Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

I don't know how up to date it's kept, but there is a Wiki for each season:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Am..._Series_season

jayk

I agree with eage8, in an ideal world Porsche would step up to the task of competing with Cadillac's program instead of somebody deciding to slow down the cadillac to keep it "interesting". I mean, how interesting is it really to watch a custom-built car that has been weighted down try to keep it even with another custom-built car? Its probably exciting for the drivers and pit teams, and if you care about one of the drivers or teams then it might be exciting, but if you ask me its entirely for the advertising dollars.

I do see your point though, because its not an ideal world. And most of the teams can't compete financially with Cadillac. So to keep up appearances of an actual competition between cars (so we run out and buy the winning car) they slow down the dominant cars.

It seems to me there should be a more interesting way to slow down the cars, like capping budgets so the cadillac cts-v might actually be based on the car that it represents. Of course, that would probably mean that Cadillac wouldn't enter a car and we'd have a bunch of smaller teams competing so we wouldn't see it on Speed or any of the big tracks...

Anyway, I don't know the answer but to me the "rewards weight" makes it not so much a "sport" as a reason to see cool cars drive around and the occasional good pass

RacerJason

iTrader: (5)

My my.

Racer Magazine by way of reader vote awarded SPEED Channels World Challenge series as the best road racing series in North America the last season or two. This will be my eighth season with the series as an Official. At SCCA Pro Racing we have our hands full in rule-making, competition adjustments, reviewing of homologation requests, etc. It would make any weekend warriors head spin. If a dominant car is not slowed in some fashion i.e. rewards weight or competition adjusments then we lose willing competitors and the spectators lose racing. If I recall correctly the JTCC also uses some adjustment system and this can be seen in last seasons results as a different car won every single race (either GT300 or GT500, not both I don't think).

The tug of war drama in ALMS GT1 is a good example in that nobody (except for Aston) wants to step up to the plate with the cash to be competitive. The GT1 Corvettes cost tens of millions to run each season (including Le Mans). Big-ticket sponsors are few and far between and the most obvious ones sink their money on to the hood of a NASCAR. Compuware supports the vette's because the CEO loves racing and their cash injection equates to just a small piece of the financial pie. But how many people even know who Compuware is? Thank heavens for corporations and people (Think Don Panoz) who love racing.

One year in World Challenge we surprised the top three or four competitors during a race weekend and brought in flat tows and took them away to a local dyno with two representatives from each team. We dyno'd each car and logged our findings to later review in consideration of adjustments. I enjoyed 2006's GT but the Touring needed some fine tuning in my mind. But who am I to judge, I've only worked almost 100 World Challenge races, attended/helped with 25 ALMS races, and worked in Champcar Tech. for 10 years...

Anyhow, expect the annoucment shortly. lol I think the timing of the NA Intl. Auto Show will work well for Mazda.

Mindspin311

Thats why I love Aston, they have the ***** to compete against Corvette, and win.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

I like the Astons too. However, I dislike the way ALMS goes about their "balancing". IMO, that is what breads the 'sandbagging' both sides are complaining about. Hopefully Panoz will be able to bring a GT1 car soon.

It does look like LMP2 is going to be interesting with Dyson moving to the Porsche Spyders.

jayk

I hear you, I just don't think a different car winning each race because the faster cars are weighed down is very interesting. If you are close to the racing or involved in the rulemaking, then sure maybe its interesting, but as a viewer the race loses its "sport" quality and becomes a reason to drink beer and bake in the sun (or sit in front of a tv) while products are marketed at us. Not that there is anything wrong with that

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

I disagree there. It goes back to the Mike Tyson era of boxing. People got tired of paying lots of money only to see a 1 round fight. If you look at the fights with him and Holyfield, those were the most entertaining and highest grossing fights for him because it was unknown who was going to win.

People want to be entertained. How could you be entertained if you already knew who was going to win the race (or the championship for that matter) before it even started? That's what would happen without some way of evening the field.

The JGTC has been very successful with its series because of their weight penalties (as well other European GT racing series).

jayk

You could equate it to the English Premiere League as well, for the last two years it seemed as if Chelsea was unbeatable, this year through hard work, planning, growth in the team (and probably some Chelsea problems), it looks like Manchester United has a chance at winning the league. But if I heard that the Chelsea players were carrying an extra 40 lbs of sand in their pockets because they won last year, would I keep watching? I don't think so...

Or for that matter, did the Red Sox finally win the world series because the other teams (EDIT : don't really know my baseball ) had to use shorter bats and smaller mits?

