“There was a weird feeling in the air at Spa,” said one of Murphy’s correspondents. He and others described a widespread malaise in the sport. People in the paddock and in media rooms are worried, and talking about it.
The Bear’s been told the Münchenbergers will be in DTM by 2012. Motorsport chief Mario Theissen will be gone by the end of the year.
Up the road at the Stud Garden, the prototype project has been canned. Something about refinancing €14 billion, and more billions of liability from allegations of market manipulation by boss Wiedeking and finance chief Härter.
Closer to home, Brumos has let go some well-known sports car racing names in a significant downsize.
The View from Belgium
Not surprisingly, the American Le Mans Series was thought by many to be in dire straits. That’s become pretty routine, whether one is in on the Atlantic in Florida, or across the Atlantic in Europe. Does the fact that so many seem to believe it mean it’s close to the truth? Or perhaps, like the negative views of the stock market, it’s an indicator things are about to get better?
The series has cut costs, changed its television package and, as a result of that, it’s exposure, added to its fields with the Challenge classes, and seems to be moving toward two new street race venues. Are those the right moves? Are they enough? Should be expect more changes before the end of 2010?
Intercontinental Bust?
Others at Spa were bemoaning the status of the new Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, some even saying it’s near to being a non-starter. We heard a lot of that about the Asian Le Mans races last year, but at least some of that schedule finally happened. The clearest indicator we’ll have of at least short term viability, if not long term potential will be the number of teams that contest Petit Le Mans because it’s a required ILMC round. Among possible GT entries, Team Felbermayr Proton and BMS Scuderia Italia, one the Le Mans winner, and the other the victor at Spa, are getting mention.
Yet another sage sports car racing observer wonders, “if the ACO is between a rock and hard place with the new InterContinental Challenge.” Whose rules will they use? What fuel at Sebring and PLM? What will happen to the local junior classes if the entry is over subscribed? “(Daniel) Poissenot could or would not give me an answer on these questions,” he tells the Bear.
The FIA, GT 1 through 4, and Grand Am
There’s widespread belief that GT1 won’t go into another year, but Le Rat is still clinging to the concept despite its precarious financial position. There are rumbles that Freddie Dor is going to build another car and an Alpina B6 is on the way, it seems. But all the teams are strapped. One observer reckoned, “It feels like the first season of A1 GP and we all know where that went.”
The North America division of an auto manufacturer believes FIA GT3 cars in Grand Am (reported recently by http://lastturnclub.com ) is close to a done deal. Murphy hears two about Grand Am’s FIA quasi-alliance: (1) putting butts in the seats, and (2) managing its competitive balance in GT.
A GT2, GT3, and GT4-based series could do well with Spa 24 as the centerpiece, according to analysts. That’s important with the FIA’s push to create national series at least roughly compliant with those rules in North America and Asia. And as some one said, “It gives Le Rat a path to retreat to if the Gt1 thing goes tits.” Consider this, said our source, “GT3 makes a lot of sense (for Grand Am) as the cars can run at Spa and Nurburgring 24 Hours. It will give GA a shot at the wine and cheese crowd without bringing in Peugeot and Audi LMP’s.”
Black Hole
Will the American Le Mans Series disappear into the same television black hole that has captured the IRL? Murphy tweeted on Friday that IMSA was considering a no-pit-stops-under-caution rule for Mid-Ohio. That obviously didn’t happen. Speculation at the time was the idea was triggered by concerns over pit congestion due to the larger-than-normal IndyCar entry and the smaller-than-normal pit lane; the headline series (that would be IndyCar, fans) leaves its equipment along the pits throughout the weekend, contributing to the problem. One rumor now says that wasn’t the reason – not the real one, anyway. It’s all connected to a plan that will end SpeedTV coverage of the American Le Mans Series next year, and move all its races to Versus, presented in the same truncated 1 hour programs by the same company that’s doing a trial run with CBS events this season. The editing of those packages gets a whole lot easier if pit stops are all under green, doesn’t it?
Tags: ACO, Alpina, American Le Mans Series, BMS Scuderia Italia, BMW, Brumos, CBS, DTM, Frederic Dor, IndyCar, Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, IRL, Mario Theissen, PLM, Porsche, Spa, Speedtv, Stuttgart, Team Felbermayr Proton
My thoughts…nothing else comes close, for me as a fan, than ALMS. The cars are state of art, the best drivers in the world, most of whom compete at Lemans, the holy grail of endurance racing. Grand Am prototypes are the UGLIEST racecars in history. with a NASCRAP mentality to racing. I love the high tech, not dumbeddown retro technology of Grand Am. As long as ALMS holds to what they’ve been doing, I’ll be there.
