Audi beaten again

[Boorish Grobian]

I disagree with you on this Termie.  Comparing Peugeot to Penske or Dyson Racing doesn't make sense to me.  Penske, Dyson, Andretti-Green, Fernandez, and Highcroft are racing teams, not major manufacturers.  The cars in LMP2 your unhappy with are built by a manufacturer, and campaigned by privateer teams (with support from the constructors).  Peugeot is building the car, and racing it...all two of them.  The IMSA LMP2 regs allow smaller, lesser funded teams (Dyson, Fernandez, Highcroft etc.) take on a big manufacturer like Audi and sometimes win.  I see no flaw in that.  As it is right now we have two teams, running two Porsche's each, and four teams running a total of four Acura's.  By my count, that's eight cars Porsche and Honda have added to the grid.  Last time I checked, Audi and Peugeot were going to race two cars each.
I'll take the eight Porsche's and Honda's.
Fax

[Chris24]

I disagree with you on this Termie.  Comparing Peugeot to Penske or Dyson Racing doesn't make sense to me.  Penske, Dyson, Andretti-Green, Fernandez, and Highcroft are racing teams, not major manufacturers.  The cars in LMP2 your unhappy with are built by a manufacturer, and campaigned by privateer teams (with support from the constructors).  Peugeot is building the car, and racing it...all two of them.  The IMSA LMP2 regs allow smaller, lesser funded teams (Dyson, Fernandez, Highcroft etc.) take on a big manufacturer like Audi and sometimes win.  I see no flaw in that.  As it is right now we have two teams, running two Porsche's each, and four teams running a total of four Acura's.  By my count, that's eight cars Porsche and Honda have added to the grid.  Last time I checked, Audi and Peugeot were going to race two cars each.
I'll take the eight Porsche's and Honda's.
Fax

Fax, do you know something I don't or can you not count !  Last time i checked there were three Acura's (Highcroft, Fernandez and AGR)

[hgb]

Fax, look at the cost of a RS Spyder. This car doesn't fit into the LMP2 philisophy. It's rather a LMP1 car built to LMP2 specifications. To date there's been no Porsche LMP2 sold in Europe or Japan. And that's not because it's a lousy car but because LMP2 teams can't afford it. I agree with Debs, Porsche (and Honda) should play in the manufacturer pool, not in LMP2. Take a closer look at Penske. They are a Porsche 'works' team, period. They get massive support from Zuffenhausen. Just look at their driver line up. You'll find mostly ex Porsche GT2 works drivers. The same accounts for Honda, I guess. I agree with you about the 7 LMP2 cars against 4 LMP1s, though.

[termietermite]

Good to have a nice old fashioned barny with you, Fax, about something important.

I cannot say that I blame IMSA for ignoring the ACO rule on this one, though.  Another year of single marque domination for the overall win could have had serious consequences.  At the end of '06 it would have been hard to believe the title of this thread!

However, if the RS Spyder or the the Acura make it to Europe, they will have to play by the rules.  The choice will have to be made : either they comply with the ACO's LMP2 regs which are designed to help ensure that they don't get the overall win unless the LMP1s fail to finish, or suffer major reliability problems; or they compete as LMP1s - which is perfectly possible.

Genuinely private teams - if such they are - understand and appreciate this philosophy, which is how Juan Barazzi, Ray Mallock, Bruichladdich et al have competed in Europe.  Victory for them is victory in LMP2.  What happens to them if Acura blaze in, in whatever guise, and hijack the class?  Whether in the Lowes Fernandez or Highcroft livery, the factory and a pot of money will not be far behind them.

I appreciate your point of view and accept that for ALMS to stay healthy (? 36 entries at the greatest race as opposed to over 70 competing for just 55 places at LM) IMSA could not do much else. However, we are looking forward to great battles in all four classes for the first time for years.  I can't help but think that the ACO must have got something right.

And yes, hgb, I can only count to 7 too. Did we miss something, Fax?

[Dobbo]

Point taken on the quality of the ALMS P2 teams Fax. I am sure that should the winner of this years ALMS P2 champ choose to come over to Le Mans in 2008 they would trounce the class opposition. I agree with Termietermite though in that it would not be desirable for that to happen and it does highlight the disparity between the two series. Despite the fact that Porsche and Acura would have developed their P2 cars restricted or not I would still like to see the two series run parallel, surely it could only encourage a better P1 championship in North America? To be honest I really wanted a better understanding of the regs, which I do now, so thanks guys!

Termietermite, thought I heard something a while back about a 5th RS Spyder to enter ALMS later in the year??

[enzo]

Why have different classes at all unless they are different classes , Remember how much the wrc teams complained when they were getting beaten in tarmac events by non wrc citroen's. Also when the GT1 car's got close to lmp2 the ACo stepped in to sort that out, and whether we agree that they have done enough to slow the diesels to keep the Petrol LMP1's in with a chance is a whole other debate but at least they have tried repeatedly to keep all classes competitive and as termie said they have 70+ cars clamouring every year to get onto the grid.
We all know if we let every car run unrestricted then the R10's would destroy everything on the track, If any professionally run team with plenty of money is given the hefty backing of the Porsche/Honda camps there going to dominate their class and that should be it, If mclaren were to enter LMP2 with a mercedes into ALMS we know they would be up their too. I hope the ALMS doesn't live to regret this though but all the better for us europeans as the audis and peugeot's might start racing head to head in the LMES.

