Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
I've been on a lot for forums and I like this one the best. I've also seen a ton of them wither, so hopefully the Roar will get things hopping like normal.
IMSA 2024
- Thread starter FLRacingFan
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Ford 222
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Couple ignorant questions...
1. The LMP2 class....do they have any affiliation with manufacturers or anyone recognizable?
2. Anyone know anything about this Ford Multimatic Motorsports team? Are they brand new or an established team? With some Ford entries I will be following the 24 with more interest. Before this seasona and since Ganassi ran the GT40's I just followed the Penske entries and American makes.
Thanks!
1. The LMP2 class....do they have any affiliation with manufacturers or anyone recognizable?
2. Anyone know anything about this Ford Multimatic Motorsports team? Are they brand new or an established team? With some Ford entries I will be following the 24 with more interest. Before this seasona and since Ganassi ran the GT40's I just followed the Penske entries and American makes.
Thanks!
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
No. It's was open to four chassis manufacturers, but Oreca is the chassis to have and only occaasionaly will we see a Ligier.
Motors are spec Gibson (which used to be Zytec).
Ford 222
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Ok thanks for the info…
FLRacingFan
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Multimatic have worked with Ford in the past. They engineered and built the Ford GT during the 2016-2019 program and ran the UK-based WEC team while Ganassi ran the IMSA team during that period. So it made a ton of sense for Ford to partner with them again on the new Mustang.
Ford 222
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Great info…thank you. I will look forward to them possibly being competitive!
Yeah I think they wanted the Kansas redesign that way. A decent gimmick and better than the Iowa Speedway Roval (10:10 start):
I’m all for an occasional Roval like Kansas, Homestead-Miami, or Las Vegas but Iowa Roval is ehhh.
Kiante
Team Owner
Back out in Daytona for the next few weeks. Haulers will start flooding in later today and tomorrow.
Charlie Spencer
Road courses and short tracks.
Little warmer than Charlotte?
Kiante
Team Owner
By far.
FLRacingFan
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Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
The good news just keeps rolling in: https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/two-lamborghini-sc63s-possible-for-cota-indianapolis/
FLRacingFan
Team Owner
These onboards are so fun to watch. What an even better battle for the win it would’ve been if Estre didn’t stuff it on cold tires out of the pits.
TV News: IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona TV Viewers down 20%
The exciting final hour of the 2024 IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona last Sunday on NBC drew 792,000 TV viewers, down 19.68% from 2023.
www.autoracing1.com
FLRacingFan
Team Owner
That’s actually kinda disappointing, although sports car/endurance racing isn’t really a TV property and likely never will be. If more fans are engaged at the track with the car clubs/corrals and midway activation displays the manufacturers are probably pretty happy.TV News: IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona TV Viewers down 20%
The exciting final hour of the 2024 IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona last Sunday on NBC drew 792,000 TV viewers, down 19.68% from 2023.www.autoracing1.com
FLRacingFan
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Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
We can survive poor TV numbers as long as the manufacturers keep pouring the money in, but we know that never lasts forever.
virtualbalboa
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Part of that is also viewership lost to Peacock, which IMSA and advertisers I'm sure will be interested to hear more about anyhow given what data acquisition exists from Peacock.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
Maybe we need a new racing network.
FLRacingFan
Team Owner
It’s all cyclical, just the way it goes in this industry. If we can get these regulations to carry through to end of the decade it would be a huge success, before they move on to whatever the next thing is (hydrogen, etc.).
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
Seen the cycle many times over the last 55 years. I generally don't care about attendance and ratings other than it's hard to understand why they are low when both IMSA and WEC are otherwise so healthy.
Group C was nearly as popular as F1 in the last 80s. There's no reason that can't happen again.
Charlie Spencer
Road courses and short tracks.
I asked after the Rolex why more people didn't watch this series. I was referred to the record attendance.
virtualbalboa
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F1 was also substantially less popular in the 80s than now, probably. Certainly generated less revenue. I dunno, to get a big TV audience, you need to have shorter sprint races along with the enduros. There's also another problem: back in the day, IMSA and the World Sportscar championship weren't running less than half the events of F1. Group C didn't have 6 race seasons like they have had in WEC or 9 race seasons like they have in IMSA. They had nearly twice as many races in the US for prototypes then as now, and about 50% more races in World Sportscar Championship than they do in WEC. You'd think a growing series would have more races, but instead the manufacturers seem to have settled on less than ten GTP races in the US and less than ten in WEC being an ideal. Not great for growth when you 30+ days pass between events.
