Rules pushing Porsche to middle of Pack?

[drew1]

With the NASCAR thread, I got to thinking about Nascar's brother, Grand Am. Grand Am has dependened on Porsche to be field fillers, but their really seem to help others & put all kinds of restrictions on Porsche to keep them from winning. In fact they are about to make them back markers. Look at the traditional Porsche teams going to other makes.

Evidence is seen in the Koni/Continental qualifying yesterday. This is for showroom cars people can buy & race, but look at the pole winner yesterday. A Mustang F500BossR1 or something like that. You want one of these cars, get on Ford racing website, fill out the form & they will build you one for delivery 3rd or 4th quarter 2010.

I just wonder how much longer VW will carry Porsche Motorsport, they aren't selling the Cup cars & GT3 variants like they have in the past.

[cashflyer]

But they are selling SUVs and sedans.

[masraum]

I think the thinking is that if the same cars win all of the time, the spectators get bored, and the other teams think about quitting. By changing the rules, they make the other teams competitive.

[drew1]

Bill, sedans, reckon they got decals to put on COT & run Nascar?
saw Greenville, SC. you at Protech?

Steve, seems like to me the teams switch to other makes. I know there is lobbying from manufactureres about rules. But, why not improve your product instead of lobbying for rule changes?

[legion]

Originally Posted by masraum

I think the thinking is that if the same cars win all of the time, the spectators get bored, and the other teams think about quitting. By changing the rules, they make the other teams competitive.

And I understand that, but there is so little space between the rules in most series, that the rules themselves often outright determine who wins and who loses.

And having an almost rule-less series like CanAm? We know how that ended. (One team dominated and every else packed up and went home, leaving the series to collapse.)

[jjone20]

I think Grand-Am's goal has been to prevent dominance by Porsche, which as Legion notes, has ruined some pretty good series. If you watch the 2009 see-saw of rule changes, in both GT and DP, GA has tried to balance things. GT for example, the cars were allowed cooling ducts in the rear fender wells to help with tire temperature issues. DP was a constant back and forth with weight and RPM limits. But Porsche did win two races in DP last year (Brumos 2, Penske 0, Ha!) And Farnbacher Loles the GT championship (Keen/Werner). I don't have any sales numbers at hand, but I think they sell enough Cup cars to make a profit, or else they'd stop. Porsche has been pretty mercenary about their racing programs over the last few years.

[cashflyer]

Originally Posted by drew1

Bill, sedans, reckon they got decals to put on COT & run Nascar?
saw Greenville, SC. you at Protech?

Steve, seems like to me the teams switch to other makes. I know there is lobbying from manufactureres about rules. But, why not improve your product instead of lobbying for rule changes?

Mostly DIY, but I use Protech from time to time. Frank and Bill are good guys.

BTW: My name is not Bill.