[chernaudi]

We do have to remember that Atherton is in the pay of Jim France and Don Panoz; he'll say what they pay him to say. He probably learned that from his time working with Roger Penske. Not to mention that guys like Dagys, Pruett, and almost everyone else like rumors. Even DSC/RLM do it, but they confine it to the Specutainment/Midweek Motorsport Twitter page and MWMS Facebook page. Almost nothing goes up on DSC until it's confirmed, and when they don't post confirmations, they make it clear that it's an editorial.

Our own comments here are basically editorials on what we think may happen for the most part. But the Audi Sport/Joest/VAG DPI rumors won't go away, and get brought back up when someone other than HPD are suspected of looking at a DPI program. And IMO, it'd be stupid to not at least look at it. But looking at it and pulling the trigger on it are two different things.

I know that I may only be 30 years old, but over the past 10+ years, we've seen so many rumored programs come and go, and often either not materialize or fade quickly, like the Lexus GT2S sports sedan in '06 that never happened, and the CET Solari Porsche RS Spyder that went no where because the team was bankrupt by the time the got the car from Porsche. And that was back in '07/'08.

And of course, it can be argued that rumor makers are like broken clocks, they're right at least some of the time. But a rumor can only be taken serious based on a compilation of evidence. All we have for Audi in DPI is that Joest is looking for a program, and the rumor that VAG are looking at wanting to do a prototype program on the cheap (ie, not LMP1). Right now, Porsche leaving LMP1 as a rumor has more substance and supporting evidence than Audi Sport to DPI.

It's also like the rumor that Penske and maybe even HPD want to see IMSA abandon BOP'ing cars to LMP2 performance specs. What's the rumor on that with Audi? Mind you, we don't have 100% conclusive proof or evidence that HPD and Penske are after that as of yet.