FLRacingFan
Team Owner
And I think it’ll keep trending that way, John Doonan said most tracks are again trending up year over year at the moment. Places like Road America also saw record attendance of their own last year - and sports cars have been going there a long time.
Fwiw, a couple of the USA windows were up, which are obviously going to be smaller audiences, which speaks more to the core/base imo.
But, as far as ever capturing anything resembling a mainstream TV audience, it’s almost impossible to do so with long events that are few and far between, alphabet soup regarding class structures and regulations, inconsistent TV coverage, and the fact that oval racing is just the dominant and preferred form of racing in this country. That doesn’t mean it isn’t healthy - obviously, right now it’s the opposite. But it’s niche for a reason.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
What we have now is simply a craze. ESPN's telecasts were down 8% last year, but that's for the whole year. I suspect it fell off even worse toward the end when it was clear no one could touch Max. I also think the Andretti snubbing isn't going to help them in the US., especially as snobby as they were about it.
I think at least in the US that the F1 craze has peaked. You know how crazes are here. Just look back at disco to see the stupid things we buy into because it's just what's "popular."
That's how IMSA does it. I don't think you can really have sprint races in the world endurance championship. Group C avoided that by being (among other things) the world sports prototype championship. Right now, we have fields so big they are sending cars home, so I'de hate to see them change anything other than add more cars.
I remember when F1 was 10 or 12 races. To me, that just made each one more important. We have roughly 18-20 race between the two, which is enough for me, and it's probably enough for the smaller teams. Remember, we have to take care of them too.
I don't know how much more growth you can sustain when you have to exclude good cars, and both series are doing it. I also think there comes a point it's too expensive for the smaller teams to run more races.
I'm certainly not an authority on all the attendance and ratings garbage, simply because I don't care. All I care about is having enough healthy teams to put on a good race. Daytona's TV numbers were down, but that didn't have any effect on how good the event was. F1 has staggering numbers, but they only produced one or two half decent races all year and most of those results were never even remotely in doubt. F1 is simply not very good, so it doesn't make sense people would prefer to see that than a competitive series.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
You know what "popularity" is going to bring you, right? Everyone would want to go, including the stupid people. It would be like sitting between Bevis and Butthead. At least they would make the crashes more fun, yeah, yeah, FIRE, Bevis, FIRE!
Right now we have a mostly educated mass of well-behaved fans, Sebring infield aside. At least no one is throwing beer bottles on the track or stealing the pace car. Then again, we have drugging, drinking fighting and, errr, you know at Sebring.
You're right about the multiple classes being hard for casual fans to follow, but both IMSA and WEC have streamline that for this year. I liked it when Grand American had just DPs and GT classes. The pro/am thing just adds confusion, but I know it's necessary for the gentlemen to have a place to race.
FLRacingFan
Team Owner
WEC is back up to 8 races now and possibly 9 in the future, which is more or less on par with what WSC ran at the height of Group C. The down period was really low, with the Super Seasons and COVID and all, but they’ve worked themselves back up to a normal schedule now.
In IMSA I would point to increased running times - in addition to Daytona and Sebring there are two 6-hour events and Petit Le Mans (10 hours) wasn’t conceived until the late ‘90s. And at the peak of GTP 1.0, even Watkins Glen was a 500km/3 hour event. Without actually doing the math, I’d guess 9 GTP races this season is probably pretty even in running time against a 13-race season in the late ‘80s, which had more races that were 300km.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
My only complaint is you have to have the absolute best circuits if you are going to limit dates. How you can cut Portimão and bring in Qatar isn't having the best circuits. COTA is nice, but everything that's run there except F1 has been a ghost town. Indianapolis is supremely uninteresting, but I understand why it has to be on the docket.
Also consider the history of Daytona and Sebring as part of the championship, and they really belong too.
When you look at the circuits that got left off, that part is a bit disappointing. Then again, I'm not complaining too much as long as we have two healthy series.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
WEC might consider airing the first hour until right before airing the last. That way you'de get a two hour deal instead of spacing it out and breaking up people's days. Watch the race, move on instead of waiting four hours between shows. It's kind of inconvenient to have to interrupt your day by making you wait between telecasts, especially as short as attention spans are.
Personally, I get around all of that simply by recording both and watching at my convenience, so that's not really a huge complaint.
Having said that, the telecasts have gotten exponentially better and better in the last few years. they got rid of the original squids in the booth and the newest guys do a great job. It used to be all stuffy and boring, but the newest crew keeps it fun. One thing I do miss about the newest telecasts is having Alan McNish as color.
