[cmk]

Originally Posted by Purist

Cmk, with the inter-class traffic as it is, I'm concerned enough already with what could go wrong this year at Mosport with a regular ALMS round. And before you talk about Lime Rock cramming in ~30 cars, remember that the turns at Mosport are quite a bit faster and more line sensitive. The Downhill is the fastest turn at Lime Rock (~130-140mph for LMPs). At Mosport, Turns 1, 2, 4, and 6-8 are all faster than that, and Turn 9 is close to that sort of speed as well.

It's more likely that something goes wrong at Mosport than Road America, and Mosport already has a major black mark in international sportscar racing from the Manfred Winkelhock crash in 1985, and the next time the WSC returned to Canada, this time at Montreal in 1990, there was the whole Jesus Pareja/manhole cover incident. Another reason that I chose Elkhart Lake though, was timing. Mosport is a week closer to Silverstone, and July/August in the ALMS is tightly packed enough as it is without trying to perhaps move Mosport back a week.

Surely an LMIC race and its expanded field could result in separating the challenge class races during the ALMS weekend, no? If the speed differential is a big problem, it will be that way this year with no LMIC competitors and something will have to be done anyway. As it is the ALMS has repeatedly put on successful races at the track and there have been fewer big accidents than have occurred to prototypes at Road Atlanta during the PLM weekend for example. The Winkelhock crash was a terribly sad incident but bears no relevance at the stage. Furthermore with respect to timing the Mosport ALMS date has moved back and forth over a couple of weeks during the last decade so I can't see a change to fit the LMIC schedule best being a problem.