IMSA is a mess.

"Joest" (Joest) 01/28/2014 at 22:05 • Filed to: None

5

10

Teams are un happy with the "Nascar-ization" of sports car racing.

http://www.gordonkirby.com/categories/col…

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

MMinSC > Joest 01/28/2014 at 22:26

1

Yeah, because God forbid NASCAR resurrects a dying series, and form of racing.

Kailand09 > Joest 01/28/2014 at 22:34

1

Thanks for sharing this, interesting read.

Very bleak, it seems. I'm frustrated just reading that.

SteyrTMP > Joest 01/28/2014 at 22:41

3

I love being one of those "I told you so" kind of people... ok, not really. Especially in this case.

This was inevitable from the beginning. Without some sort of miracle, this series is destined to go the way of the original IMSA, Can-Am, et al, doomed by archaic, vague, and confusing rulings and regulations.

I watched a good bit of the race live, and I found it boring compared to ALMS. The presence of NASCAR was overpowering, from the DP cars, to the NASCAR yellow flags predominantly being flown every time someone sneezed. The lack of LMP1 cars (especially Porsche's new LMP1) was obvious.

Much doom.

The Transporter > SteyrTMP 01/28/2014 at 23:10

2

Yeah, it was way worse that last June's 24 Heures du Voitures de Sécurité*. I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that except for that last yellow, which was complete and total NASCAR bullshit, the race was surprisingly caution free. Especially considering who was calling the shots.

* 24 Hours of Safety Cars - translated poorly via Google Translate.

King Ginger, not writing for Business Insider > Joest 01/28/2014 at 23:36

0

Too much diversification.

Racing in general has too small of a world (or US following) to have such splintered and factious series. Simply put, there is only so much money and so many SUCCESSFUL teams in all series...the concept of more is more only dilutes the impact of the sports appeal. It is a real shame because they could have done a great job with TUDOR and focused it on simply being a feeder for Le Mans in the GTLM class...that alone (with additional amateur and customer cars) would have been interesting enough to garner interest. The average viewer (the market they are trying to reach) doesn't give a care about LMP2 or DP cars as they have no relation that they know of to the cars they might have idolized as children.

Good article though, good find.

For Sweden > Joest 01/28/2014 at 23:44

1

Give it time. The Prototype rules are convoluted because the old Grand-Am teams weren't going to scrap their year-old Daytona Prototypes, and now P2 and DP have to play nice. They'll figure it out.

The Transporter > Joest 01/28/2014 at 23:59

2

This reminds me a lot of what Brad Keslowski was complaining about in the Sprint Cup last year, where NASCAR would, without warning, implement an arbitrary* rule change at tech inspection.

Speaking of people leveling complaints at NASCAR, it wouldn't surprise me if IMSA started handing out penalties like candy to all of these crew chiefs that are willing to go on the record to a reporter. After all, they need IMSA more than IMSA needs them.

Except for the fact that they don't.

If these shenanigans keep up, some of the P2 and LMGT teams might find it more feasible to run in the WEC. Or even crazier, they might organize a new sports car series based off the ACO Le Mans rules. Maybe they could call it the American Le Mans Series.

But that's too crazy. Nothing like that has ever happened in motorsports before.

* In other words Hentrick Motorsports was crying they weren't winning enough.

SteyrTMP > The Transporter 01/29/2014 at 00:01

0

I saw several yellows, I never saw a reason for most of them. The obvious yellow, and then red, that followed Memo's crash, was the only one I saw that belonged.

HiredHand > King Ginger, not writing for Business Insider 01/29/2014 at 00:23

1

I could see this happening at some point, a GT-based series with two levels of competition, an equivalent of GTLM and GTD, or GT and GTC, or GT1 and GT2, or GT and GTS, or some new GT faster car and GT slower car nomenclature.

CTSenVy > For Sweden 01/29/2014 at 01:26

1

Since Nascar is involved a lot of people want it to fail, which is sad because if this whole IMSA/Tudor thing doesn't work out, that will pretty much be the death blow for sportscar racing in North America in my opinion.