Personally, I get around all of that simply by recording both and watching at my convenience, so that's not really a huge complaint.
Having said that, the telecasts have gotten exponentially better and better in the last few years. they got rid of the original squids in the booth and the newest guys do a great job. It used to be all stuffy and boring, but the newest crew keeps it fun. One thing I do miss about the newest telecasts is having Alan McNish as color.
virtualbalboa
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It feels simple to me, and when I look at, say, the IMSA Camel era, entirely in line with what was done before: GTP and LMP2, from time to time you get a race. GT3/GTD, you continue to get GT specific races. I do not know why it is deemed a necessity by IMSA to put GTP and LMP2 on the track only with GT cars. I don't get it. It makes the issues of space and exclusion worse because you're fielding 3 or 4 classifications of cars every time, except the times they go GT only. I have never complained about there being GT only races at VIR or Lime Rock. I will not complain about that either. I don't see why we can't have prototype only racing. I just don't! I'd love to have it explained to me!
As with the WEC and sprints: I mean, they could easily split off and do sprint races and hold a separate title and all that if the manufacturers are interested. It would seem that the manufacturers are not so much interested, and because of that, all the concerns which people have about gaps in the Indycar schedule are magnified enormously with the WEC. There are three 6 week or more gaps in the schedule as it is comprised now after expanding it, and 4 one month gaps. You'll never, ever build momentum globally with that sort of schedule.
virtualbalboa
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COTA is going to be a miserable failure in attendance. C'mon. We all know it. Holding that race in Austin Texas on Labor Day weekend is absurd. I would have gone almost any other time of year and made it a big thing, but it's going to be well north of 90 degrees with sun beating down on metal bleachers. This is sort of like the Formula One finding out that Las Vegas is chilly at night in November and admitting that they just assumed it was always hot.
Charlie Spencer
Road courses and short tracks.
Doesn't seem to bother Darlington.
Charlie Spencer
Road courses and short tracks.
Who wants to watch a 10-car race? Standalone GT fields start 25 or 30 cars.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
I've suggested that but FlaRacing fan has some very good reasons why that wouldn't work.
My own reason is prototype racing wouldn't be the same without having to navigate the GT sled traffic. However, I'm never going to complain if we have too many prototypes.
I agree, but maybe FlaRacingFan can weigh in.
WSPC did that in the later Group C/3.5 era.
Conversely, less races makes every one even more critical and leaving everyone wanting more. I'm kind of ok with it because combined we have about 20 big sportscar events. If you look at F1, most of us were burned out by about Monza. Imagine how burned out the teams must be.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
ELMS has had about 35 prototypes for the last few years.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
It was the last time they tried it, but WEC is probably trying to cash in on F1s success here. Indianapolis will probably be a ghost town too.
Let's remain hopeful because we don't want any of these races to slow down WEC's momentum.
Portimão's stands were pretty empty too, which shows WEC is not soley dependent on those things. This is why I'm trying not to raise so much hell over it being excluded. Just disappointment.
Indycar hasn't seemed to have learned this either judging by how they scheduled Iowa and Gateway.
At least F1 has the sense to have a summer break during the worst of it, though they really got it wrong with Qatar, which is rescheduled for next year at a better date.
Even worse they pissed everyone off by cutting access to businesses (which is currently part of a class action lawsuit) and sky high ricket prices. Then they cut FP1 to seven minutes and ran everyone out for FP2. If i spent that much money and got to se nothing I' probably wouldn't go back. Vegas GP has come PR work cut out for them.
At least they had a good race and no other unforeseen new street track boobytraps. I can't remember the last new street track that didn't have a rough first race.
Charlie Spencer
Road courses and short tracks.
That's great for that side of the Atlantic, but that's not increasing IMSA's prototype field any time soon. Even if LMP2s are included as something to pass, a proto-only field is too small to hold interest; at least, my interest.
Charlie Spencer
Road courses and short tracks.
I don't know why some folks can't accept the NASCAR popularity of the '90s and '00s was a fad. Fads come and go, even in sports. I often refer to the tennis craze of the '70s and '80s. That was a sport the fans could participate in relatively cheaply, but the popularity eventually declined.
Like tennis and NASCAR. A decline in popularity isn't a guarantee of extinction, esp. if it just returns to pre-craze levels.
Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
Once again, what works over there doesn't necessarily wok over here. That's why it took 50 to get everyone to come together.