IMSA USCC in 2016 and 2017

[Deleted]

They would have had done this with or without the ACO anyway (maybe not P2 base per say, but the same hollow external body on top of near spec chassis and bop specs a la DP continuum)

I never wanted this series to exist in the first place, so it's little late for wishes

[wdave0]

What the timeline means is that there won't be any new cars available until end of Dec/early Jan 2017 for mid Jan roar? Bespoke engine and bodywork to follow? Only if everything is an schedule. This is reminiscent of Nissan cool -aid! Reality - Daytona 2017 and maybe later will be all grandfathered and great grandfathered Ps - including DPs

[DeezPutz]

The manufacturer bodywork idea is a good one. As usual, the execution of the idea is garbage.

[10TENTHS]

Originally Posted by Chiana

I never wanted this series to exist in the first place, so it's little late for wishes

So why are you here? Personally I'm sick of these political debates that take over motorsport discussion. I'm here because I enjoy GT and Prototype cars racing on classic American tracks like Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Road Atlanta.

Could the series improve? Absolutely. Will I dismiss it out of hand because I don't agree with every regulation? No.

Most of the top teams in ELMS are moving on, so it looks like open LMP2 is dead there because of the ACO's ridiculous protectionism of French manufacturers. Contrary to your belief, IMSA did not agree with making things spec, but there has been an increased interest in Le Mans from US-based teams like Shank and ESM. So some compromise had to be reached. Hence DPi. If you've read Marshall Pruett's series of articles on the subject you'd see why this happened.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by 10TENTHS

So why are you here? Personally I'm sick of these political debates that take over motorsport discussion. I'm here because I enjoy GT and Prototype cars racing on classic American tracks like Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Road Atlanta.

Could the series improve? Absolutely. Will I dismiss it out of hand because I don't agree with every regulation? No.

PREACH.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by 10TENTHS

So why are you here? Personally I'm sick of these political debates that take over motorsport discussion. I'm here because I enjoy GT and Prototype cars racing on classic American tracks like Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Road Atlanta.

Yup.

[Deleted]

Because there isn't always just Option A (like it and watch) and Option B (hate it and don't watch). It isn't that black and white.

This I have repeated before too many times already, but: I can't say I ever really LIKED Grand-Am or even Daytona, I mean I found the concept rather awful by itself, but as side dish to the ALMS it was alright. You always knew there was one awesome series in the neighborhood, so it was fine watching some "entertainment racing" between weekends and whatever. At some point I actually watched couple Rolex seasons that way. It was fine, you didn't really have to take the thing seriously. But when you lose the main dish and instead move some tiny leftover parts of that to the side dish, and that's all there is, the joy is gone.

What is left is the (admittedly awesome) calendar and range of support series, with some ocassional brighter flashes of something, but they don't save any sinking ships.

For the record, after years of full season NA racing following, I did watch around half or more of the USCC events in 2014, then only two last year, so it is going your direction of desire anyway with me. But even though I don't watch much of it doesn't mean I couldn't follow news and comment here.

I really liked PLM last year, despite some questionable officiliating things again, but that was mostly because of the bizarre weather havoc racing + DP+/Conti upset by GT + my love for Road Atlanta

[FLGTFAN]

Why is anyone here? Put on your big boy pants.

[chernaudi]

IMSA may have better tracks than most of the WEC rounds, especially if the WEC keep the relatively boring Tilke tracks such as Shanghai (only interesting because it's bumpy and has 1-2 strange/interesting corners on it), Bahrain (bland lay out) and his butchering of Fuji (can't entirely blame him for that, since Toyota own Fuji and paid for the redesign to get a F1 race there for a couple of years). But the whole prototype field from day one in 2014 was a compromised mish-mash.

I'd love to see LMP1 cars running in IMSA on the NA tracks, but the reality of that is a pipe dream--at least until IMSA collapses and sell the series to the ACO as some doom sayers are thinking will happen, and it very well might--no one knows what the future holds or how things will work out.

Audi, Porsche and Toyota aren't selling customer cars, even if they did, they'd be practically unaffordable. Also, at times even last season, the LMP1 privateer cars were sometimes not too much faster than ACO spec LMP2 cars. So unless the LMP1 privateer teams get a major speed boost, that's not a strong selling point, either.

Face it, with as half-baked and especially rushed as the original merger was, this is about the best IMSA can do right now. Love it or loathe it, but it's all we have right now. And it's not like the factory teams would be willing to bank roll an IMSA LMP1 class--why do you think that Audi pulled out of the ALMS full time after 2008? They won about everything there was to win and the ROI wasn't doing it for Audi of America. Also, around that time, the World Championship (ultimately evolving into the ACO/FIA World Endurance Championship) that Audi were asking for since at least LM in 2000 was gathering momentum.

So this is what we have now. And if you like it, you'd better appreciate it while we have it, because it can be succeeded by something better--or, perhaps, something worse.

[Deleted]

Doom Sayers we're right about Nissan, and Ratel's GTWC, so every once in a while things do fall apart as predicted/feared/hoped. But the likelihood of AMA situation repeat here is awfully low, and other scenarios even more so.

