ALMS is dead!?!?!

[paul-collins]

So Brock Yates thinks that the Rubbin' is Racin' crowd is about to rediscover sportscars:

While I am obliged to maintain a confidence. I have it on excellent authority that one of Detroit’s Big Three will enter Grand-Am competition in 2003 with a factory team and privateers. ...

Too many observers of this sport witlessly accept simple statistics, i.e. car counts, star drivers, TV exposure, sponsor support, etc. as measurements of success. But the real muscle lies within the shadowy precincts of the conference rooms and motor coaches manned by such powerful figures as Tony George, Bill France Jr., Bernie Ecclestone, Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi and the tobacco company execs and television moguls...
-Brock Yates, Speed TV

First off, the Ford Focus is going to kill interest in privateer Audis and factory Bentleys?

Secondly, car counts, star drivers, TV exposure, and sponsor support don't count? Wait, it's not the actual exposure and support, it's the potential support in trailers. I see.

Third, the GT40 project is not going to have a racing program while the Focus is? (Yeah, right)

Fourth, rumours about Rahal count for nothing while non-existent rumours about Ganassi do?

Finally, tobacco? What about Factory efforts from all over the world, in theory including the North America Big Three? (Well, at least Ford and Chrysler - as much as I love the Corvette, GM hasn't a clue when it comes to motorsport.) The strength of the ALMS is that these factories are already racing at LM. Are the factories going to put together cars to run Daytona?

[Liz]

Brock Yates is an antedeluvian idiot. Time stopped for him in 1962 and he can't figure out why we all continue to act as if it hasn't!

It's kind of like the Hollywood people who can't believe that George Bush has the support of 75% of the American public when they and their liberal friends hate him....

[Brettwp]

The difference between the “demise” of CART and the “demise” of ALMS are totally different situations. Yes, the Tony/France/ISC situation makes a formidable foe. But, let’s look at what is different here. 1.) ALMS is wholly owned and is not run by a board of directors, but under the direction of Don Panoz. 2.) Unlike CART which didn’t own a damn thing, ALMS own several tracks. 3.) Yes, similar to the Indy 500, the Rolex is an event of some recognition, but, Le Mans is MUCH bigger, and even in the USA, Sebring has a much bigger crowd. 4.) TV contracts that make the ALMS a visible threat to Grand-Am. Come on now, what are they going to do, call it the Rolex Racing League?

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Liz
...they and their liberal friends....

Let me take this opportunity to clear up a BIG misunderstanding. "Liberal" is not a swearword. So please, America, don't use it as one. Thanks.

[H16]

With the possible exception of Arute, Yates has produced some of the weirdest, most outdated truthstreching articles I have seen. This is another...

[Liz]

"liberal" (small 'l') is not a swear word, neither is "conservative" -- although the Large "L" Liberals would have you belive that Conservative is the same as Fascist.

Large 'L' Liberals hate George Bush. Small 'l' liberals want to legalize drugs so everyone can be mellow and stick flowers in gun barrels.

But Brett is right about the difference between ALMS and Champ Cars -- and no matter what the American press says, Le Mans is CONSIDERABLY better known than Daytona.

[kdr]

eerrrr...liz - your first paragraph - have you worked out the reverse connotation i could make?

still...all hail the powerful le mans and aco(for a change!)

[paul-collins]

Well, apparently Brock was spanked for this article. So he's backed off to a "well, so long as there are two series dividing the pie, sportscar racing will die in North America." The thing that gets me is his woeful lack of understanding:

Factories come and go in sports car racing. Porsche, BMW, Toyota, Jaguar, Nissan, Ford, Chevrolet, Mazda, Ferrari, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Aston-Martin, Cadillac, etc., have all played in professional road racing during the past two decades. Most have left the field, possibly to return in the future; possibly not. Therefore, the Panoz dependence on factory support is risky at best...

The glory days of sports car racing came in the ’60s and ’70s when the McLarens and Chaparrals, etc., did battle in the Can-Am series and the Ford-Ferrari or Porsche-Ferrari wars in endurance racing were of epic proportions. But that is ancient history, never to be repeated.

-Notes from the Margin, July 23

The thing is that factories always come back. Le Mans is always there. Someone pointed out to him that Daytona used to do that, too...

(As an aside, his epic battles listed could just as easily have Jaguar vs Porsche. Or McLaren vs Mercedes vs Porsche. But that's neither here nor there.)

