The Bear went to Laguna Seca yesterday. It was the Pre-Historics. Best deal Murphy’s seen to watch real racing sports cars, even if they’re not really racing. Free. Our friend Mat was there, shooting at the corkscrew. He’ll head back to LA, work a half week, and return for the big event – the 33rd Annual Monterey Historic Automobile Races – at Laguna Seca.
Murphy knows there is another “big event” the same weekend, or at least that’s how George would – and did, at last year’s awards banquet – describe his little IMSA get-together at Road America. Unfortunately the reality belies the hype. His open-wheel-heavy show last season once again put attendance at the famous circuit in the bottom half of American Le Mans race weekends. He couldn’t find room for Speed World Challenge amongst all the buzzy little cars for racers-in-training, and now the Bear hears that he’ll take the next step, and make the American Le Mans Series a support race for Champ Car. If that happens it will be among the saddest days in the history of North America’s finest road racing facility. Many in the sport will also consider it a monumental failure of the American Le Mans Series.
So what will the ALMS get for once again propping up the fading open wheel series? Nothing, it seems, since the word now is that Long Beach won’t include its sports cars. Edmonton is also considered to be unlikely in some quarters, so if the Portland date is lost, the light July-August racing schedule gets thinner still. The only addition might be the St. Petersburg race with IRL, in the same market and just a couple weeks after Sebring. Murphy can’t really understand what they’re trying to accomplish, but if this scenario is right, it’s nothing good. Perhaps the only good news here is that the schedule announcement will not be at Road America after all. Delay might help, right? This is a case in which the Bear will be quite thrilled to find that his assistants have gotten it absolutely wrong.
After launching this Automobile Week on the Monterey Peninsula with our visit to the Pre-Historics at Laguna Seca, Murphy and his friends took a Monday afternoon drive along the Pacific with a stop at The Lodge at Pebble Beach.
JJ Lehto will be at Petit Le Mans. Ikävä kyllä , ainoa auto he’ll olla ajaminen jälkisäädös olla -nsa vuokra auto – nyt kuluva on oma- astua harhaan. Hän had tuleva vaimoni. jotta käynti “the boys” aikaa Le Mans , ainoastaan että didn’t aikaansaada rikki ajaksi hänelle.
Champ Car, IRL and the American Le Mans Series have become more and more tangled up in one big wad. Every driver move and rumor in one series creates a change on the others. Where is Dario Franchitti going? The Bear thought to ALMS, but that may not be the case. Are Andretti-Green and Fernandez now certain to be single car ALMS entries when they were originally projected to be two – by Honda, no less? Will Andretti-Green run three cars or four in IRL next season?
Bayerische Motoren Werke has gotten everyone excited. But the real story might be quite different than that given us – in haste – by a well-known weekly magazine about autos. Having now gotten a whole raft of input, it still isn’t perfectly clear to the Bear what is actually going on here. This leaves the furry one in the rather odd position of being less scurrilous and not quite as irresponsible as some others in the so-called “main stream” media. The German car maker will certainly discontinue BMW North America’s direct factory entry, run under contract the past twelve years by Prototype Technology Group of Winchester, Virginia. But they will no more “quit sports cars” than did Porsche this season as they lowered their support and development of the 996 version of the GT3 RSR while concentrating effort on bringing the new 997 on line. BMW privateer racing – such as it is – will continue. PTG’s engine and chassis work for those privateers will continue. As Murphy reported previously, a third party in the United States was engaged to do aerodynamic work on the E46 M3 and on another car now identified as an E90 M3 mule. That work continues even as Murphy’s furry little paws type this column. There seems to be a difference of opinion in regard to the marques’ future with PTG. One source quoted the Governator, “consider it a divorce.” Others expect PTG to be part of the program when the new M3 hits the track in 2008 – as a factory entry. In the meantime, Tom Milner will bring the M3′s back to the American Le Mans Series with private funding if at all possible.
Prototypes that will show up – or won’t – department. Here’s another of those. Reports of new and used prototypes showing up on these shores have been notoriously unreliable, even though they have come from folks who normally know what they are talking about. The Zulltek CZ-01, announce Le Mans week 2005, will debut at Petit Le Mans 2006. We’ll see when we get there. Will these guys (below) be a Petit entry too?
More trouble in River City. Sooner or later IMSA’s tinkering with the rules – Performance Balancing, they call it – had to bite the series, didn’t it? It’s one thing when Aston Martin, Corvette, and a few privateers are making a bit of noise, but when mainstay Audi actually makes a veiled threat to withdraw in an official press release, you have to pay attention, don’t you? That takes real cajones from those for whom 2006 will be the seventh year of unbroken domination of the sport. There are some rumblings that not only do the ACO and IMSA rules so blatantly favor the diesel as to make it unbeatable, but that in fact the car is quite illegal by those very rules. A careful reading of Article 3.6.1 of the lAutomobile Club de l’Ouest leads some to that conclusion. As a friend of the Bear’s recently wrote, “Audi’s press release is a subtle shot over IMSA’s bow. Let’s hope IMSA doesn’t hear it.” Agreed, but Murphy has a somewhat different definition of “subtle” than his buddy.
On the heels of Porsche’s Board meeting last week to consider its 2007 racing plans, Penske Racing has changed its driver pairings in the two RS Spyders. Splitting Sascha Maassen and Lucas Luhr, doubles the chances of overtaking “that family-run Lola,” in winning at least the American Le Mans Series LMP2 driver’s championship. The Mädchen und Jungen in Stuttgart have gone positively apoplectic as they’ve watched “that family-run Lola” beat their Spyders. The loss of any one of the season championships – driver or team – would be seen as nothing short of a disaster in Swabia.
Murphy and friends spent an evening at Clint Eastwood’s Mission Ranch in Carmel last night. Jazz pianist Gennady Loktionov, who helped Clint with the score of both Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, was up to his usual brilliance. A procession of vocalists joined in later. A good time was had by all, and a fuzzy head feels even a bit fuzzier today. Murphy likes the verse above the bar, “He who goes to bed sober falls as the leaves do, and dies in October. But he who does so mellow lives as he aught and dies a good fellow.” – John Fletcher, 1579-1625