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A New LMP for ALMS?

Perhaps. At least that’s the intent of Yudson Gondobintoro, a former chairman of GBG Global, a Singapore LLC whose reported revenue derives from rubber plantations in Cote d’ Ivoire and Cameroon. (Murphy remembers another would-be racing magnate with connections to Cameroon.)

Initial reports incorrectly put this operation in Texas, confusing Motorsport Technologies, LLC., Gondobintoro’s Los Angeles startup, with Motorsport Technologies, Inc., a defunct Houston tuner shop of dubious reputation.

Anyway, Yudson has hired Phil Harris (not the comic/band leader – he’s dead, anyway – but the Singaporian Ducate mechanic) to head the operation, created to develop a hybrid race car using Yudson’s electric motor and battery technology. We guess Gondobintoro, who claims a bachelor’s in physics from Cal Berkeley, stumbled on the motor and battery stuff while working on his “Super/Ultra-Capacitor” a project for which he also needs a manager. The Bear wonders, will Harris be guided by Robert Pirsig?

The story gets a little fuzzy (that reminds the Bear of a little nursery rhyme) around the details of the project, one source telling Murphy a Porsche RS Spyder will be the “donor car,” for a Le Mans hybrid, while another foresees a Judd engine purchase, then a whole now chassis designed around the Judd/hybrid drivetrain.

Yudson would appear to have a bit of cash to pursue his invention-based racing. Sinochem International bought 51% of GMG Global for $392 million, in which Gondobintoro’s direct interest was about $25 million (his relatives apparently held much of the rest). This kind of project can eat a lot of cash in a big hurry, (Yudson should ask Chad Hurley), so perhaps there’s some money the Bear hasn’t found?

Ya s’pose Yudson’s been trying to get in contract with Steve Pruitt?

Did someone say USF1?

Friends of Murphy’s hoping to get their back pay from ol’ Hurley and the boys can’t have been encouraged to see two team-owned transporters appear on e-bay after being seized by a UK court. A billionaire and his cohorts welshing (apologies to Tom Jones) on the debt to their working guys is right up there with importing ag products or pump-and-dump stock schemes to support the racing habit, and not far behind ripping off churches.

Real Estate Listings

Remember the  “we’re not for sale” button Scott was wearing at Lime Rock? The missing text was, “but we’ll give you a price if you ask.”

RIP Corsa Motorsport

Steve Pruitt’s off to something else, having created a new racing company (while his last one is kaput) to work on “alternative tranportation technologies.” There’s no hesitation there to trash the technology in Pruitt’s last hybrid in order to promote the next. Don’t look for anything on the track until 2011. Someone observed “…(Pruitt) seems to have taken a page from the Creation playbook…”

Porsche Pushes

Murphy doesn’t know if the Road Atlanta Porsche test actually happened, but the announcement of a GTC “full season” by Bryce Miller under the Orbit banner suggests the Grand Am Porsche “accommodation” won’t be enough. The hoped-for 3.8 is legal, but will it get on the grid, or have teams moved on?  (Cost was suggested to be $182K, nearly as much as the Cup car itself.) In fact, Stuttgart may now be focused on frying future fish.

Porsche’s policy perhaps portends a prospective program poles apart from the past, in which the Weissachians built special “R,” “RS,” “RSR,” Cup and even GT1 911 versions for many racing series, each with different rules, around the globe. Now that it’s safely tucked under the warm armpit of Volkswagen, Porsche is once again exercising its considerable motorsport muscle. In short, the Württembergers want to build one Cup car, and one RSR (probably the new hybrid after the Nurburgring win) and be done with it. In order to do that it needs to get the various sanctioning bodies on board with the Porsche plan. Betting around the paddock is it’s done that with everyone but Grand Am. Since they’re on the Porsche dole, ALMS is a slam dunk. Elsewhere the new GT3/Cup “world car” will be accommodated.

That puts Grand Am on the spot as the sole holdout. The new Cup has one characteristic that runs dead up against Grand Am rules…the Weissachians want a standard rear tire size, a relatively small one at that. As a practical matter that’s good for Maranello, though the Italians are fine with leaving well enough alone. The yelp you hear is from Bowling Green.

The Bear hears they’re split down the middle in Daytona. On one hand Porsche’s made it clear there will be no support in 2011 without the tire size limit, but on the other hand, Stuttgart hasn’t been around much this year, anyway, and the series has a lot tied up in its current rule philosophy. They certainly don’t want to be on the wrong side of the General, do they?

Where’s Philander Knox when you need him?

Murphy hears NASCAR teams have been colluding to keep team salaries down. They’re said to meet regularly to discuss various related topics, disguising the content by communicating through their respective PR personnel. Recent wage reductions at two very prominent teams are the result.

Abruzzi Prototype

Murphy believes the planned Panoz is to be a GT2, but since he reports what he hears around the sport, the word “prototype” is still being used around Braselburg. At least two employees who know about such things have said “prototype.” Does that mean prototype as in a “first-off” GT2, or in the sense of the sport? Whatever “it” is, they are building a show car of “it” to debute at Le Mans, so the wait isn’t long.

ALMS Trivia

The Bear is a big trivia buff. So he’s launching a new feature, a “Murphy’s Trivia Challenge.” (He’s looking for a title sponsor. Suggestions are welcome.) Murphy will ask one question in each Paddock Poop related to some racing topic. Here’s the first. How is American Le Mans Series sponsor (and official jewelry, as far as the Bear knows) Mikimoto historically connected to a famous American Festival?

Tags: Abruzzi, Bowling Green, Cameroon, GBG Global, Grand Am, Judd, Marinello, Mikimoto, NASCAR, Phil Harris, Philander Knox, Porsche, Robert Pirsig, Steve Pruitt, USF1, Yudson Gondobintoro

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 1:02 am and is filed under Paddock Poop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.