I think this series is more likely to be here in 2025 than WEC for example... in current form, anyway

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Chiana

I think this series is more likely to be here in 2025 than WEC for example... in current form, anyway

IMSA will survive because they don't really have proper rules. Daytona Prototypes? Pff, they can race P2s! Just stick a big diffuser on it and restrict the P2s! LMPCs? Do the rest of the world still use those? Let them in anyway. GT Daytona? That's just whatever you want it to be. And a Delta...Wing? Meh, throw it in the Prototype class.

IMSA will survive in its current form because it doesn't have a current form. It's whatever they want it to be. Whether that's a good thing or not is an opinion.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

IMSA will survive because they don't really have proper rules. Daytona Prototypes? Pff, they can race P2s! Just stick a big diffuser on it and restrict the P2s! LMPCs? Do the rest of the world still use those? Let them in anyway. GT Daytona? That's just whatever you want it to be. And a Delta...Wing? Meh, throw it in the Prototype class.

IMSA will survive in its current form because it doesn't have a current form. It's whatever they want it to be. Whether that's a good thing or not is an opinion.

Valid views I don't necessarily disagree with it

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

... this is about the best IMSA can do right now.

Nonsense.

A better product can be produced by:
- more liberal top class regulations. Unlimited number of chassis constructors and allow tire competition, free up engine-bodywork combos;
- replace IMSA FCY procedures with Code 60/slow zones;
- get a better TV package
- change manufacturers marketing policy to allow more brands

4 straight forward changes that will make the series great (again). Not hard at all. But there has to be a desire...

[Deleted]

You won't get no-FCY at North America because of the marshall/personell insurance debacles, but you certainly could get reasonable FCYs instead of NASCAR-FCYs for phantom debris and coke cans, as well as the laughable 20 minute wave arounds.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

Nonsense.

A better product can be produced by:
- more liberal top class regulations. Unlimited number of chassis constructors and allow tire competition, free up engine-bodywork combos;
- replace IMSA FCY procedures with Code 60/slow zones;
- get a better TV package
- change manufacturers marketing policy to allow more brands

4 straight forward changes that will make the series great (again). Not hard at all. But there has to be a desire...

Under the current IMSA administration this is the best we can do. What you seem to be proposing for the top class is basically LMP1 without the cost, but even that won't work in North America; LMP1 privateer barely works in the WEC because right now there's only two teams interested and unless the factory LMP1 cars get really slowed down by BOP (which they don't want and hence the ACO probably won't go for), I don't see any significant increase in entries for at least a few year.

Also, I should point out that though it's by default and not by rules, LMP1 is basically a Michelin spec tire class and LMP2 is almost a Dunlop spec tire class as far as those suppliers dominating those respective classes.

Also, the WEC also has full course yellows and pace cars. Only difference is that the WEC uses slow zones at LM and bigger tracks on their schedule, and if a FCY can be dealt with quickly, they won't send out the pace car.

TV Package? No motorsport in the world in the US won't get on mainstream TV as long as NASCAR and F1 are around. If you want that to happen, you'd better hope that Brian France runs NASCAR into the ground and that the FIA and FOM do the same with F1. Only reason why the WEC's TV package is better is that Fox uses RLM's broadcasts for commentary and most WEC races are shown at night or early in the morning, hence they face little direct competition from other sports that Fox shoehorns on FS1 and FS2, and can be shown in their entirety--not even Le Mans is able to get that now.

And the only way that the manufacturing marketing stuff will change is if IMSA and ISC drop it, namely the pay to play format. That's the only thing I can see change being successfully forced though. But we have to remember that when Don Panoz still owned the ALMS, he cut his own personal funding of the series after '06 and had the OEM's do that, and we know what happened when Audi and Porsche cut back their LMP programs at the end of '08. And Jim France and ISC probably got tired of being accused of partially subsidizing many of the teams in GA (which we now know is true and is public knowledge thanks to Felix Sabates in a deposition he put in against his then estranged wife during their divorce trial), and he wanted someone, even if only for image's sake, to foot the bill.

In short, as long as Jim's and Don's mentalities don't change, the whole pay to play stuff, especially in GTD, won't change.

So this is what we're stuck with, for better or worse, and I've seen enough happen in the sportscar and motorsports world as a whole the past 15+ years, especially the last 5-7 years, to know that when change comes, there's a good chance that things will probably be worse than it was before.

[joeb]

Pt 2 of the 2017 article on S365

http://sportscar365.com/industry/ins...ulations-pt-2/

More info on the timeline for testing and whatnot.

[BrentJackson]

Originally Posted by 10TENTHS

So what do you suggest? That they ignore the ACO and keep running a hybrid top class of DP\LMP2 or some other designs?

My view is (and has been for some time) that IMSA abandon the LMPs in favor of Class One-based big-bore GTs. I believe they have far better odds of growing the sport and ensuring financial stability with those cars than the psuedo-spec P2s. These new cars are an absolute joke, lipstick on a pig in the very greatest sense of the term.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

My view is (and has been for some time) that IMSA abandon the LMPs in favor of Class One-based big-bore GTs. I believe they have far better odds of growing the sport and ensuring financial stability with those cars than the psuedo-spec P2s. These new cars are an absolute joke, lipstick on a pig in the very greatest sense of the term.

