American Le Mans Series and GRAND-AM Merge.

_TiTaNiuM

_TiTaNiuM

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http://admin.alms.com/articles/welcome-future-sports-car-racing

The most significant development in the history of sports car racing in North America was announced today, with plans for a landmark merger of GRAND-AM Road Racing and the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) unveiled at Daytona International Speedway.

Under terms of the merger, the following entities will combine with GRAND-AM: the American Le Mans Series; the International Motor Sports Association, which sanctions ALMS events; the Road Atlanta race track facility in Braselton, Ga.; the Chateau Elan Hotel and Conference Center in Sebring, Fla.; and Sebring International Raceway, via a reassignment of the lease agreement with the Sebring Airport Authority to operate the raceway.

Both sanctioning bodies will continue to operate separate schedules in 2013 before racing under one banner in 2014 beginning with North America’s premier sports car race, the 52nd annual Rolex 24 At Daytona. A board of directors has been formed to operate the new combined organization with GRAND-AM founder Jim France as chairman and ALMS founder Don Panoz as vice chairman. Other members: NASCAR Vice Chair/Executive Vice President Lesa France Kennedy, GRAND-AM President/CEO Ed Bennett, ALMS President/CEO Scott Atherton and NASCAR Vice President/Deputy General Counsel Karen Leetzow.

“Today’s announcement will transform sports car racing on this continent, along with having world-wide industry implications,” said Bennett. “Aside from the organizations involved, everybody wins: drivers, teams, manufacturers, sponsors, tracks – and most all, the fans.
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whoa.
 
swingline said:
Was someone hurting for money?
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I think perhaps both series were hurting for a fanbase. Combining the both of them would widen it greatly. It's hard to compete with crashcar.

ALMS was being largely sponsored by tequila patron, and it seemed like they were doing alright with it. They definitely weren't cutting corners on their efforts that's for sure.
 
I'd say that's a good move. Kinda similar to the IRL.

I wonder what will happen to the car classes.
 
A lot of the grand-am cars are already 911 cup cars so that entire imsa gt3 cup series could merge and they would probably kill off the boring boring boring prototype challenge cars and fit the daytona prototypes into that slot.

I don't know a whole lot about grand-am to be fair.
 
I'm not too familiar with it either.

Hopefully the LMPs will come out on top. I'm not a fan of the DPs tbh.
There needs to be another competitive series for the European brands to race in, in order to keep their Le Mans 24h interest high :) So more focus on the LMP1 and 2 would be probably good.
 
slaWter said:
I'm not too familiar with it either.

Hopefully the LMPs will come out on top. I'm not a fan of the DPs tbh.
There needs to be another competitive series for the European brands to race in, in order to keep their Le Mans 24h interest high :) So more focus on the LMP1 and 2 would be probably good.
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ALMS does not do LMP1/LMP2. Their cars are all LMP2 as the "LMP" class. They used to segment but it left only like 2-3 cars per class and it wasn't very interesting. After they combined the LMP they made up LMPC which are these corvette powered Oreca chassis cars and they have like 6-8 teams running them. They're all clones basically and terribly boring. They're marginally faster than GT2 class cars in corners and even in the straights.

GT1 class was done away with in 2008? when Corvette, the last GT1 holdout shifted to GT2 since they weren't competing against anyone. GT2 and LMP is basically where it's at for ALMS. GT3 Challange is a good series but would mesh well with GrandAm since they basically run the same cars.
 
ALMS used to have LMP1 a few years ago. It would be great to see them again in that series as well. At least in my opinion. Could also be interesting for the manufacturers.
 
slaWter said:
ALMS used to have LMP1 a few years ago. It would be great to see them again in that series as well. At least in my opinion. Could also be interesting for the manufacturers.
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It's just not very good when you're only competing against two other cars. That's why they all shifted to this LMP spec which is LMP2 basically. Whenever you see the 24 hours all the ALMS LMP cars are LMP2 same as with petit and 12 hours of sebring when the euros come over here to race with us, all our LMP cars are relegated to LMP2 and the audis and pugs are LMP1.

Can't wait to see the new Porsche LMP1 hybrid car in another year :drool:
 
_TiTaNiuM said:
It's just not very good when you're only competing against two other cars. That's why they all shifted to this LMP spec which is LMP2 basically. Whenever you see the 24 hours all the ALMS LMP cars are LMP2 same as with petit and 12 hours of sebring when the euros come over here to race with us, all our LMP cars are relegated to LMP2 and the audis and pugs are LMP1.

Can't wait to see the new Porsche LMP1 hybrid car in another year :drool:
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That's what I mean, the LMP1 needs more competition in general. The Audi dominance is getting old even though it's very impressive what they're doing.

So more series to race in might result in more manufacturers competing ;)

I'd prefer seeing LMP1 over DP also.
 
Can't wait to see the full course "debri" yellows at the end of every race :(

There's no doubt having the NASCAR brand will attract more viewers. But the majority of converts will be seeking drama not good racing and NASCAR will accommodate.
 
hogfish2k said:
Can't wait to see the full course "debri" yellows at the end of every race :(

There's no doubt having the NASCAR brand will attract more viewers. But the majority of converts will be seeking drama not good racing and NASCAR will accommodate.
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GT cars aren't designed to withstand a NASCAR style beating. They arent tin panels with tube chassis. They're carbon fiber and aluminum and crack and crumple badly. They get disabled for large portions of the races.
 
Interesting video but it was more entertaining than informative because too much is unknown yet.

If they're really going to keep most of the car classes, then it's going to be very confusing...

There's always WEC if all goes to hell :p But it would be a shame for those classic US tracks.
 
_TiTaNiuM said:
GT cars aren't designed to withstand a NASCAR style beating. They arent tin panels with tube chassis. They're carbon fiber and aluminum and crack and crumple badly. They get disabled for large portions of the races.
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I understand, that's why I chose drama over beating and banging :)

NASCAR manufactures drama several ways. Their preferred method is with a bogus late race caution to bunch up the field for a frantic finish. Its like a ref costing a team a win cuz of a blown call on the final play.
 
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