[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by Purist

TWK, in the developed world, US academic scores are poor to say the least. There is also a damn lot of willful ingorance on the part of Americans about the rest of the world, and even about how our own country works. It would NOT surprise me in the least if a far greater percentage Latin America, and possibly even Europe, knows how the US political system works compared to the percentage of Americans who actually know how their own system operates.

And as for attention span, it's funny how even though a football game can last four hours, most plays probably don't even last 10 secons, and then, because we weren't paying enough attention for even that short a window, we have umpteen "instant replays" (and every one of those comes in "slo-mo" too, lol).

Boy am I tempted to point out your typos as you put down my most beloved country on Earth and call your fellow residents and citizens stupid, and doing so erroneously in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Purist

Ok, back to being a little more serious on the actual thread topic.

There was mention not long ago by a few that manufacturers should be required to contest one of the three continental series in order to be eligible for the LMIC. My thought is that any works (manufacturer) team should be required to run one of the continental series to be eligible for Le Mans itself, and if you become eligible for LM, you're then allowed to take part in the LMIC. Constructor teams, like Oreca, Zytek, WR, etc, or very small automakers, like TVR, Morgan, Mosler, Saleen, etc, would be exempt from this stipulation.

Of course, I'd really like to see mandated ACO inspections to prove the existence of, say, five complete customer cars BEFORE the works team is permitted to take to the track in ACO-rules events.

JAG, I know that this doesn't cover the Asian market, but that's kind of a moot point while there is still nil for ACO racing in Asia anyway. North America is a major market for the manufacturers even now, and the economy IS a big reason why the automakers don't have their P1s over here full-time. And don't think collapse of the continental series will leave Le Mans uneffected, or do we need to revisit Le Mans from around 1992. In 1991 and 1992, there were fewer than 40 cars that made the start. From 1988 up to 2007 or 2008, I think there was but 1 full grid at Le Mans (50 cars started in 2002), and now, of course, a full grid is once again 55 cars; way back when, a full grid was 60 cars, but who knows when the last time was that that many cars even made it for the Le Mans Test.

Add to that the success the ALMS has had has done much to bolster the reemergence of the 24 Hours of Le Mans this decade. The race is very much an extension of the ALMS to many fans. As much as we love to downplay the average American's interest in the race, it is probably the highest it has ever been and the massive base of intelligent, affluent people in the U.S's car culture are very interested in how the teams running their favorite cars, and even racing versions of their road cars do in that race as a result of the ALMS.

As a fan of the ALMS and its accessibility to me the fan in terms of events, TV, Internet etc. it would be hard for me to say I would sacrifice the ALMS for a World Championship (call it what it is) that is not guaranteed to be covered in the U.S.

Chris