And we do have to remember that back in the mid 1990s that the FIA and ACO tried that strategy too when Group C and IMSA GTP became too expensive for it's own good. And they allowed that to spiral out of control to the point where the original GT1 class became LMGTP by 1999.

What's it been said that if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it? I can see the same happening here, especially if rules are kept as liberal as they were in the mid '90s where teams basically designed race cars first, and then modified them to be theoretically road legal.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

These new cars are an absolute joke, lipstick on a pig in the very greatest sense of the term.

Miss Piggy is offended.

To have herself compared to those cars

[TF110]

I think only a few tracks on the calendar are good or great. Road America being my favorite. Places like Sebring, Laguna Seca and VIR have history, but there isn't much about them that's unseen in tracks the wec race on. The biggest thing is the lack of runoff that everyone complains about. If there was a partial concrete race track in China with the same layout and roughness as Sebring, we'd have completely different comments about it. Imo, it's mostly history that makes people feel like an otherwise typical place is a great. WTSC has some good tracks, but I don't think places like Fuji or Silverstone are ruined because of runoff. Besides, this is a regional series, not a World series. They can run any American track loyal to Nascar. That's not an option for the FIA.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by TF110

I think only a few tracks on the calendar are good or great. Road America being my favorite. Places like Sebring, Laguna Seca and VIR have history, but there isn't much about them that's unseen in tracks the wec race on. The biggest thing is the lack of runoff that everyone complains about. If there was a partial concrete race track in China with the same layout and roughness as Sebring, we'd have completely different comments about it. Imo, it's mostly history that makes people feel like an otherwise typical place is a great. WTSC has some good tracks, but I don't think places like Fuji or Silverstone are ruined because of runoff. Besides, this is a regional series, not a World series. They can run any American track loyal to Nascar. That's not an option for the FIA.

Fantastic, I'm glad we won't see you at all those great US venues - gives the rest of us more pleasure visiting them on a regular base!

Have fun at your beloved parking lots!

[Rcz]

It's not really just runoff for me that's the problem for Grade 1 tracks but those awkward slow curves they put in to scrub speed off of Formula 1 based cars.

In my own opinion,COTA I think is a really great track, for F1. But when you put slower heavier GT and Prototypes cars there, I don't know, it just looks...awkward.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

Fantastic, I'm glad we won't see you at all those great US venues - gives the rest of us more pleasure visiting them on a regular base!

Have fun at your beloved parking lots!

I didn't say these are boring tracks they run here in America. I said they aren't too different from the one's the WEC visit. The trash talk would happen to Sebring or Mid Ohio if they had run off areas that double the track's width.

So what's the negativity for? Sorry I'm not seeing the point in you saying things like not having me in attendance benefits you. There isn't even any track near me wtsc or the wec races. So if I go to a race, it's basically a vacation. If I'm spending money for that, it better be a place I'd like to see with cars I'd like to see. I'm sure a lot of people feel the same thing.

[BrentJackson]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And we do have to remember that back in the mid 1990s that the FIA and ACO tried that strategy too when Group C and IMSA GTP became too expensive for it's own good. And they allowed that to spiral out of control to the point where the original GT1 class became LMGTP by 1999.

What's it been said that if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it? I can see the same happening here, especially if rules are kept as liberal as they were in the mid '90s where teams basically designed race cars first, and then modified them to be theoretically road legal.

Fair comments, but I would imagine that the Class One being built on a spec center section which would then (I would assume, and would be logical) have outer chassis built by other makers, clothed in bodywork that can be changed as circumstances permit or require. The GTE/GTLM class is more where I would be worried about what you say, because there is a very real chance the Ford GT is to GTE racing cars what the Porsche 911 GT1 was to the GT1 cars of the 1990s.

[carbsmith]

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

^ That timeline only matters if it can be followed. Not a problem for Oreca or Onroak, maybe a problem for Dallara, big problem for Riley and Multimatic.

Dallara is the largest and best equipped race car constructor in the group that delivers dozens of cars for numerous series with very few hiccups (DW12 started a bit messy but that's as much an IndyCar thing), I have no idea why you would think Onroak (which has yet to even build an all new car of their own) would have less trouble than Dallara.

Originally Posted by chernaudi

unless the factory LMP1 cars get really slowed down by BOP (which they don't want and hence the ACO probably won't go for), I don't see any significant increase in entries for at least a few year.

What difference would it make? Whatever the rules equilibrium is there's no way they could beat the factories anyways. Who is going to want to run a car that can only be raced 4 times in Europe and then 4 other times by traveling halfway around the world to try to beat at least half a dozen competitive factory cars in 6+ hour races? You can't even attract people with the prospect of participating because they can just go run any of the other classes and still be part of it.

Privateer P1 is not happening as long as it's a WEC only class.