Anyway, like I said earlier, I agree that something needs to be done and I don't pretend to know the perfect answer myself. Maybe the "rewards" weight is the best answer, maybe it isn't. I'll keep watching anyway.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Most (if not all by now) U.S. sports are limited by monetary means. Whether is a Salary Cap or Luxury Tax (in MLB), they do limit the teams for competition reasons.

I believe some if not most of the the Euro Footy leagues also have either implemented or are currently considering some sort of salary cap limiting them from being "the best they can be".

jayk

Have they tried that in auto racing? What does F1 do (if anything)? It seemed pretty legit when renault surpassed ferrari, and even when ferrari came back last season and put up a good fight.

To say something on the topic of this thread, I'm looking forward to see what the next move in a mazda powered entry will be. I just wish mazda would pour in the money to compete with audi/porsche, or for that matter that audi/porsche were capped in how much they could spend per season.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

I haven't heard of any monetary restrictions in any of the racing series. That's part of the reason its hard for some of the privateers to compete against the factory teams.

As for F1, I believe they have restrictions all over the place (body, engine, aero, etc). The larger teams were basically running a new engine every race which made the smaller teams, trying to stretch their dollars per race, fall behind. Last year they had a rule (IIRC) 2 races per engine or they received a penalty (i.e. starting in the back). So you say a lot more engine failures than previous years.


We'll have to wait and see if Acura has anything for Porsche first.

Gadd

Well the news is out. So is the rotary and Guy Cosmo.

http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl...language_tools

RacerJason

iTrader: (5)

Piston power is indeed in and the rotary trashed in favour of running at competitive SPEED.

http://www.lmsr.net/jan57.html

DamonB

^ "clean sheet of paper" design

I wonder how clean? I had reckoned it would be based off the 2.3L Atlantic engine.

88GT

I'll still continue to support these guys. Rotary or not! This has to be considered a development year for the new package. Even with turbo power they will have their hands full keeping up with Porsche and Honda power. Looking forward to Sebring and Rolex 24 (Go Speedsource)!

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

re: Mazda

Well, kind of disappointing but not all that unexpected. I figured the rotary would be out when they announced there would be a new car. Hopefully they'll be able to at least stay ahead of the GT1 cars now.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

The problem has never been with the rotary engine. The problem has always lied with an incompetent team. Specifically one person within the team.

Snrub

iTrader: (1)

The ALMS appears to be reasonably flexible in the way it classes different types of engines. Surely they would have allowed a turbocharged 2-rotor of some description which could have been in a similar performance range. I guess its the same reason they couldn't make the 3-rotor work, even though it is capable of producing the necessary power - cooling. Perhaps they decided that the only way to make the rotary work was to design their own chasis and they weren't willing to do that.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

Under their rules, they could have even used a turbocharged 3 rotor or a naturally aspirated 4 rotor! They didn't. It took them 2 years just to figure out that water pump cavitation was the cause of their overheating issues. 2 years to change to a different a water pump!!! That says a lot right there.

88GT

Very true guys. Although I think they would have met some air restrictions with a 4-Rotor. Still, someone just wasn't willing to spend the money to make it all work.

RacerJason

iTrader: (5)

Andrew's new water pump still didn't perform as required.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

They still had an overheating issue with the car at 12 hour Pettit LeMans after the new water pump was installed. It was because something caused them to break the water pump belt. It broke twice in the same race before finally causing them to bow out of the race. That sounds more like a burr or a pulley alignment issue because when the belt was on, the car cooled fine.

I can't figure out why this was an issue with them when people have been racing 3 and 4 rotor engines for decades now and they had water pumps and cooling systems that worked fine.

Mindspin311

The car package as a whole is going to be so much better now than the old C65 car. The Lola is the 2007 model, B07/40 so its going to be very up to date. The motor will be beast also. In comparison to the NA V8 in the RS Spyder it is down 27 hp but has nearly double torque if the 4cyl AER motor does indeed make the predicted 500/400 numbers. If thats the case, then Mazda could seriously compete with the favorites of the class (Porsche Factory and Dyson)

20B-3Rotor

I heard they didn’t want to take advise from the beginning about the overheating problems

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

I thought the Spyder Evo was going to be 503 HP (I'm mentioning it as you said the HP would be down about 27)? If so, and Mazda can get 500 out of their new engine, that would match them up pretty well (and even better if they can get the estimated torque numbers).