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State of the Sportscar Nation
By by: Andrew Cotton
Feb 9, 2005, 21:28

Once again, endurance racing is ebbing and flowing like the tides and organizers in the US are attempting to reduce the gap between the two. The American Le Mans Series took the route of chasing major sponsorship, television and commercial partners while attracting media interest through the major manufacturers. Meanwhile, Grand-Am has put its effort into building up the grid.

The ALMS reached its peak rapidly; in 2000 BMW and Audi raced each other hard at the head of the field with world-class drivers at the wheel. In GTS, Dodge raced against General Motors and Porsche took on BMW in the GT category.

This was hailed as the future of endurance racing but, as we have seen so often, the manufacturer efforts have steadily been eroded and now the ALMS is reaching a critical point where Audi and Porsche are represented by private teams, and GM is the only fully-fledged factory team. Media interest was high in those glory times, and organizers took full advantage to sign up their backers which have seen it through what is becoming a lean period.

The Grand-Am, on the other hand, introduced a low cost, low technology formula - the Daytona Prototype - with the aim of accommodating the wealthy privateer. The original Daytona Prototypes were slow, ugly beasts which were beaten by Kevin Buckler’s Porsche GT3 at their first race, the prestigious Daytona 24-hours in 2003. It was not the result organisers wanted and they took steps to make sure it never happened again, hobbling the Porsches with such tricks as reducing the size of the fuel tanks. It just about worked and last year a DP won Daytona, but the Porsches were again too close for comfort and this year, their fuel tanks are down again, this time to 22 gallons.

The 2005 Daytona 24-hours shows that Grand-Am has reached a critical mass, with nearly 30 DPs on the grid, top line teams and top line drivers attracted to the race. This comes just as the ALMS faces a tough time. The decision whether or not to allow the Maserati MC12 is one that could cost the ALMS its accord with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, the French organization in charge of the rules and regulations at Le Mans.

Maserati built their car to their own specification, incorrect for either the ACO rules, or those of the FIA GT Championship. It has pleaded its way into the FIA series, but the ACO will not allow itself the same course and therefore, as this is written, the car will not race at Le Mans or in the ALMS. If the American organization allows it in, ties with Le Mans will be threatened.

The ALMS is also faced with the prospect of telling its teams at the end of the year that their top class prototypes are no longer eligible and that they must all convert to the new specification cars, built to safety standards recommended in the light of Mercedes flying display at Le Mans in 1999, and Michele Alboreto’s fatal accident in an Audi during a test session.

It doesn’t look good for the ALMS and though the Grand-Am series is looking rosy at the moment, nothing lasts forever, and in reality nothing is as it seems.

The ALMS is planning to allow the current prototypes to extend their eligibility, using the current incentives of larger air restrictors and fuel tanks to encourage new prototypes, while also considering a method of restrictions for the Maserati which will allow the Italian manufacturer to race Corvette and Saleen.

Maserati is one new manufacturer looking at the American scene; Aston Martin will race at Sebring and may do more races in North America later in the year. That team will be run by Prodrive and is a similar program to that undertaken by the British firm when developing the Ferrari 550 Maranello. It will run the cars first, prove them as reliable and capable of winning races, and then sell them to customer teams. It is a system that has worked well so far, with Prodrive Ferraris being comfortably better than the Ferrari factory effort, and the 575 that Ferrari introduced at the end of the 2003 season.

With all eyes on the growing GTS battle, which also includes a properly run ACEMCO Saleen on Michelin tires, it would be easy to take your eyes off the prototypes, but Audi has already announced it is building the successor to the R8 chassis and it will race, probably in 2006.

There are rumors flying around that Porsche is also to do a prototype and it would make sense that the two have struck a deal to restrict the costs. Neither wants to get into a spending war, both want to race prototypes and increase their brand awareness, and both want to go to Le Mans.

All of which leaves Grand Am in a position where it has not buried the ALMS. The battle between the two organizations comes down to the egos of its two patrons, Don Panoz, who founded the ALMS, and Bill France, whose family money is behind Grand-Am. On the surface, they are not in competition, with each having taken a separate route to prototype endurance racing. The ALMS follows the European rules of the ACO - survival of the fittest, while Grand Am wrote rules that satisfy the North American market of manufacturing the results, but they are chasing the same money, the same teams, and the same television exposure.

On the surface, one is more expensive than the other - an Audi prototype costing around one and a half million dollars, a DP $350,000 - but to win in international motorsport, teams must spend money and as it all comes out in the wash, the budgets are not proportionally different. One series will allow you to race at Le Mans, Sebring, the Petit Le Mans and the LMES, a series of 1000km races at Silverstone, Spa, the Nurburgring and Monza. The other allows you to run at the Daytona 24-hours and the Grand Am series.

Many here at Daytona believe there is room for both, that Panoz and France can continue to fund their series for another 300 years if they so chose, and that there are enough teams and drivers to go around everywhere. They cater to different markets, they operate individually and the only area of contention is that critical return on the investment.

For those competing in the ALMS, the business model is good enough that they do receive adequate returns, and this is attractive for any team, driver, manufacturer or sponsor, and I believe that France will continue to be the philanthropic character behind Grand Am until such time as he tires of it.

While the ALMS has star cars and star drivers, Grand Am does not, unless France carefully places its big-name drivers with top teams at the showcase events such as Daytona and Watkins Glen, where the series links with the NASCAR series.

It is these links that will be crucial to the survival of the Grand Am series. Those who turn out to watch NASCAR will be able to see prototypes door-banging their way through an endurance race, may be turned on by the idea, and eventually come to a stand-alone race. If not, the question remains whether or not it has the momentum for a long-term future.

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