Grand Am Rolex at Watkins Glen...

[gomick]

This race is on Aussie TV now - just watched the start & didnt realize that the 2 classes (DP & GT) started half a lap apart, interesting start...

18 or 19 DP started - something the ALMS would love i reckon...

[Breitling24]

In the US, we've that and tennis playing, I'm watching Roddick.

[teamnewmie]

good to see One HD giving Australian sportcar fans some love, now we just need the ALMS & LMS

[dxk1]

I'd love to see what that Supercar Life Racing Riley/BMW could do if Tucker were a wee bit quicker.

DK

[gomick]

Originally Posted by Breitling24

In the US, we've that and tennis playing, I'm watching Roddick.

Well, as a Tennis fan, this is Roddicks 1st tournament back since Wimbledon - how did he go

That was a rather interesting race, 1st time i have actually watched a Grand Am race, Scott Pruett was flying there towards the end - not enough to catch Ricardo Zonta though....

[Danske]

Hmm...looky that. The car that needs an Act of God to win somehow did so without any such divine intervention.

[Breitling24]

Originally Posted by gomick

Well, as a Tennis fan, this is Roddicks 1st tournament back since Wimbledon - how did he go

That was a rather interesting race, 1st time i have actually watched a Grand Am race, Scott Pruett was flying there towards the end - not enough to catch Ricardo Zonta though....

Roddick won. (yeah, sorry, back to topic)

[Jonerz]

So Fogarty grabbed pole, "shattering" (SpeedTv.Com) the track record (Brian Frissele 1:05.243 @135.187. vs. Jon Fogarty 1:05.069 @135.548 ; thanks to TheBoot at THAT Grand-Am forum). So that peaked my interest, unfortunately Endurance Series by Enduracers was released so I missed the first 45 minutes of the TV coverage because I was messing around in an RSR at Mid-O pretending to be Pat Long. Once I did get into the race, it was really quite good. I was cheering for Bryce Miller debuting his new team. Unfortunately while Angelelli and Bouchut were battling, Angelelli did not pay appropriate heed to the 48 car (a dab of the brakes Max!) and ruined Miller's great race. The finish wasn't as great as the middle-stint from my perspective, but enjoyable none-the-less.

A question popped into my mind while watching the race. How many of the Grand-Am DP teams could transition over and run competitively with an LMP in the ALMS or LMS? I compiled a list in my head. Penske and Ganassi I'm sure of, for obvious reasons, but adding Wayne Taylor Racing, Michael Shank who would be the top of the next tier of teams I have some doubts about. I think they could transition to a GT car and compete right at the front of the grid but I'm not sure they have the technical staffs that could quickly transition. I suppose Doran has proven they can run a P car pretty well, I think Brumos racing has some on staff that could make the transition well, and Krohn Racing has (David? Colin's Dad...) Braun engineering, and he is a pretty astute engineer. Anyways... that is what goes on in my brain.

Chris

[gomick]

Well Penske ran ALMS last season & switched to Grand Am this season - why?

[Jonerz]

Because the DHL deal was done, the Porsche RS Spyder deal was done, and Penske didn't want to front for a season of ALMS LMP2 competition (doesn't use his own money, like most of the ultra-successful businessmen). Porsche kept ties with him in effort to start building and testing a new LMP1 car. The LMP1 car is on the shelf for now, but plans could be changing.

Essentially Grand-Am DP racing is considerably cheaper than ALMS LMP2 racing (at least if you want to run at a Penske-like level). Note that The Captain had two P2 cars and has gone down to a sole DP car, basically to keep his team's sports car legs fresh for Porsche's (or another manufacturer's) use in the ALMS in 2010, 2011, or 2012.

Chris

[gomick]

Is Grand Am popular around these forums?

Or is there a feeling that it runs a distant 2nd to ALMS?

[dxk1]

Originally Posted by gomick

Is Grand Am popular around these forums?

Or is there a feeling that it runs a distant 2nd to ALMS?

It is pretty much ignored within this Sportcar Racing Forum as you can see by the length of this thread.

DK

[gomick]

It is isnt it - dunno why, great looking cars, great #'s, great racing... Even has a GT class

[Dead-Eye]

Great looking cars? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but you're definitely in the minority on that. Great racing? At times I thought I was watching bumper cars - makes the challenge drivers in the ALMS look like seasoned professionals.

[Jonerz]

I think I sit somewhere between gomick and Dead-Eye. The Grand-Am formula does bug me because it intentionally tries to close the box within the engineers can work, development of go-fast technologies is at a minimum, and that takes a lot of the point out of racing from my perspective. Also, the cars all have 4.35-5 liter V8's, bar the flat six Porsche and V6 Honda (which isn't running ATM IIRC). Hopefully the addition of the Supercar Life Ferrari's will spice things up, but it is one thing when you have 20+ Trans-Am V8s, entirely another when you have the more dull drone of the production-based, lower horsepower (compared to Trans-Am) V8's. Additionally, the very high roof line for the purpose of safety and to regulate competition does leave a lot to be desired with these cars. The original Fabcar design, and the two Crawfords have been my favorites. As for the parade of Rileys that currently dominate the class, they're not hideous, but a few key tweaks could be done to make them a little more appealing. The GT class is okay, I love the sound of the RX-8, but it has similar restrictions from a technological standpoint. The best part about the class is the sound of Porsche GT3 Cup cars downshifting! Some take issue with the fact that many of the cars (RX-8, GXP.R, GTO.R, the only currently competing Corvette, and the BMW M6) are all tube-framers, i.e. in a technical sense they aren't GT cars, which are supposed to be unibody, road-based racecars. However, tube-framers have a terrific history in American motorsport, so I don't take much issue with them the way some think they further *******ize the Grand-Am formula and name of sportscar racing.

