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Originally Posted by TWK
It's always been the case in any sport, where you have intense competition you get more public interest.
Not true. Look no further than professional golf (Tiger) to see the opposite effect. Add the NBA (Jordan's Bulls), NFL (Lombaridi's Packers), MLB (Ruth's Yankees), Boxing (Tyson) for other instances and eras when near absolute domination increased rather than decreased the popularity of a sport or a league.
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I think you could add the Ferrari/Schumacher era into that as well!
It has always been the case that a works team is going to have an advantage from better testing, better R & D etc.
I too have seen a fair bit of racing action over the years inc 28 Le mans and counting, numerious 1000km or 6 hour race races and many GP's.
At Le Mans it has rarely been the case that a non works team has been on the pace of a works effort, and apart from a few years when the either the factory teams combusted or did not enter they have always won.
This year will be no different. I expect the Pugs to go for glory and get pole, race into the distance then fall apart, Audi will then swan thru into an easy win, if the reliabilty shown today by the other contenders is a guide, then they too will be all out before 1/2 distance.
I note that 'flat 12 air cooled' is your id, I guess this is because the 917 is your favorite car, good choice, one of mine too. You will however be aware, I am sure that the 917 was created to take full advantages of the rules for Grp 4. Many teams with Prototype cars were pretty peeved that the car was allowed, however the govening body stood firm and we had 3 wonderful years with a majastic car and its rival the 512 (also a grp 4) before it was banned and we all moved on.
You can read the story here.
http://962.com/history/917/index.htm
Back in 1969 would you have been calling for the 917 to be handicapped?
What Audi have done is no different, made a car to to take full advantage of the regs. The more enlightend among us are able to celebrate that. Sadly others are not and see demons.
Your loss.