57th Rolex 24 at Daytona

FLRacingFan said:
Most important part would be (not unlike the Indy F1 debacle) how the tires and all the other components on the car handle the load on the banking. Back in fall '06 and early '07 there were actually some IRL tests using some revised road course layouts, I think one of them used for motorcycles, that bypassed oval turns 1 and 2. ... I forgot Daytona is actually an FIA Grade 2 circuit, and F1 can only race on Grade 1...so they'd have to make some changes or get a waiver in order to run there.
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There's also the question of whether the track is interested in hosting either of those series. My opinion is that they may have some degree of interest in IndyCar but next to none regarding F1; too expensive.
 
It was fun to see some of the historical pictures and interviews they showed through out the race. I haven't followed IMSA for some time but I liked seeing the cars on the track. I caught a lot of the race but there wasn't much racing when I got up Sunday. I hope I can catch more sports car races this year. Most of the drivers I was following did well.
 
Ferrari was there a few years ago. I need a US Grand Prix there in my life. I think I’d be more excited for F1 there than Indy.
 
Thanks for all the feedback with everyone. I would be down to use the Daytona Road Course for Cup....but the All Star Race
 
FLRacingFan said:
P2 is definitely already more-expensive PC with the goofy shenanigans and low car counts but I can't blame IMSA so much anymore as I've heard recently that the most vocal proponent of split classes was John Church of JDC-Miller. They announced the split and then almost immediately JDC went out and bought two Cadillacs, which supposedly caught IMSA off-guard.
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I believe no one thought you could buy a Cadillac and that may be why we were all so surprised. A big congratulations to Caddy for stepping up and supporting the series. A hearty boo to Acura and Mazda for refusing.

I'm just an internet dumbass but I knew no one would want to spend that kind of money to race in the B class that would only get coverage if one of them had a huge shunt. If you think about it, how many times did they actually talk about the P2 battle? The only time I saw a P2 car was when they were getting lapped or slamming into the wall. That makes it hard to sell your P2 program to any potential sponsors.

When the privateers don't have a chance to win, they lose interest. That's why we were down to four cars. After Sebring we could lose the Dragon Speed cars, and then we will be down to two. IMSA has already made a rule that P2 podium requires three cars. Imagine winning and not having a podium, and not getting any TV coverage. Take that to the sponsorship boardroom on Monday morning and see how tough that is to sell.
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See, P2 is not working already. If you brought them back to DPI pace, I am betting all the P2 cars we had last year will come back, and so will some new cars. All you have to do is give privateers a reasonable chance to be competitive, and they will prop up your sport.

For example, P2 is the top class in the ELMS, and because these mostly privateer teams have a set of rules that allows them to compete fairly, they usually have 34-36 prototypes! OK, granted some of those are P3 cars, but we have P3 too. If we integrated P2 back into DPI and then added P3, can you imagine what the fields would look like?

Then after that there was no reason for CORE to stay in P2 and the Nissans became available so they jumped at the chance to stay in the top class..
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It was great to see the Nissan, but it would be helpful if we have a few more. U think all the motor trouble they had late last year may have scared a few potential buyers off, though they seem to have a grip on it. Their fourth place yesterday was a nice reward, and like I say, they did have a shot at winning it.

If things don't change in 2020 I think they'll can the class..
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I'de much rather see them give those cars a shot. People bought those cars thinking they would have a shot at the overall, and then IMSA yanks the rug out from under them. It's not fair at all, but the manufacturers are the ones bringing the money and you have to suck up to them. Image the Caddy board meeting the day after last year's Petite if CORE had won the championship with an off the shelf car and beat the unbeatable Caddy. What the hell are we spending millions on if Joe Smuck can make us look stupid?

The good thing is I just read this weekend that NISMO is still making the DPi available for customers beyond CORE with a six-to-eight week lead time. .
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Part of why I wanted them to win yesterday. It would prove you can buy a car and be competitive.

I'm a little disappointed it wasn't totally what it could've been but it was still a pretty good race, especially good up until the rain came.
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I kind of enjoyed the twilight zone effect. Even when the rain was at it's worst, the DPIs at the front were still racing like hell. It was not so satisfying to see them let the clock run out, but that was better than seeing more nasty accidents. They tore up way more than enough stuff as it was anyway. We do want to have a few cars left for Sebring, right?