One of the most respected observers of the sport in the world took me to task with the following observation: “The Daytona 24 just doesn’t have the cache it used to have in the “Big Bill” days, because the factories realize they are no longer welcome. Now the France organization is so arrogant that they’ll never come back."

-ibid.

Bingo.

[muggle not]

Come on people lets not make this a political forum!!! I have very strong political opinions but this is not the place to air them. Except for my comments about THROWING THE BUMS IN JAIL elsewhere in the discussion forum (LOL).

[Liz]

My using politics as a metaphor was not meant to incite a political discussion. I could have said it this way:

"It's sort of like the Hollywood Elite saying that nobody in America goes to church any more because they asked their movie star friends and everybody said No, they never went to church."

==============

The only thing that remains constant in this world is the fact that nothing lasts forever. In the 1970s the Montreal Canadiens won almost all the games and everyone said they should be broken up and the members of the team dispersed to "have not" teams. Now you can't find the Canadiens with the Hubble Space Telescope. Ditto the Detroit Red Wings, who languished at the bottom for so long that we called them the "Dead Wings" and now are winning all the games.

The market goes up. The market goes down. The market goes back up. The market goes ...

[SFonseca]

My short opinion: ALMS is an international championship. Grand-AM is a regional (only USA) championship. If Ford wants to enter in Grand-AM...good luck!! It's easy to win Grand-Am championship....

[muggle not]

Originally posted by Liz

The market goes up. The market goes down. The market goes back up. The market goes ...

THE MARKET GOES UP?????? SINCE WHEN, EXCLUDING THE SMALL BLIP TODAY. LOL

[Liz]

Well, it will go up again. It's knowing WHEN that's the problem!

Since I lost all my money investing in Scudder funds in South America about 15 years ago, I can just watch this market with detached interest.

[Heeltoe6]

first ford now toyota, brock might be less far off than you care to admit

[mickj]

Sfonseca

I dont think any Championship is easy to win, they cost money, planning and HARD work and comitment.

[MaxSport]

It isn't dead- yet.

Yates is right. Blake at
totalmotorsport is spot on as well.

DSP and FIA GT are more cost effective. That is just reality.

Tell me how I am wrong. Just because you want it another way doesn't matter. There are seven LMP cars in Canada this weekend. MBD has left and gone where?

Get ahead of the curve guys.

[paul-collins]

Yates is half-right. Blake has some excellent points. However...

I don't see DSP supplanting machines that race at Le Mans. I certainly don't see Daytona supplanting Le Mans in North America. This means that either the DSP has to be homologated into the new ACO/FIA joint rules or we have a new split in racing: instead of ACO versus others, we have Europe versus North America.

IMSA, while not wedded to Le Mans, derived significant cachet from running (and winning) there.

KM, how is purchasing a DSP more cost-effective for Doran and Robinson than running already-owned cars for the privateer money in ALMS? If that were the case, you'd think that Intersport and Dyson (and Rand) would have waited.

WRT the car counts, 7 at Trois Rivieres, 5 at the Glen (of which two are Dyson), and 8 at Mosport not including MBD. The Cadillacs are back, but Dyson is switching to their MG. If Dyson didn't run in GARRA, they'd only have 3 cars in SRP. That's pathetic.

MBD is likely gone for now (based on the fact that they didn't even submit entry for Mosport).

I think that if you look at that, you'd see that there isn't any sponsorship out there for prototypes this year. Where is Robinson? Crawford?

Cost containment (to be addressed in the 2004 rules by ACO, or next year's DSP). Unification. Then promotion. That's the key.

[Liz]

America Is Not The Entire Universe. I realise that's difficult for some of you guys to get your minds around (and for Yates it is apparently well beyond his capabilities), but when you get to Le Mans, the "Big Show" in France, some day you will understand that comparing that race to Daytona is a lot like calling Montgomery, Alabama an international city or Buffalo an International Airport.

The reason that ALMS is not dead and will not die is that more and more Americans, and North Americans, are finding out about the world outside their borders and wanting to experience the kind of things that the rest of the world experiences. Cheap look-alike cars racing in circles isn't enough for some people.

If racing were "all about money" it would be done on video screens by unpaid 12 year old boys and we'd all watch it from home.

And if everyone wanted to see just one kind of car, we'd all be driving Porsches and General Motors would be making lawn mowers.

[Mal]

To me ALMS is far from dead. With careful handling over the next few years it has huge potential to become one of the top two or three series in the world. It provides great racing with a lot of variety.

[paul-collins]

Whoops. I should proof-read my stuff.

Originally posted by paul-collins
Where is Robinson?

I meant Matthews.