[termietermite]

Termietermite, thought I heard something a while back about a 5th RS Spyder to enter ALMS later in the year??

Yes.  CET Racing Solaroli Motorsports were said to be running at least one by Lime Rock.  There also was, in the past, a suggestion that http://www.conzusmotorsports.com/ would run one too but as you see, their website is unhelpful.  But there has been no news for a couple of months now.

[Shamrock]

Good to have a nice old fashioned barny with you, Fax, about something important.

I cannot say that I blame IMSA for ignoring the ACO rule on this one, though.  Another year of single marque domination for the overall win could have had serious consequences.  At the end of '06 it would have been hard to believe the title of this thread!

However, if the RS Spyder or the the Acura make it to Europe, they will have to play by the rules.  The choice will have to be made : either they comply with the ACO's LMP2 regs which are designed to help ensure that they don't get the overall win unless the LMP1s fail to finish, or suffer major reliability problems; or they compete as LMP1s - which is perfectly possible.

Genuinely private teams - if such they are - understand and appreciate this philosophy, which is how Juan Barazzi, Ray Mallock, Bruichladdich et al have competed in Europe.  Victory for them is victory in LMP2.  What happens to them if Acura blaze in, in whatever guise, and hijack the class?  Whether in the Lowes Fernandez or Highcroft livery, the factory and a pot of money will not be far behind them.

I appreciate your point of view and accept that for ALMS to stay healthy (? 36 entries at the greatest race as opposed to over 70 competing for just 55 places at LM) IMSA could not do much else. However, we are looking forward to great battles in all four classes for the first time for years.  I can't help but think that the ACO must have got something right.

The situation is very similar to the Porsche effort in GTP in the 80's & 90's. Porsche ran the cars then sold them to private teams, there would be 8 to 10 entries in GTP class. Then BMW, Jaguar, and eventually Nissan and Toyota jumped in to the mix. It made for a lot of entries and a lot of competetion, which would be nice to see again. 

[Andy Zarse]

And Mercedes. And Mazda.

1982-1993 the glory years!

[Boorish Grobian]

Morning all,
Yes, brain cramp on the car count, seven not eight.  What you've got remember is that IMSA is not the only sportscar game in town here in North America, they've got to compete against the Grand-Sham series.  The recent Audi domination and resulting poor prototype counts of the past few season's have hurt the series, especially when Grand-Am's car counts continue to grow.  You can argue till your blue in the face that having Porsche & Honda in the LMP2 ranks is hurting the privateers, but at the end of the day the series has to attract spectators, TV viewers, and sponsors to stay afloat. The series has now attracted Penske Racing, AGR, Fernandez to the ALMS with the existing LMP2 regs, giving it a much needed boost with those high profile names, and I'm pretty damn certain that IMSA is not going to do anything to piss them off.  Interest in the series has grown considerably since the intro of Porsche, and its boosted even more with the Honda program.  I've heard talk of possibly three existing GT2 Porsche competitors moving up to the LMP2 ranks with Spyders...and this is a bad thing?  There's plenty of room in LMP2 for privateers, yes its expensive, but by the very nature of the series its going to be expensive.  If you want to do sportscar racing on the cheap, the Grand-Am series is the way to go.
As far as the Porsche ever racing abroad, unless something changes it probably won't happen.  Once again, the car was commisioned by Porsche North America, for the ALMS and ALMS competitors, and its LMP2 regs.
Once again, I'll take a big, quality grid full of Porsche's and Honda's over
two Audi's and a handful of cobbled together Lola's and Pilbeam's, which is what we've had the past few years.
Fax

[chop456]

The series has now attracted Penske Racing, AGR, Fernandez to the ALMS with the existing LMP2 regs, giving it a much needed boost with those high profile names, and I'm pretty damn certain that IMSA is not going to do anything to piss them off. 

Things like the Mid-Ohio screwing they agreed to take, letting the idiotgrandson(TM) race his tantrum league on Sunday.

[Boorish Grobian]

Agreed Chop, I guess that falls under the heading of a necessary evil.
One other point I'd like to make here is that I'm talking about the health of a season long racing series, not one race.  I couple of people (Termie, Enzo) keep referring to a 70+ car count at LeMans. That's like saying the IRL is healthy because the Indy 500 draws thirty-three cars and a bunch of fans.  Your talking about one unique race. LeMans is almost always going to have a big field, and high attendance, its a combination of teams from all over the world, many of which don't race in Europe the rest of the year.  When I checked the Monza results it didn't look like the grid was exactly crawling with a big, high profile prototype count either.  Two Pugs, a handful of Domes and Courage's and a bunch local one-offs is hardly the stuff of epics.
Fax