I don’t understand why there was a “pit problem” for the IRL cars with fewer entries than the ALMS guys when the ALMS had more entries. Huh? Somebody explain, please.
I enjoy the Continential Series alot but the GA GT field seems to be mostly made up of fake Corvettes, fake Mazdas, fake Cameros, fake BMWs. Ok, I think Lou’s Corvette is real. So are the Porsches. What tube-framed fake car are we going to see next in GA? Rolls Royce? Are serious manufacturers going to put up with that garbage? Or is GA going to trash all the fakes?
Dear Limps:
The IRL teams set up their pits and leave it all there over the entire weekend. All the support series have to work around that equipment. The larger number of IRL teams than normal makes a bad situation worse.
That was the speculated reason that Murphy heard for the consideration Friday afternoon of the change. He has no idea whether that was the actual reason.
Dear Limps (2):
According to http://lastturnclub.com Grand Am is considering accommodating GT3 cars in configurations close to their GT3 “base.” That will necessarily shift the content of their GT fields from “fake” to “real.” (Your terms.)
Well, let the Email Campaign commence. I will not accept 1 hour highlight shows on Versus, this is not World Challenge. I will only accept full coverage of all races as is currently the Status Que on Speed. The Mid Ohio race was on Versus, what’s the rational for not showing the same race live on Versus next season? Indy Car will back according to Miller, so I would assume the undercard will still be ALMS to bring extra butts through the turnstiles. Indy Car and ALMS are competing on a level playing field and with Indy Car pretty much saying 2011 will be irrelevant with the new engine and new car coming in 2012, its a chance for the ALMS to capitalize, not regress into shorter Live Races or Pre-Recorded Broadcast. Seems Elkins is considering adding additional cars in GTC. That means they need to take the current GT3 cars AS-IS and try and balance there performance in relation to not Porsche Cup cars, but Porsche GT3-R’s. Out of the 8-10 cars in GTC, 6 are roughly Porsche loyalist and would switch if the series required it. The economy is bad Murphy but not for Rich People, not even for sorta-Rich People.
I will not accept shorter, pre-recorded races!
The yellow-flag-pits-closed scenario was brought up simply as a way to prevent the entire field from pitting all together. Mid-Ohio featured the tightest pit stalls the ALMS has seen in its history and we’ve already seen many close calls this season.
The IRL pit equipment has no bearing on how small the pit stalls were and only make maneuvering around behind the pit-wall slightly more of a pain.
Must have been a slow day on the keyboard for ya MtB
I would be okay with two-hour highlighted coverage packages for the 2-hour 45-minute races, but one hour packages would be a very bad idea. Versus’ image has been growing strongly lately and Comcast’s purchase of a controlling interest in NBC Universal gives any sport on Versus a fair chance of getting some good network exposure. But if they’re going to butcher the racing, it’s all worthless. Like Anthony said, this is not World Challenge. In World Challenge, the races are short enough that a one-hour broadcast package can cover all the good action without leaving a feeling that they had to leave out other significant parts of it. You can’t get away with that with ALMS unless it’s the 1 hour 40-minute run at Long Beach.
If ALMS moves to Versus, I see no reason why we can’t get full live coverage, or a reasonable 2-hour highlight package broadcast the next day at worst.
Although, if there’s a live webcast of every race IN ADDITION to the Versus coverage…. I think I could live with it.
Fox I could live with streaming but I have 12MB down. I rather have it on Versus for those that don’t have high speed internet or the brain cells to connect a PC or laptop to their LCD TV and even still there people with tube TV’s out there and rotary dial telephones too. There is no reason to have highlighted shows on Versus about 4-5 races next season will be shared weekends with Indy Car. That would leave 5-7 races not shared and NEED TO BE LIVE. Maybe ratings will go up if ALMS doesn’t have to deal with Speed and its lack if promotion.
Just a small point for Anthony, Speed don’t promote ALMS because they dont make enought profit from such a broadcast. Its simply a time buy and the ALMS do all of there own ad selling/production etc.. Selling 101, include other’s in the profit chain and they will help sell.
If you count the number of people that post in the forums around the net that cater to ALMS fans, how many do you think there really are? I know of one person who posts under at least three different names. Then add in the “simi” fans that are casual observers of the racing and you will soon see why getting network time is a non starter.
One last point, just think what it must be like to work at the IMSA/ALMS offices and have to drink the cool-aid every day! Hmm.
