Chris, and certainly advertising isn't something I considered - but an ECU combusting and a tyre blowing due to design failures (which is the issues at Daytona) are actually the same thing. It's a catastrophic failure (that's the term used in engineering for that type of failure, not me dramatising), and a failure which caused considerable damage to other components. That's the equivalent of an ECU combusting. Petit was a performance failure - the tyre was still a tyre, it was just a bad tyre. Daytona was both performance and catastrophic failures. Again, that isn't me dramatising - that's the engineering terms used.

But then again, the flip side you mentioned is there isn't an ECU provider who is putting that much money into the series. So where is the tipping point.

Fair point, but my argument was Daytona was an exception to the rule. So yes, catastrophic failures were observed there. But as I've said above, there were many special circumstances that led to the catastrophic failures.

I just hate that this argument is being boiled down to if you don't completely dismiss Continental as a tire provider and series partner, you are defending a shoddy product. I think I've been critical of Continental, particularly what was supposed to be a new and improved wet tire disappointing at Daytona, but I'm not willing to totally damn their performance because of what a cluster the weather was at Daytona, and IMSA's rules about intermediates.

Chris

[WolfsburgRS]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

This is great news

Turner Set for Full-Season GTD Effort:

http://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/tu...on-gtd-effort/

I am very happy to see that as well.

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by Irie

Werent the GTLMs almost as fast as the prototypes this year at Daytona in the rain?

On a overall lap no, but on the infield section yes. The DPI's still ran away on the banking in the rain due to the horsepower/torque and due the the fact that the water slid down the banking.

Even in the dry at Daytona the GTLM cars were almost as fast in the infield section. But that was due to the IMSA mandated low downforce configuration to the prototypes. I wonder how fast a low downforce configured DPI would go at Sebring?

[Rodger Davies]

Great to see Turner in for the season. Hopefully Alex Job can sort something too.

[BSchneiderFan]

A warning shot from the Captain: http://www.autosport.com/news/report...ance-balancing

[FormulaFox]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

A warning shot from the Captain: http://www.autosport.com/news/report...ance-balancing

Can't blame him for being wary after what happened in 2009.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

A warning shot from the Captain: http://www.autosport.com/news/report...ance-balancing

Sounds like he is already playing the bop game.

[Rcz]

He perfers BoP though money not results.

[jimclark]

Huh? A little early on a Sunday to be snockered, no???

(Or were you camped in Green Park?)

[BSchneiderFan]

Originally Posted by Rcz

He perfers BoP though money not results.

I have some sympathy with his arguments.

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by FormulaFox

Can't blame him for being wary after what happened in 2009.

Exactly. Grand-Am/Rolex completely screwed him ... because he was beating the series favorites. Hopefully things have changed, though.