[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

I can see it being possible that a North American sports car series could survive on its own. It doesn't have to be that crazy expensive, and the fact that teams like SMP and Strakka did it for LMP2 cars says that it can be done if there is the will to do it.

Straka managed, back when there were more customers. How's their business nowadays? Lots of Strakas on the grid? SMP is funded by a Russian bank, so it is essentially mob-money laundering. Pescarolo tried it too ....

You can say it is cheap and easy, but Rolex couldn't do it, even using their cars for several seasons with minimal upgrades.

Just because you think it should be cheap does not make it cheap. The fact that it hasn't worked here is not Internet discussion, it is observable fact.

Where is Your LMP2? Maybe it isn't as cheap or easy as all that ....

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

The limiting of chassis options (such as in the proposed 2017 P2 rules) is idiotic. Natural selection can - and should - be what drives technical development.

You think differently. This can be good, but only if it is rooted in fact.

Fact is, what we as fans think Should drive technical development is irrelevant. Money is what drives the whole sport, not the quest for technical development. Technical development is exceedingly expensive---ask any P1 team. The easy gains have been made long ago.

In any case, P2 and WTSCC are Not about "technical development." P2 has been a nearly spec class all along, with variations on a Courage chassis mostly, and with very, very tight homologation rules and almost no development. In fact, many people on this board howled about "P2 vs DP" because they were both basically fixed classes, where teams couldn't modify or develop as the season went on ... basically show up in the spring and what you brought, is your car for the season.

P2 and DP were both about Affordable racing, cost-contained racing (hence, um, Cost Containment) and about putting drivers in cars and cars on track for a much lower investment than P1.

Also, "natural selection" as you put it, is a term about evolution ... it can be stretched to fit other topics. It is not a natural law of business development as it seems to be a natural law of species development.

What you are really talking about is businesses should start up, make huge investments in parts and tooling, design, real estate ... and go broke. problem is, people refuse to invest in businesses if they think they are going to go broke. Species cannot opt not to enter into the process; business people often do.

This is where a glance at IndyCar is instructive. When IndyCar wanted a new chassis, it sought bids from several manufacturers----two bids, one if they supplied the whole field and another if they produced just some of the three dozen chassis needed. And IndyCar set cost caps

No one could afford to build a safe, modern, high-performance open-wheeler and make a profit building anything but the whole field of cars. To Not be the victim of "natural selection" manufacturers would have had to charge more than the teams could afford to pay ... so in that way, i guess, they were naturally not selected.

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

But being that the ACO has less interest in advancing the technical development of the P2 category than they do in sustaining the bank accounts of Oreca and Onroak, that didn't happen. And yes, IMSA is far too pricey for such a more open formula to work. But even with these rules, I rather suspect that if somebody went to IMSA and wanted in with a large enough check, IMSA's gonna cash the check and tell them to have at it.

I absolutely agree. All we need is someone to write that check. otherwise, this is fantasy, which is great for fantasy racing leagues but not so good in the real world.

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

It seems rather obvious to me that you have never even looked at a DP car to make a statement like this one, Maelochs. Call it inflamatory if you like, but statements like this show you have a bias. The tubes on a DP are massively reinforced by carbonfiber panels, and on all the modern cars the tube frame bases and the carbonfiber reinforcements are both absolutely vital to the car's performance. DPs may not have CF tubs as bases, but beyond that the tech difference between them and P2 cars is minimal. Anybody thinking that a DP is a Trans-Am car with the engine in the back has never looked at one in depth.

Yeah dude, I have hnever seen a DP. That must be it.

Fact is, DPs had to be massively upgraded to keep up with even slowed-down P2s, because ... THEY HAD THE AERO OF THE 1990s. Have you not been following the story?

Also, reinforced with whatever, they are also exceedingly heavy, but not commensurately strong. Memo Gidley's wreck showed that for all their weight, they are no stronger than a CF-tubbed car weighing a couple hundred kg less. because, for all the CF reinforcement, steel tubing is still not as strong for the weight as CF ... sort of why No One Else building a serious high-level racing car uses a steel tube frame.

Let's see ... much heavier but no safer ... needed huge upgrades to even be able to compete with second-rate prototypes .... had the aero of the 1990s ...

Dude, I had been watching and attending Rolex races for many years before the merger. No one seriously tried to propose that they were modern cars. They were never designed to be. There is a difference between showing bias and seeing reality.

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

And as far as the fans not accepting "another decade of tube-framed throwbacks", I'd bet money you and some other diehards care about it far more than anybody else does. I have nothing against ACO cars, but after thirteen seasons and a lot of development in every way possible, this crap about the DPs somehow being intrisically inferior to the LMP2s has got to stop. Seriously folks, if you've seen both, its rather obvious that both are different ways of accomplishing the same objective.

Whatever.

Fact is the Rolex series survived only because of NASCAR money and never had more than a third of the fan base of the ALMS. Those are the fact derived from IMSA/TUSCC polling, as well as attendance at the tracks.

ALMS had great racing but was badly run as a business. Rolex couldn't attract a fanbase sufficient to pay the bills. Sorry, but that is just how it was. So yeah ... people voted with their wallets against Rolex, just as teams voted with their wallets against ALMS.

Fans didn't like DPs in sufficient numbers. Just an observable fact. And as far as P2 and DP just being two routes to the same goal .. sure but then why were P2 cars several seconds per lap faster at all the tracks where both raced, until the DPs were MASSIVELY UPGRADED and the P2s slowed?

The numbers are out there. DPsd were much slower cars before the merger, and before the merger, Rolex had no interest in making them faster. Sorry, but those are verifiable facts. Google the lap times at tracks where both ran.

Seriously, are we Still debating researchable fact and repeatedly rehashed ancient history? What's the point?