"Joest" (Joest)
09/20/2014 at 12:22 • Filed to: None
2
6|
"Joest" (Joest)
09/20/2014 at 12:22 • Filed to: None | 2
| 6 |
Wow...
Extreme Speed Motorsports has pulled the plug on the remainder of its 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship program, opting to skip next month's season-ending Petit Le Mans in favor of taking its HPD ARX-03b cars to China for the FIA WEC Six Hours of Shanghai.
The Scott Sharp-owned squad made the announcement Saturday morning at Circuit of The Americas, ahead of today's Lone Star Le Mans double-header, which sees ESM make its FIA World Endurance Championship debut.
"What an incredible opportunity and next step to take Tequila Patrón and ESM to Shanghai and race against the top P2 cars in the world," Sharp said. "We're equally excited, to utilize Tequila Patrón's investment in motorsports to help further expose their brands to one of their hottest global markets."
Sharp will team with Ryan Dalziel and Ed Brown in the No. 30 Tequila Patron-sponsored HPD in today's race, with Brown moving over to the No. 31 car for Shanghai alongside Johannes van Overbeek and David Brabham.
Reigning FIA WEC LMP2 champion Ricardo Gonzalez, meanwhile, will join Sharp and Dalziel for the Chinese round on Oct. 31-Nov. 2.
"We enthusiastically welcome David and Ricardo to our driver lineup," Sharp said. "Both David and Ricardo have raced at Shanghai and we'll leverage their experience there to get our Honda prototypes ready for that six-hour race.
"We're still learning our way around the FIA WEC and we believe we'll be that much stronger with both of our Tequila Patron HPDs in China."
Today's TUDOR Championship race will mark their final outing of the year, with no plans having been put in place for 2015, other than its intentions to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and early season FIA WEC rounds.
Whatever program they undertake, it will come with a pair of brand-new HPD ARX-04b P2 cars next year.
"We're excited but know there is a give and take," Brown said. "Racing is expensive and because of that we'll park the cars at Petit Le Mans and not run the final race of the TUDOR Championship series race so we can setup the cars for Shanghai.
"By all means, we're going to be racing in the United States next year, but we felt that this was important to set us up for the goals that we've set.
"We're committed to going to the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year. I feel it is important for us to pick the absolute hardest race that the team could do, and that means racing in China; there's language, food and logistics issues, among other challenges.
"If we truly want to be competitive at Le Mans or any other WEC race, we need to get our hands around the series and regulations at one of the demanding location.
"The best thing we can do is throw a challenge at the team. We're going to learn so much in the week in China; it will pay huge dividends."
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The end is near.
Nibby
> Joest
09/20/2014 at 12:33 |
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At least IMSA didn't get pregnant!
Racing Archivist
> Joest
09/20/2014 at 12:43 |
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There goes another domino. Is it just me or does it seem like most of the ex-ALMS teams have left the Tudor series?
TheBaron2112
> Joest
09/20/2014 at 12:55 |
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Yeah, IMSA has been torpedoing the American sportscar series with the merger and the seeming focus on DPs. This isn't surprising. WEC is a much better series and will provide a better experience than TUSC will for LMP2s.
Maybe this will be another message to the leadership.
The Transporter
> Joest
09/20/2014 at 14:02 |
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The best way to destroy a business competitor is to merge with them and dismantle them one piece at a time. I have a feeling when all is said and done the only cars left on the track at IMSA races will be DP and GTD cars.
JDIGGS
> Joest
09/20/2014 at 14:39 |
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So is there no way for me to WATCH THIS RACE? I don't have fs2,
Why can I pay to watch on a fucking cell phone and not my computer
Sick and tired of working so hard to watch racing, I hate America.
RallyWrench
> Joest
09/20/2014 at 16:15 |
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Good for them, and I don't blame them. I know we're all bitching about what GrIMSAm has done wrong, from poor race control to marginalizing the P2s, but I think the greatest fault has been to hamstring the legitimate prototypes on the world stage, ie LeMans. How can they expect to compete with the world's best teams if they must run to these BS regs for the whole American season? They're on the back foot at LeMans as a result. Nobody races to be legislated out of contention, so they're going where they're not. Makes perfect sense.