http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnOvdGdPnhE
Well Napolis, that is the dream. GT1 from the mid/late 1990's all over again!! If you can talk GA into doing something like that you are the man...We don't need tube frame DP looks sorta like a Porsche cars, we need something like this. Either go full LMP2 style or go production based. If they don't listen now they will end up doing it anyway. Look at IRL as an example. They started cheaper and ended up almost like CART was before they almost destroyed open wheel racing in N.A.. Is that what NASCAR realy wants, to destroy what they are taking over?? And no oval circle tracks for GA please(unless they have a road coarse on the inside like Daytona). Jim, please do what you can to make this happen!!! Tom Tanner/Ferrari Expo 2013-Chicago March 23rd 2013 and Ferrari Club of America Road America anniversary meet August 2013
I have tried, I am trying and I will continue to try. There are a few positive signs. I remain hopeful. Best!
The F70 would win. Bugatti will never race the Veyron because they know they will be the laughing stock of the car industry when their 2 ton leviathan finishes last. I reckon that by the time the other cars will finish, the ugly Veyron will still have to cover 2-3 laps.
Now *there's* a series I could get behind in a hurry! Somewhat road relevant, production based cars fighting it out. I wouldn't be too sure on that. Even without any BOP'ing a big hungry V12 is probably not the way to go IMHO. I guess that all depends on whether my "hated" BOP comes in to play..... Penalize everyone else to give it a chance? No thanks! Cheers, Ian
The NA V12 is the greatest engine ever. The TT V8 sucks. By using this simple analogy : the F70 rocks, the ugly P1 sucks.
He who talks much is right, the whole notion of prototypes (especially those designed by NASCAR) ought to be scrapped in favor of a hypercar formula similar to the FIA GT of the mid to late 90s. Take a look car magazines on the news stands, all of them have the latest supercars on their covers. And, as I've been saying since before the demise of GT-1, this is the direction sports car racing should be taking. If the ACO is reluctant to welcome in GT hypercars with four wheel drive or supercars such as the Maserati MC-12 or Jim Glickenhaus' P4/5 Competizione (for example) to hell with them, take Stefan Ratel's FIA GT model and adopt it to a U.S. based sports car series featuring hypercars as the lead category and the current GTE formula as the second class. If the reaction of the 1997 FIA GT race at Sebring was any indication, and gauging by how spectators and media who were in attendance there are still raving about it, adoption of these rules would be an enormous hit and the ACO would eventually have to listen. Unfortunately, the we're likely to see Indy Cars starting in the Daytonner 500 before we'd see the ISC adopt sensible rules. To them, NASCAR is the only thing that matters and any other form of racing is taking money out of their coffers which they'll stop at nothing to recoup. http://m.jalopnik.com/5971953/these-are-the-hypercars-that-really-deserve-to-be-on-a-racetrack BHW
Fact remains we had a series such as that and it floped fairly quicly.. as once you get to to top level, if one manuf starts dominating the others pull out and the series is done for... Making an artificial series that would prevent that through the use of BoP would make it meaningless...
Look at how tight the ALMS GT class is. It is possible to keep them close and exciting. I still would like to see a LMP style class as they are almost like closed F1 cars, but a 1990's GT1 style supercar class would be even better. On a side note, I went to the 1998 Homestead Florida FIA GT1 race. There were some of the best GT sportscars ever in North America in attendance(4 Porsche GT1 98's, 4 Mercedes CLK GT1's, 3 Panoz GT1's, 5 factory Vipers..Marcos, ect) and the place was a ghost town!! Marketing is everything............ Tom Tanner/Ferrari Expo 2013-Chicago March 23rd 2013
That's the problem at Homestead (another ISC track), events like FIA GT or Ferrari NA are barely promoted. As a Danish friend pointed out at one of the Ferrari NA events, "If this was any other country there'd be 200,000 people here". At the 1997 FIA GT event at Sebring, they needed 40K fans for it to be a success. Despite the threatening weather that deluged the track ten minutes into the main event, they got 40+K likely the largest non-12 Hours crowd ever at Sebring. Sports car racing eras go in cycles. Sometimes prototypes are on top, then fade away for production cars. Unfortunately, for whatever reason the ACO rather ingnored the fact the GT-1 wasn't attracting entrants other than Corvette and Aston Martin, they could have spiced the category up then by converting GT-1 into a hypercar (guess that's what we're calling it now) to include cars like the MC-12s that they so objected to in ALMS that the car was not eligible for points and ran with so much ballast there was no way for it to be competitive. The announcement we're going to get from Daytonner on Janurary 4 likely isn't going to be what Roger Edmundson called "traditional sports car fans" are necessarilly going to like. So, instead "traditional sports car fans" may still go to Austin to see the WEC cars at a state of the art facility. BHW