As to what you have to say, Liz, I agree. Regardless of whatever the new IMSA, GARRA, and FIA do, the lynchpin is and always will be ACO.

It's just that I want to see that racing over here.

[rlinter]

Originally posted by SFonseca
My short opinion: ALMS is an international championship. Grand-AM is a regional (only USA) championship. If Ford wants to enter in Grand-AM...good luck!! It's easy to win Grand-Am championship....

The difference between ALMS & Grand-Am is the same as the difference between CART & IRL circa 1999.

Grand-Am is a rich amateur racer series and ALMS has factory teams. However the bar keeps going up in ALMS and to win you need a factory team and/or race for the series owner.

Look at what happened to the BPR of the late 90's it was a great little International GT championship with Major Manufacturer support then it 'evolved' into the FIA GT championship just as it reached the peak of it's power with, Merc, Mclaren, Porsche, Lister & Panoz all running factory teams and semi works teams.

Then as the cost of competing grew the factories one-by-one dropped out forcing the organisers the revise the rules and kill of the GT category! Now it is begining to get interesting again with Ferrari,Lister and the Vipers all racing for glory and not second place..

Does this all sound familiar.....

Basically sportscar/GT racing is cylical (sp?) world that due to it's fragmented nature will always have highs and lows.

At the moment it is on the way up however you will know when it has peaked because one of 2 things will happen as on the way back down there will be a degree of bridge mending where we will end up with maybe 2 rule books which creates stabilty and attracts the major manufacturers who then want certain rules changed in certain series and fragment things pushing up costs...........

[MaxSport]

No one was more enthused about the idea of a series based on the LM rules. As the greatest sportscar race in the world it made sense. On paper that is.

He built it and all those manufacturers did not come. Instead Panoz has an F-1 level Audi team beating up on a handful of cars.

LMP 675 looked like it might be the answer but the ACO are now saying that they don't want those cars to win overall.

Besides, can an LMP 675 really win overall? I am sure that Dyson doesn't want to just race for a class win.

It all comes down to value vs cost. DSP program is 2 million for a top program. ALMS LMP is 3-4 million-and you still won't win overall.

In Europe the FIA GT will become the most important series as that is where the manufacturers will be involved. If the ACO is smart they will make sure that the Porsche Carrera GT,Ferrari F60,Lister and Ford GT 40 have a shot at an overall win.

[theracegypsy]

Originally posted by Liz
America Is Not The Entire Universe. I realise that's difficult for some of you guys to get your minds around , but when you get to Le Mans, the "Big Show" in France, some day you will understand that comparing that race to Daytona is a lot like calling Montgomery, Alabama an international city or Buffalo an International Airport.

The reason that ALMS is not dead and will not die is that more and more Americans, and North Americans, are finding out about the world outside their borders and wanting to experience the kind of things that the rest of the world experiences. Cheap look-alike cars racing in circles isn't enough for some people.

We have a saying back home - " America is the only country in the world which has a World Series and forgets to invite the Rest of the World" ( and yes I was a Brit living in Toronto when the jays won)

[MaxSport]

So if America is so bad, why is it so important to you to have an -AMERICAN- LM Series?

The Grand Am people are creating a cost effective national series that, unlike the ALMS, has nothing more in mind than a being national series.

Why is it that if Europe hasn't agreed to the LM rules that we have to do it? The ACO doesn't care if there is an ALMS or ELMS (except for getting Dons money) and have stated that they don't want a World LM Championship. (Well maybe if Don paid them a bunch more they would)

The LeMans 24 isn't even a part of the LM Series. The ELMS failed, many events have been announced and then cancelled and there are few cars in the series. It has split sportscar racing in N.America and Don The Outsider should go away.

It would be like if the Bathurst 1000 had just this one big touring car race in OZ and then came to America with the help of a rich guy who wasn't even a fan and said we are going have to have an American Touring Car Series and it must be run to our rules.

This idea actually might be more popular!

Let us do our own cost effective thing and maybe if the ACO and FIA do get together you can do your own thing in Europe.

The LM Series was a nice idea that for a variety of reasons has not worked very well. Unless you think that 7 LMP cars is a great race.

Just as we only need one Indycar series, America only needs one sportscar series. I know that many here won't like my ideas or believe me. The CART people can't believe that Toyota and Honda left their series for the IRL either.

KM

[Aysedasi]

Something tells me I should stay out of this one - leave well alone when people are debating things you don't know enough about!

Besides, I live in England.


Just across the Channel from France.


....and Le Mans