Quote:
Originally Posted by JAG
I believe it was Andrew Cotton as I had an e-mail conversation about that article.
I believe the same mistake was being made then as now.
In 2003/2004 GT1 racing was reaching it's peak with many major manufactuers competing in the class.
It was inevitable costs would rise followed by withdrawels from first privateers then manufactuers.
The fact these GT1 cars could not win Le Mans, Sebring, PLM etc. overall also meant ever larger budgets could not be justified.
GT2 is similarly reaching a peak but with the seperation of GTE Pro and GTE Am there is at least a mechanism to retain privateers should manufactuers eventually pull out.
The ACO and manufactuers also appear to be acting proactively to keep costs under control and technology road car relevant.
As for GT3 IMO it appears doomed to failure as late 90's GT1's where.
Costs are exploding with little control over technology due to the relience on performance balancing.
Rather like the CLK-GTR/LM/CLR series of cars looked to be running into a financial dead end so do extreme GT3's like the SLS.
There's the very real possibilty a GTE version of the R8 could be cheaper than the GT3!
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GT2 cars are roughly a half million dollars US. You can rein them back in actually if you had too. But I think a balance has been struck with the current regulations. They are adding paddle shifters to the cars for 2011 which I think is an okay update, some may not like it because of this faulty notion that it eliminates missed shifts, like that happens anyway, if so its fairly rare.
GT3 similarly can be reined back in. These are production cars after-all, OEM's know where they can cut corners. GT3 is somewhat GT2 Light, but you can fix cost by using a spec tire and buy using the FIA Driver Rating System.
Also by booting the GT3 Champion up to GT2 would keep parity as one driver wouldn't dominate. I'm not sure what you do with him, but if you win a GT3 title in America, methinks you're services are going to be desired somewhere.
By installing a price cap of say $450,000 for GT2 and $300,000 for GT3 would be moving in the right direction as well. When you tripling (or more) the cost of a production car to be made into a racing car, you are paying Union Wages I should add, plus all the engineering that's in the product. I would argue that the Robertson's have spent a small fortune trying to make the Ford GT a competitive race car over the past 2-3 years.
I don't think you can put a price on the engineering that goes on back in Germany or Ferrari in Italy, they both have private testing tracks which cost them largely nothing, they own it. This isn't the case for the average team, Penske at this NC Facility wanted to build a racetrack next door, they town said NO.
I think baked into that price for these cars is the engineering involved, that includes testing upgrades so you don't have too.
There's still a $150-200K price difference between GT2 and GT3 and I don't think its doomed at all. I think it might have reached a price zenith that it can't survive if the cars got any more expensive. You get ROI from them because a team like Graf can use the same car in French GT and a team like Toni Seiler can run both the European Cup and German GT3. That's because GT3 rules are pretty much standardized.
What your paying for is a completely SORTED car. For some that takes the "challenge" out of it, but for many, being able to roll it out of truck and only make a couple of suspension changes, plus if your going to the same tracks all the time, how many adjustments are you making? You can't make change a ton on these cars, making them somewhat expensive but cheap to operate...
Just to put it in preceptive -
I emailed Kinetic about its Kia Forte Koup ST car in Grand Am. They aren't quite running at the front yet, but are solid Top 10 cars without many changes to the suspension system (just the basics). They are getting some help in the engine dept for next season, they will be on pace next year.
For a $17,000US car they feel they can duplicate it for $150,000 turnkey.
That's a dramatic increase over the car as you get it from the dealer. The sum of its parts might not add up to that much, but the time invested into designing the rollcage, suspension and engine development; those are real man hours. You can't expect a discounted rate if you want a competitive car right out of the box.
This is professional racing, having this "Pro-Am" bent too it has held it back IMHO. Instead of demanding Gentlemen to be included, maybe they should be talented enough to hold their own, instead of writing a check and being a mobile chicane.
Raymond Narc is a perfect example. Nobody is crying about his team being held back and has won Le Mans straight up and is winning in GT Open against some very talented ex-F3 drivers, Kaffer and few others.
At the same token the Robertsons are WAY off David Murray's pace.