ALMS lacks a fanbase substantial enough to justify a real television contract because they’ve always been going after a niche audience in the first place! The high tech is awesome, but the series has nothing else going for it. F1 already exists, for one thing. How can a few big-name pro drivers help a team-based series that puts on races that are kind of boring?
NASCAR puts on fantastic road races because they know how to keep real fans (not the racecar nerds) excited for almost 3 hours because they have a formula that works for them: 1 car = 1 driver. 0 gentlemen. 1 category.
I’ve been an ALMS fan since the beginning in 1999. Back then, they seemed on the right path because there was 1 prototype class and 1 GT class. It made sense. But in their pursuit of amateur (sorry, “gentlemen”) drivers they kept with the two-driver format for sprint races and adopted every new category the ACO dreamed up.
I realize this gives race nerds like Tim Bowles massive hard-ons, but its why ALMS has been going downhill ever since the beginning. GT is great right now, but is the only reason to watch because finding out exactly which of the three pairs of unmemorable drivers will bring their three Lolas in first does not excite me, nor who wins the little sub-contests in the spec-car classes. (Will Michael Lewis finish a race? Stay tuned!)
Tim Bowles is probably going to enjoy 9 races this year (maybe 26 if he likes F1), because to the race geek everything else is mundane. Do sponsors really want to reach such lukewarm fans? Real, long-time, actual race fans like myself are going to watch 60-70 races this year on real TV–NASCAR, Indycar, and F1 included–and will watch tons of sponsored material. Look at the sidepods in the ALMS and check out how many companies are trying to reach out to the RACECAR fans instead of the RACING fans.
Congratulations, ALMS, you’ve made yourself officially irrelevant, it only took a decade of catering to the pretty racecar fans instead of the television audience.
To be constructive, I’ll say that the ALMS should at least double their calendar to 20+ events, adopt a 90-minute, 1-driver format for sprint races, and a 4-hour, 3-driver format for a few endurance races. They should work on getting the challenge category teams into real cars. Then, they will have accessed the television audience.
Wow, someone that “gets it”
I just read a great article by Gordon Kirby who has an interview with Brian Lyles of Newman-Haas Racing. Same story line, just change the series.
At the end of the day the ALMS series management is really the problem and until you get a substantial change here you are going no where and the TV and everything else is of no consequence.
All this talk of VERSUS… I’m having a Champ Car flash back.
Will there be a Carpwagon2 site next for ex-ALMS fans??
Am I going to have to bury a second series somewhere deep in my embittered race car soul?
Can we blame the French yet? No, not those wankers by the sea. Although they would be next on my GPS settings for my personal GBU 28. (Although I hear vodka fumes can alter impact points)
About the French… Do we need them? It’s not like they let anyone fly over their area to fight bad people. It seems to be all about them when it comes to what spins their crackshafts. They don’t even play nice with the FIA, another group who are run out of an office located in… oh wait.., they don’t even play well with themselves. That didn’t come out right I guess.
I thought endurance racing was about racing against the clock, survival and all the other buzz words? What we have here is a 2.45 hour marketing manipulation by agave fermentors who figure the fans must be drunk past that hour and change drinking their brew. What happened to caring about rules that work for North America? Rules that work for people who have to spend money and build race cars and teams.
Isn’t it sad that you can have a vintage weekend or two that out sell an ALMS weekend by a factor of 3? We have to live in the past because we can’t get anyone in the present to get a clue?
Don’t even talk about DP to me as I’m not into that type of sex, thank you.
Weather forecast for this weekend Mosport sprint is warm & warmer
AND warmer and lots, lots of sun.
Track temperature will make for some interesting blistering qualifying sessions.
Nexts years date is moved to July – which in it self serves two purposes.
The latter one moves its away from the August Grand-am , DP circus at Montreal same day date.
I can just hear the laughter around the AMLS board room table!!!
Ps – Go Johnny Mowlen, GO !!!!!!!
don’t understand the doom and gloom…Petit Lemans crowds grow larger and larger every year. I’ve been there since the inception, I see the crowds. I’d rather watch 5 ALMS LMP’s than 25 Grand Am Chevrolet Monte Carlo DP’s with Bubba Hatfield behind the wheel.
Actually, tim bowles, Petit Le Mans 2009 attendance was down 9.7% from 2008 to 2009. ALMS attendance for the 11 events was down 11.1% for the same period.
Sanction fees are declining.
Just as important, the average price per 30 second television spot declined by 13%.