Merger of ALMS and Grand Am

[boba]

Breaking News - ALMS and Grand Am to merge.

Grand Am will be the sanctioning body, more to be announced next Wed.

It is about time, there was not a big enough market to support two series.

[Longballa]

Wow! The ALMS tv coverage sucked anyway.

[Flieger]

I hope they keep the car classes of ALMS. I like the officiating of Grand-Am better (allow more bumping) but the ALMS cars are the best.

[Nine17]

Car classes at Le Mans? The France's have already been to France...

[Flieger]

Are you saying there is a France driving that dodge? It doesn't really have anything to do with my post. I just don't want the almost spec racing of DP cars.

[Nine17]

That's Herschel McGriff, not a France. But he's in France. In a France spec class car accepted by the ACO. In France.

The ALMS is definitely not spec racing. Like Daytona Prototypes. Or LMPC or GTC class cars...

Oh, never mind...

[Flieger]

Well those are field-fillers but ok you are right. Before the recession it was not spec. I think they could just have a whole race dedicated to the GT2 cars by themselves. That is where all the action is at (although Road America was great to watch Lucas Luhr).

[Nine17]

Well those are field-fillers but ok you are right.

At Laguna this past may, there were two P1 cars, five P2 cars, and nine Prototype Challenge cars. Kind of makes you wonder who is filling the field for whom?

It's always great to watch Lucas Luhr. Dr. Ullrich of Audi Sport doesn't seem to care for old-school Bad Boys from the Porsche Junior Team like Lucas -- but that was Greg Pickett's good luck!

[Orbit]

The rumor had been around for years now and it finally looks like we will have one professional sports car series. The writing was on the wall since Panoz had sold Mosport and the front office of the ALMS has always been a revolving door. ALMS could never attract a title sponsor to give them a financial buffer that would allow them to grow - Grand Am does not have a title sponsor either. Some of the biggest questions also relate to the many support series: the very popular IMSA GT3 Cup, World Challenge, IMSA Lites, Continental Series, and many others. What do they do with half of the weekends available now to run as a support series? The very best of situations for the "new" series would be to have two marquis races per weekend - Prototypes and GT. Within each race you could have 3 different "classes" to accomodate different budgets - IF both races had the same TV coverage then the GT guys could finally get the TV exposure they deserve. Prototypes are sexy and they attract the most attention but very rarely do you see a large group of prototypes fighting at the end of a race ( Grand AM DP's do the best job at providing some suspense) - budgets are the reason. GT cars are different, good rules that say the cars have to be 2300 pounds with 500 HP can really make for some fierce racing - even when the small teams are mixing it up with the quasi-factory supported cars. I want to leave you with one more thought - DTM. Do you remember that amazing series in Germany? I didn't understand it when I heard it being spoke about by high level Grand Am officials but it makes much more sense now - my best guess is that somebody high up in the Grand Am saw some really good DTM racing and said - "we need that in the USA". I can only hope that our best days for sportscar racing are just in front of us.

Rodger Hawley

Orbitracing.com

GT Winner 24 Hours of Daytona 2004

Porsche - of course!

[Richardnew]

I would not be at all surprised to see something like DTM in a few years.

Richard Newton