Quote:
Originally Posted by javadog
Merger my ass, Don is throwing in the towel. Look for this to become an American series and the gap to what is run in the European endurance series to become quite large. You can kiss the international aspect of the Sebring race goodbye, much like Daytona some years ago.
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Fair enough, but for the sake of the argument: What international aspect ? Audi left. Peugeot is one step away from bankruptcy. Toyota was never coming... The ELMS is not doing well, and neither is the FIA GT championship...you can see tumbleweeds in the stands...
Separately, the current flavor of ALMS has a laughably small P1 field, a bunch of imported grid fillers in P2 and 911Cup, while Grand AM has like 8 DPs (seems like) and a gaggle of GT cars that seem to follow very strange rules - it annoys me no end to see an effing RX8 trounce a GT3 or corvette, it's not right ;-)
I reeks of CART vs. INDY to me... Together, they "could" attract some cool entries... I can see the muscle milk boys and Dyson or whomever adding entries in DP, which are fun to watch now that the cars are no longer ugly. Atherton said ALMS GT was pretty much untouched, so we get to keep the best part of ALMS right now...
All in all we should have bigger grids and more meaningful victories, and I'd like to see, say, Lucas Luhr or Alan Mc Nish measure againt Scott Pruett in a DP, or Pat Long vs. S. Tremblay in GT... Much as I agree with you on the international aspect that ALMS used to have, the last 2 years it's been a joke... I think they merged just at the right time, actually, ALMS was going down while Grand AM finally had nicer looking DPs, so just before Grand AM "won" the battle. At least both management teams were merged, both side's signature race tracks remain, etc...
Again, its no sure thing, but it's a shot... As for Le Mans, the good P1 teams didn't need an ALMS provided entry... The GTs should still get one, nothing changed... Fingers crossed !
PS: let's not forget TV coverage: Grand AM wins hands down in HD on Speed, while over the last 2 years we've got 2h long edited morsels of ALMS races on ABC, which don't make any sense anymore - last race before baltimore we didn't even see the start !!! Or you need to watch on your computer, ugh...