I will bet you they have a provision for next year that will allow them to wait longer or reschedule. They could live stream it on Utube or something. Personally, I get it that if you can't race, you can't race. However, it might be good to have a contingency plan in place for this kind of thing. You hate for your premier race to end on such a whimper.

Again, it didn't bother me because sometimes that's just how it goes, but you ought to read some of the vomit comments they are spewing on Racer.
 
I've always enjoyed the prototype class but the GT class is pretty interesting. Historically the class was mostly Porsches because they offered cars to the public that could turn into a race car art a reasonable cost. Sometimes there was the odd Ferrari or Corvette but Porsche was generally supported by independents. I think the number of cars from a manufacturer raced by independents reflect well on a company.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I've always enjoyed the prototype class but the GT class is pretty interesting. Historically the class was mostly Porsches because they offered cars to the public that could turn into a race car art a reasonable cost. Sometimes there was the odd Ferrari or Corvette but Porsche was generally supported by independents. I think the number of cars from a manufacturer raced by independents reflect well on a company.
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That and Porsche always supported the privateers with good customer cars, and with parts availability service. It's worth nothing that neither Group C nor GTP really took off until Porsche came out with the 962/962 customer cars. It's also worth noting they faded away along with that car's competitiveness. This is why I hate the P2 car's being pegged back. We had three privateer wins last year, which we have not seen since the GTP days.

Personally I prefer the prototypes too and I liked it when IMSA used to run the GTP and Camel lights together in the sprint races, and the GTs in their own race. I kind of hate it when the prototype battle is ignored and they concentrate on the GTs, so that was the best formula for me.

You can find all of the ELMS races on utube, and with a 3O+ prototype grid I quite spectacular.

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Something else is the disgust I see other places on the net because of the rain and chaos. We've all aquaplaned in our road cars at some point, so imagine that at 3-4 times the speed. It's got nothing to do with tires because it is impossible to compress water. All a tire can do is channel it away, which is also impossible when you hit standing water. So, it wasn't like the drivers were in dumbass mode and driving too hard. Especially at night, there are so many reflections you can't see where the puddles are. You hit one and you're done. I think it's a testament to the drivers they didn't tear up more stuff.

I also think since the weather was constantly changing, the perfect call would have been stop/start/stop/start and on and on and on. However, you either race or you don't, and if they had red flagged the race at 5pm and never restarted it, can you imagine the outrage. Also imagine if they just let it run and someone got hurt.

In the end IMSA made the most informed decisions they could and if they blew a few at least they erred (for the most part) on the side of keeping everyone safe. Some fans feel like they were robbed, that is, when they were watching it on free tv, but in the end the drivers and workers safety had to come first. It's like a one sided UFC fight that gets stopped a few seconds early. It sure would not have been better to have the guy get beaten to death, right?

As far as when they let the race go on to long in impossible conditions, they made the best call they could and are far more qualified to make life/death decisions than us.
 
Doc Austin said:
Personally I prefer the prototypes too and I liked it when IMSA used to run the GTP and Camel lights together in the sprint races, and the GTs in their own race. I kind of hate it when the prototype battle is ignored and they concentrate on the GTs, so that was the best formula for me.
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I liked the GTP class too. There was one or two years that many of the manufactures competed (my favorite time for following IMSA). But one manufacture dominated and the others left. Porsche dominated, then Nissan dominated, then Toyota dominated; domination ruined the series.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I'll admit I don't see your point / obsession with private teams in this class. If they're spending 'near DPI level money' already, why don't they run DPi? They're already uncompetitive with DPi, so they won't be losing ground. Or drop back and run GTD; I'm sure they could field a competitive GTD car on an 'near DPi' budget. I don't hear many complaints that GTD isn't competitive with GTLM; it isn't supposed to be. Or maybe I don't get the point of the LMP2 class in the first place.
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It's hard to run DPi as a privateer at the moment because Acura and Mazda won't sell customer cars (yet, at least), Cadillac can probably only sell so many (or at least require some degree of lead time considering the ones they just sold for this year), and Nissan requires some lead time as well and the actual support from NISMO is next to nothing. They could run GTD, but a lot of these guys just like prototypes more. Jon Bennett and CORE spent a year in between PC and rejoining Prototype driving a 911 in GTD, but didn't enjoy it as much.

Globally, LMP2 makes sense...it doesn't seem to make much sense in IMSA at the moment, but that's not really the series' fault considering both sides reportedly wanted to split the class. It's essentially a more expensive regurgitation of the PC class from a few years ago.
 