To be fair the MC12 was built enterly outside of the rules of GT1. Carbon chassis was not alowed, neither was the huge ass diffuser, etc... when it ran in the ALMS it was not only balast but the restrictors ware tiny, and the rear wing was so small it was rediculus... Problem with hyper car series is relativly simple, unless the manufacturers want to race them there is no way privateers will in this economic climate... top level WEC GTE pro effort cost a few million to run and this is with a 200k base car (the actual 458 race cars is around 500k). A hyper car effort would jump the cost into the 10s of milions, and at that point you can race a few LMP2. Or even run a privateer LMP1 project... Manufacturers don't want to race their hypercars cause there is no way to balance them out fairly, and none of them want to lose because the other guy got more BoP..etc... Manufacturers want a fixed set of rules where they can show of their expertise, thay don't want to be shamed by a slower/less developed car whose manuf lobbied the rule makes into alwoing it to run better then the rest... I mean think about it one is a ~7l NA, another is 3.8l TT, and jet another is a 4.6l NA... two of them have rear wheel drive, and rear wheel kers, while the third one has a rear wheel drive engine with front wheel Kers, and 4 wheel stearing... Looking in the mess ACO/Fia has made trying to balance diesels and pertorols it becomes obvious that there is no way they can balance it out properly... And BoP is way to prone to BS and cheating that it simply makes no sence. The whole Drive expose was more of a fantasy BS, then a thought out solution... This system can work in GTE and GT3 cause it's relativly low profile, but racing hypercars and losing will pain them to no end...
I went to the Sebring event in 1997 and also the 1997 and 1998 Laguna Seca FIA events and they had a very good turn out, so you are right. It would have been even better if the FIA had advertised more nationally. These races were mainly regional events unless you were a sportscar racing nut. Homestead was like a private practice session. The Sebring 12 and Daytona 24 are national events that could bring in even larger crowds if promoted correctly with proper exotic type GT cars.
That's a heavily weighted question. Daytona, like Le Mans, can guarantee a crowd irrespective of what's on track, in the case of Le Mans your looking at 200k, at Daytona 40k-50k. Your regular ALMS round draws 30k-40k spectators over a weekend, Grand Am is nearer 5k-10k. Next year CoTA host a double-header Super Racing Weekend, the ALMS on the Saturday, WEC headlining Sunday. In this case you can expect the WEC will draw whatever the ALMS does on Saturday, plus a little more taking into account those who will prioritise the once a year visit of the WEC. In 2014 the merged series will more than likely race once again at CoTA, Grand Am of course will benefit greatly by bringing over the ALMS fanbase who wish to see LMP2's and GTE's, but I can only see a modest uptick in overall attendance (entirely dependant on the series adopting the fan favourite classes). The prospect of a hypercar class always generates plenty of discussion, but it's a non-starter, or to be more accurate, you can start it, but it will be over with in a couple of years. Take a look back at the 1990's, by 1995 GT1 was dominated by the Mclaren F1 GTR, only the F40 GTE could get within striking distance. This wasn't a situation other manufacturer's would stand for, so in 1996 Porsche introduced the 911 GT1 with it's mid-engine and long-tail. OK, so now the class had already shed it's hypercar roots, instead manufacturer's were building race cars that would be homologated for the road. From 1995 to 1998 the top GT1 cars had progressed from the short-tail Mclaren F1 GTR to the Toyota GT-ONE, a car that had no road car pretences, it was a prototype like the current Audi R18 or Toyota TS030. That road car homologation simply upped the costs of entering the class. I can't see it being much different today, one or two cars will be the class of the field, leading other manufacturers to withdraw or go back to the drawing board to build a homologation special, at which point you already move away from the hypercar routes and fast track towards a prototype. All that's with the assumption manufacturers will build and support cars, I persoanlly cannot see the likes of Pagani or Koenigsegg having the budget or will to enter, while cars like the Corvette C7 I've seen listed would be outclassed and out of place. It's why we see the current class structure, LMP1 allows everyone to compete with a clean sheet design, the GTE class allows major manufacturers to put forth their big (relatively) selling supercars where a racing program can be justified by the marketing men and board. If your only selling a hundred or so cars per year, most of which are already pre-sold, what incentive is there to race for the likes of Pagani, Porsche on the other hand sells thousands of 911's and wants to increase sales. Happy New Year to everyone, let's hope Grand Am deliver the goods on January 4th and make DP a class everyone can get behind.
