[Silver E90]

Not sure what this means for BMW, but just thought it was very interesting.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...lizing-merger/

[Timujin]

IMHO it's about time. Hopefully these guys can play nice and give us some great racing and we will buy some tickets to their events.

[mdosu]

much needed due to the cost of running a team in ALMS. it costs a US-based team $2 million to do the sing 24 Hour of Le Mans race.

[pseto]

insight into today's announcement:

http://www.sportscarinsider.com/the-...goes-deep.html

at least they didn't mess with ALMS...yet

[M3_WC]

Hmmm...Nascar in control of all sports car racing in the US. I do not like the sound of that. Also after 2013 there will no ties to ACO, hope regulations don't start to stray too much from ACO regulations. Making it difficult for teams to go over the race in 24 Hour Le Mans.

Just don't mess will the Continental Tire Series, best sports car racing in the US right now.

[MrClean335i]

I think this is positive for sports car racing in U.S.A

Official announcement of the merger was made today. Here’s what we found out:

• A merger was first discussed five years ago, but the time wasn’t right.
• Ed Brown (ALMS Sponsor) got the ball rolling again at the Daytona 24 this year
• Don Panoz and Jim France did the deal on the golf course six months ago ..... read in the pub
• 2013 will see the two series running separate schedules
• 2014 will see a combined series beginning at Daytona, then going to Sebring
• No official name for the new series has yet been decided
• The likely number of races is 12
• Jim France insisted during discussions that the link with Le Mans must remain
• The class structure is yet to be decided, but will not feature LMP1
• ALMS GT is part of the package, as is Grand-Am GT
• Nissan DeltaWing is part of the package
• The process of determining the technical regs is only just beginning

"So, much still to be discussed and announced over the coming months; but what was striking about the announcement was the air of optimism and positivity. This was to be expected, of course, but we probably didn’t expect Jim France to describe himself as ‘a lifelong sportscar fan’; nor for him to recall a conversation with his late father, who told him that “We don’t know how big sportscar racing can be.”

The board of the new organisation will be as follows:

Chairman - Jim France
Vice Chairman - Don Panoz
Lesa France Kennedy (NASCAR Vice Chair/Executive Vice President)
Ed Bennett (Grand-Am President/CEO)
Scott Atherton (ALMS President/CEO)
Karen Leetzow (NASCAR Vice President/Deputy General Counsel)

[mdosu]

Originally Posted by MrClean335i

I think this is positive for sports car racing in U.S.A

good info, 2014 will be rough. I can't wait to see the resulting classes.
It's unfortunate that LMP1 is going away, I'm not sure if HPD, Audi, Mazda, Puegeout, etc..will migrate to the resulting prototype class. It's interesting since they insist on the link with European Le Mans series, and they are not getting rid of the LMP1 class in the European or Japanese series. So not sure what prototype classes will look like. It's very important to me to see the large manufacture support in the LMP1 class.

Additionally, by creating to sepereate GT classes, at this moment there will be no entry from the Rolex Series' GT cars in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, I recongize the Rolex GT cars (at least the 911 cup-type cars) are similar to the current ALMS GTC cars.

[mdosu]

apparantly this week, they're releasing more info on the merger. Likely LMP1 will go away which is horrible as they're removing parts of the series that is the link to European Le Mans series.

[sensi09]

Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere, but with a possible DTM series in north america http://www.grand-am.com/News/GA_News...cid=6383&sid=1

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of grand am/alms merger in the first place. I thought one or both of the series weren't viable on its own, but then they go and introduce another "competing" series. Doesn't quite make sense.

[mdosu]

Originally Posted by sensi09

Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere, but with a possible DTM series in north america http://www.grand-am.com/News/GA_News...cid=6383&sid=1

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of grand am/alms merger in the first place. I thought one or both of the series weren't viable on its own, but then they go and introduce another "competing" series. Doesn't quite make sense.

this just got a lot more interesting. I would miss the LMP cars though...this is the last year to catch them, I'll be there at Baltimore and VIR.

[BlackJetE90]

Hmmm...DTM as support races.

[Silver E90]

This DTM coming to American is nonsense, they are just expensive silhouette cars. All it is going to do is stretch the manufacturer dollars out even more.

Is BMW now going to move RLL out of GTE and into a DTM car?

I'd rather have the other manufacturers (i.e. MB and Audi) build a GTE spec car and ran that in the new series against BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette, Viper.

Anybody watch a DTM race? Nothing really to write home about.

Who in the NASCAR management or anybody in US sportscar racing thinks this is a great idea?

Sorry, end of rant.

[tres]

im losing interest in alms to much classes i enjoyed watching the gt1 and gt2 classes before they did away with the gt1 class

[BlackJetE90]

Originally Posted by Silver E90

Is BMW now going to move RLL out of GTE and into a DTM car?

Great question. I have always doubted that they would build a FI M3/M4 for ALMS competition.

[Silver E90]

Originally Posted by BlackJetE90

Great question. I have always doubted that they would build a FI M3/M4 for ALMS competition.

Like I said before. If you want the BMW fans to believe that the move to FI is the way to go in the M brand. PROVE IT WORKS ON THE TRACK.

[mikal7]

Originally Posted by Silver E90

Like I said before. If you want the BMW fans to believe that the move to FI is the way to go in the M brand. PROVE IT WORKS ON THE TRACK.

But it doesn't work on the track - even Toyota runs NA v8s in their jgtc supras. Porschas run NA as well.

[mdosu]

so basically what UnitedSportsCarRacing decided is to cut the cord with the LeMans series and to run either a DTM or Super GT equivalent series here in the US. We'll see how it shakes out, it appears if they run the same regulations as DTM, Audi, MB, and BMW will be onboard as it's cost effective to pop out a few more DTM cars...I wasn't aware Super GT cars were that similar to DTM cars. I mean, I know Super GT cars are built to the same concept as DTM cars, but there's more variety within the classes the last time I checked.

A Super GT series would bring in the Japanese OEMs like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan... I bet you can't wait to see the Toyota Prius Super GT in action? lol:

[sensi09]

Just browsing through this article http://www.racecar-engineering.com/n...e-regulations/

DTM and super gt (gt500) share technical regulations from 2014 onward, but differ in engine regulations. Article is a bit old so not sure what has changed.

Keep in mind that Super GT has two classes, gt500 and gt300. Just looking at the super gt site, it seems that the gt300 class is more akin to the gt classes of alms with multiple brands represented by the likes of a r8, gt3, Z4, gallardo, sls, f430 etc. Seems like an interesting series that looks to be competitive by glancing at the results.