The Petit Le Mans and the ACO:

I don't know if it's related, but Road America is rumoring a night endurance race. The pit and paddock now have lights.

 

That would be epic.

NASCAR/IMSA own the Road Atlanta facility. I'd tune in to watch a field of 40 do a nighttime enduro in Garage 56-spec NASCARS!

 

there probably won't be any significant crossover between the two series, as both are at their grid capacities for the foreseeable future.

part of WEC running with ALMS back in the day was WEC was a new series and ALMS was struggling with the economy, hence GTC/PC, combining WEC in at Sebring and Petit, etc.

if there's a recession and grids shrink you'll see some collaboration

 

I miss the old ALMS race there that went into twilight. (4 or 6 hour? or maybe they tried both?)

 

Yah but.....I said Road America.

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I agree with Grid size being the biggest reason we won't see it happen. Both series are really healthy right now. Plus portions of Road Atlanta are really tight. I don't want that race to become a crash fest. Daytona would be the place to do it, but there is already an issue of being over capacity. I think there were 9 cars on the reserve list this year?

 

I suppose at Road Atlanta you could utilize both the pro pitlane and the support pitlane if you really wanted to get crazy with the car counts. Most tracks pit space is the limiting factor.

 

Road Atlanta is 2.5 miles long, how much traffic do you want?

 

Oh I don't want anymore than we already have. Dropping P3 for next year I think will help. I was just trying to think of where you could have a bigger grid if you wanted to given the pit space limitations.

Road Atlanta feels so much longer than that. Especially if you have been walking up and down those hills for 3 days straight.

 

want to do a MTB endurance race on those hills?

https://www.chainbusterracing.com/road-atlanta

 

If IMSA is going to allow them they either need to be in their own class, or officially a part of GTP. Championships almost always come down to the race at PLM so the last thing you want is the Vanwall ruining someone's race/championship.

LMP3 has already been confirmed as being gone after this year. With LMP2 being dropped from WEC, I think IMSA is going to have additional P2 entries. Plus there will be at least a few more GTP entries (Acura & Lamborghini).

I would love to see Hypercars running in GTP but I just don't see it unless there is a drop in car count.

 

The ALMS races in 2007 and 2008 at Road America were 4 hours, and 4:15 in 2002. Grand Americans were 500 miles in 2000 and 2001.

 

went and looked it up, you are correct. I guess I was thinking of Monterey, which had 4 or 6 hour races in the ALMS days.

 

Forget IMSA, the wec should drop the Texas venue and run petit. In the panic days, it would attract crazy #'s of fans to see the factory teams that ran lemans...and usually the winning teams. I attended every single one until the European guys quit coming. Seems like race day had a 100,000 people. Just saw the crowd size at Texas, pretty pathetic.

 

Good idea BUT I wonder if the tarmac, the safety standards and facilities would be up to par.

I visited road Altanta in 1998 during a test day, awesome track.

 

or go back to Sebring.....

I don't see an issue with using Road Atlanta. track/facilities are fine.

problem is they would need to run a WEC race and then an IMSA race, and one would have to be on Friday due to noise laws on Sunday (can't disturb the local church on Sunday morning, no I'm not kidding)

back in the ILMC/early WEC days the Euro teams would run Petit, but that was because neither series had a particularly large grid. now both series are full up

I got to see a few Petit races with the Audis, Peugots and Rebellions, that was very cool.

 

IMSA doesn't need to try to add WEC to the PLM weekend. It is already packed with fans along with being a packed weekend schedule wise. Neither series wants to be the opening act for the other.

If we want them to collaborate, run a WEC race somewhere with Michelin Pilot Challenge as the top IMSA series that weekend. I just don't think that either WEC or WeatherTech needs to share the weekend with the other.

 

IIRC the noise limit goes till noon on Sunday.

Lime Rock has even more ridiculous restrictions.

 

I think it's even sillier than that, like 10-noon just during the church service. I can remember being at RA for something else that did a morning warm up, then a huge "lunch break" then racing.

IIRC Lime Rock is no noise all day on Sunday.

 

You may remember, when Panoz bought Road Atlanta, he spent tons of money in improvements . I think at that time, there was talk of getting a Indy car race, so he spent the bucks. He even reconfigured parts of the track for safety. Some cars had lifted off and sailed on the back straight dip. All the factory teams (Audi, Peugeot) said they loved racing there.

 

Yes he did a lot but standards evolve and the question is whether the track would be acceptable today. Indycar there would be awesome. I think Yannick Dalmas will never forget his aerobatic flip!