I found a few photos I took at the 1997 Sebring and Laguna Seca FIA GT races. This kind of racing is amazing to watch. The V12 CLK's sounded so much better than the V8's, but the Mclaren F1 GTR's were the best sounding. Very nice exhaust note even though the motors were BMW Happy holidays Tom Tanner/Ferrari Expo 2013-Chicago March 23rd 2013 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Great pictures! And not to go too far off topic, but I got a few pictures of the FIA GT cars at Laguna Seca in 1997, and they're some of my most viewed photos. http://www.flickr.com/photos/photosbyjohnwiley/sets/72157625981414374/ People really like these cars. It would be incredible to see a F70/P1/918/R20 group.
Thanks for sharing! Any chance you'd lift the download restrictions? Would love to save a few of those in my personal fils.
Daytona 24 Hour has over 100k spectators in the infield for every race. Doesnt mater the cars as its a 24 party
I agree strongly with group B's post. The fact is, that government regulated rules around cars, and racing regulated, take two different approaches. Government regulations try to protect ignorant or stupid people that won't make effort for their own safety. This results in an entirely different set of rules for road vs track. The speeds, and things encountered, are completely different. Example - who would clamber into a body tight fit seat, then put on a helmet, and HANS device, and strap into a 5+ point harness every time they drive their car? Its easier to get in and out of your car to drive it if the car has airbags in to contain the driver. Maybe the level of safety from airbags isn't as good as the cage, tight fitting seat, helmet, hans, and harness, but it allows the average Joe to easily get in and out of their vehicle. Then you have pedestrian safety laws that govern the shape of the front of automobiles, bumper height requirements, head light requirements, etc. Road cars and race cars may not need the same headlight requirements. So in essence, even you built a street and race version - they would be built to two different rule sets, and would be two different cars. Its just throwing away tens of millions to build a few road going prototypes to go with your race going prototype. Rather then build two prototype cars to race just one of them, its a lot cheaper to design just one.
Using sportscars already in production as a base for the racecars is something they have been doing for years. This is nothing new other than to the NASCAR people. The funnycar tubeframe cars have never been popular in sportcar racing with the fans. Remember all the Transam Jaguars/Mustangs/Mangustas?? That worked out well just like DP has. NASCAR will not force us into liking their garbage. They will have to change and adapt to the Lemans style rules either now or in a few years. The 1990's GT1 was over the top, so I propose a regular production sportscar series that includes regular production supercars and sportscars.
I feel NASCAR has a good thing going on with the Truck/NW/Cup. Very good racing, very little pretense that these are street cars, or street car based. The racing action that results from a lot hugely motivated teams and drivers is incredible. Some races are snoozers, but for the most part, they've got it going on. As for their Grand Am - I've never really been able to care for it. Tube frame RX-8's running with hog tied Porsche 911's just doesn't cut it for me. Although, this thread is about a "hyper car" class. I can't tell one DP prototype from another even running nose to tail, unless I saw them parked next to eachother. I can tell an Audi LMP1 from a Peugeot LMP1 at a quick glance. I'm in agreement on a production based class, but it needs to not be with hyper cars, that won't work well for longevity in a racing series.
I guess you missed the 80's when both Trans Am as well as IMSA was HUGE , especially as Camel sponsored IMSA , I sure haven't seen crowds like all those races other than Sebring (Which would pack in if mini-stockers) and Petit LeMans. Whats showroom stock have to do with hard racing other than upping the costs?
Well the Group C style cars like the Porsche 962 and TWR Jaguars came along in the mid 1980's taking all the wins. Prior to that all the wins were taken by production based 911's turned into K3's, K4's ect. Anyway we are not talking about showroom stock. We are talking about FIA style supercars/sportscars modified I think. I have to say if you like NASCAR go watch a NASCAR race. Leave sportscar racing alone. By the way, I think ALMS was on the right track as far as rules. Their problem was no TV coverage and no real marketing. As far as exciting race endings, you ever see the last lap at Road America of the ALMS race 2 years in a row?? And you were not dizzy at the end from watching cars go around in circles all day!!
http://www.grand-am.com/News/GA_News/tabid/141/Article/53028/grand-am-american-le-mans-series-announce-class-structure-for-unified-series.aspx?cid=6383&sid=1