First, I am actually really happy with the series, but the P2 issue and lack of DPI availability is going to bite IMSA in the ass if they are not careful.

FLRacingFan said:
It's hard to run DPi as a privateer at the moment because Acura and Mazda won't sell customer cars (yet, at least),
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I don't think anyone can argue we need more cars, but where will they come from if the manufacturers don't have to supply them? You cant build your own DPI, so if you can't buy one, where's it's supposed to come from? This is part of why I hate splitting P2 off. At least you can buy a P2, and last year you could compete for the championship with one.

Cadillac stepped up. Nissan is willing to step up. In fact both the JDC and Juncos Cadillacs were each in podium position during the race, so those cars
were well run and more proof privateer teams can fill the grid and run competitively. It wouldn't kill us to have a few more Acuras and Mazdas out there too.

Another thing, who's happy with only four different DPIs? I liked it that we also had Riley, Oreca and Ligier and it's too bad we never saw a Dallara. I liked having all those cars out there racing heads up.

There is already talk that P2 could get killed all together if the car count gets worse. Then, if those teams can't buy a DPI and keep racing, they are out, and we are also out of two or three entries.

Globally, LMP2 makes sense...it doesn't seem to make much sense in IMSA at the moment, but that's not really the series' fault considering both sides reportedly wanted to split the class. It's essentially a more expensive regurgitation of the PC class from a few years ago.
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The sad thing is P2s could fill the grid and give us more potential winners, but has instead been reduced to an expensive PC class, and eventually we will hate them because they will be poorly driven and in the way all the time like the PC cars were.
 
Look at this monster field of P2/P3 cars. This is what you have when privateers can buy a car and be competitive.

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What I don't understand is how IMSA thought they could not BOP these with the DPIs. They managed it all of last year. All they need is a standard of performance, which is supposedly what they have now. Change the standard back to the Gibson and then P2 car from all around the world can come race with us, and our P2 cars can go to Lemans.

I don't really care about the teams who wanted to have their own P2 class. If they didn't want to go head to head, it was a bad idea for them to get into P2 anyway, because originally those were the rules when they bought the cars. If they wanted to race in a support class against other pure amateurs, they belong in P3 anyway, and even better because they can win overall.

There is a unique opportunity coming up with all the new rules. My suggestion is to make everyone run a 5.0-5.5 litre production based motor in a P2 chassis, whether in P2 or DPI trim. No weights, no air restrictors, no BOP. Almost every major manufacture has a suitable motor, and it would be cheap for them to come play. One downside would be aerodynamic development, but they could get around that with a mandatory drag/downforce numbers like they are proposing for the FIA hypercar series. The difference would be in the different manufacturers getting the power from the motors (with only so much possible on a production motor) and the team's ability to get the most out of the chassis.

Like this you can jam a Cadillac motor (or whatever) in a standard P2 chassis and compete with the factory head to head.

Sure, the factories won't dig getting beat by a Dallara or Ligier, but tough. Enter more cars. Get better customers. The problem with manufacturers (aside from them coming and going) is they drive up the costs and hoarde equipment, so this makes it more expensive for the privateers not to be able to fairly compete. We've seen this over and over in Indycar, with first the pushrod Mercedes, and then several teams being stuck with the Lotus motor. Wew saw it in GTP with no one able to buy a Nissan, and later a Toyota. We're seeing in now in WEC with Toyota tromping everyone with their own unavailable car super car that has it's own sweetheart deal of favorable rules. This **** has got to stop. These are the same mistakes we have seen over and over and over, and the only way we have ever found around this was when Porsche stepped up and supplied the 956/962.

All I really want is a prototype grid like the ELMS has. They also had 25 P2 cars (with more that could not get entry) at Lemans and I feel our premier event should be just as good.
 
StandOnIt said:
Drive-time penalties change Rolex 24 GTD running order

The No. 29 was originally credited with a second-place finish in class and 18th overall.

https://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2019/01/31/drive-time-penalties-change-rolex-24-gtd-running-order/
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Two years in a row Land have been penalized...this one definitely earned, I didn't agree with last year's. They're a good team so I hope they stick to their Endurance Cup plans. A bit of a dumb and lazy penalty to earn, a few years ago WTR also got penalized because they actually had Jordan Taylor go over the drive time limit.
 
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