I think I've just caught myself becoming very long-winded. All-in-all, my interest in the series peaks in late January, as I am a sucker for enduros. But I definitely keep an eye on the point standings and dogfights, as I am a racing fan through and through. Speaking of dogfights, a couple of the battles at Watkins were fairly entertaining, sometimes bordering on bumper cars like Dead-Eye said, but there was legitimate entertainment throughout the race. (Way to bring us back on topic, eh?)

Chris

[mountainstar]

Mostly it's Nascar that keeps Grand Am afloat. Without that patronage and primping of sponsors to get them in grand am it probably would not be around.

DP Grand Am isn't any cheaper than ALMS P2. Plenty of Grand Am teams have budgets of $4 million plus a car which i don't think is cheap for what it is.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by gomick

Well Penske ran ALMS last season & switched to Grand Am this season - why?

The only reason Penske does anything these days: $

[Breitling24]

Originally Posted by Bob Riebe

The only reason Penske does anything these days: $

...and not spending his to race.

[Speed-King]

As for Gomick's question, I really like Grand Am, but then my other favourite series is BTCC, so maybe that's why...

[LouisTheShark]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

Mostly it's Nascar that keeps Grand Am afloat. Without that patronage and primping of sponsors to get them in grand am it probably would not be around.

DP Grand Am isn't any cheaper than ALMS P2. Plenty of Grand Am teams have budgets of $4 million plus a car which i don't think is cheap for what it is.

The same can be said of IMSA, without France's seed money and bringing sponsors to IMSA (specifically Camel), they would not have survived.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by LouisTheShark

The same can be said of IMSA, without France's seed money and bringing sponsors to IMSA (specifically Camel), they would not have survived.

Bill France did give John Bishop some seed money to get going, but I have never heard of him having connection to the the Camel sponsorship.

The IMSA survived (grew) not because of Bill France, but because the SCCA was inept and nearly killed off its own pro series in the early seventies; John Bishop was n the right place, at the right time, to take advantage of that.

Not by choice, the SCCA, kept the IMSA going, and the IMSA, kept the SCCA going. When that possibility, to play off-of each other, finally totally died, so did both racing series.

[LouisTheShark]

Bishop was always the face of IMSA, but Bill France had a piece of IMSA and financial interest in its success. Talk to people that were there during those years and you would learn about BF's behind the scenes support of the series. Do you think it was a coincidence that RJ Reynolds started sponsoring NASCAR's top series with the Winston brand and one year later IMSA with the Camel brand?

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by LouisTheShark

Bishop was always the face of IMSA, but Bill France had a piece of IMSA and financial interest in its success. Talk to people that were there during those years and you would learn about BF's behind the scenes support of the series. Do you think it was a coincidence that RJ Reynolds started sponsoring NASCAR's top series with the Winston brand and one year later IMSA with the Camel brand?

Bill France, after the SCCA had decided to quite running the run-offs at Daytona, without contacting Bill France, was the one who seeing Bishop had departed from the SCCA under unfriendly terms, is the one who called John Bishop with the idea.
He gave him seed money, and use of his tracks but he told Bishop that with all the road race tracks being built at that time they needed races, and there would not be enough SCCA races for all the tracks.
After the IMSA formula classes proved to be a BAD idea, Bishop went to GT cars, and Porsche found a place to prove and sell their product.
It all snowballed, into right idea at the right time.

It was also at this time that Cigarette advertising was banned from TV and magazines so racing was an area where they could promote till the cows came home.(I still remember the odd Camel ads in magazines that I missed when they quit running them.)

If you can get a hold of Starkey's Racing wwith a Difference, THE HISTORY OF IMSA, it tells of how other little groups played an important part in the survival and growth of the IMSA.
Bill France gave money out of anger, but beyond that, he did NOT, keep it alive the way GARRA was started and survives totally on the whim of the France family.

[Dutton]

Posts #20-23 could be the start of a rather interesting new thread (for me at least). I certainly don't know the story, but would love to find it out.

Anyway, as to things a bit more on-topic, I would say I undoubtedly rank ALMS above Grand-Am. I don't harbour any ill-will against GA, indeed I watch and enjoy it enough to keep watching it, but the ALMS is unquestionably a fair bit closer to my preferred interests (not there, yet, mind!). I still watch Grand-Am happily because it is motorsport: I don't hold anything against it for the things which make it not my ideal choice, for it does not purport to be that (I do not have to watch it, after all). My interest with Grand-Am can only ever be considered completely casual in the context of fora such as Tenths. I watch the races - the majority, but I never manage to catch them all. I find out they are due that week from generic motorsport channel guide checks, or through this forum. Invariably, I miss the odd one. Outside of watching the races on TV, I pay no attention whatsoever to it (but will make a point of setting a tape to record it if watching it as aired is not priority/possible).

Anyway, as for the race, all things taken in context, I thought it was decent. It was a perfectly watchable race, without the sometimes present obscene number of caution laps. It provided me with a couple of hours of motorsport to watch. It satisfied my expectations.

[Danske]

There's a bit of an interview with Ben Collins regarding his testing of the five different Daytona Prototype chassis at Watkins Glen at:
http://www.grand-am.com/multimedia/audio.cfm