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23 Apr 2020, 08:56 (Ref:3972347) | #9 | ||||||
Racer
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 317
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Quote:
The question is what that will be. Chiana's points about it ultimately being taken over by a vast collection of Oreca 07s with new badges do have some point to it, but I'm not entirely sure that will be what happens because the manufacturers will not always be there forever and having Ginetta and Dallara and Riley and Multimatic leaving isn't gonna be good for the ACO for a variety of reasons, and sooner or later that will start to get back to making the teams and their supporters unhappy, which then rapidly becomes a problem for the race itself. Quote:
Are there enough people with interest out there? I think there it is, but the price of admission is too high (as you mentioned, when a Trans-Am car can lap as fast as a GT3 car, there is clearly an issue there) and there isn't enough advertising and get-out-the-name out there. IMO, IMSA would be wise to make sure TV networks know that they will be streaming races online at the same time, so be prepared for people to do that (And yes, TV may be irrelevant twenty years from now, or it may have merged with the internet in a hybrid of the two styles), and directly also broadcast it onto games - and use trackers to know where the cars are on the track, so someone playing Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport can race along with it, feeling like they are in the event. Once VR is commonplace in the world, have suitable cameras in the race cars so one can feel like they are riding shotgun in the race cars. What says to me there is interest in the sport is the tens of millions of copies games like the aforementioned series manage to sell. Also, ideas like Nissan's GT Academy are absolute genius as well - how about it, IMSA? A competition in one of the games (or hell do both) where the best competitor gets a shot at racing in IMSA for real, perhaps in a GT4 car to prove their up for it, or have the best dozen or so come to test out real GT4 cars and get IMSA licenses, allowing them to legitimately seek out IMSA rides? Young people have in recent times been hamstrung more than anything by money and distance. We are, when accounted for inflation, considerably poorer than our parents. That's never stopped me, but I can see why that would stop others. The coronavirus may have, in a perverse silver lining, changed that, as the demands for better pay and conditions for people who are still working are likely to keep fighting long after the virus is gone. If finances improve for the young generation, that's likely to see more of them go to racetracks, both now and in the future.... As far as the rich enthusiasts, people like James Glickenhaus, Lawrence Stroll, Ed Brown and Laurence Tomlinson prove those people are still out there. And there has been a lot written about the generation of app-made millionaires that have made Northern California an expensive place to live, and many of them having a love of cars. Maybe we need to get a lot of those people out to races at Laguna Seca for the whole experience - a ride in a DPi, a shot at driving a GT4 (or maybe even GT3) car, a helmet and driving suit, seeing the tech in an IMSA car, whatever works. Who knows, it might make them buy a GT car and get out there.... As far as sponsors for the series, the cost of competing in the series is half the issue, its also the return for their investment, which means lots of people watching great races. IMO, the best way to get that attention is big and diverse grids and constant action, with the ability to keep people watching all the time. Quote:
I'd be happy to see a bunch of full-on two- and three-liter normally aspirated sports racers and GTs going at it .... a lot more affordable than all the "cutting-edge", change-every-season regulations we have now. But how many people will be happy watching cars going by slower than they used to? HERE is the major problem. Think about this: One Riley Daytona Prototype owned by Chip Ganassi Racing raced for twelve years with Lexus, BMW and Ford power, and one of Dyson Racing's Riley and Scott Mark IIIs racked up over 45,000 racing miles, in four different race series - IMSA, USRRC, ALMS and Grand-Am. Were these cars slower at the end of their lives? Not really - hell, thanks to regulation changes, the Ganassi DP was undoubtedly much faster. Do the cars have to be replaced every four years, if that much? Would a 2014-vintage Acura ARX-03b not be impressive today? If somebody built a Riley or Coyote DP with C8 Corvette lights and detailing, or a Ganassi Riley with the detailing from the Ford GT, would that not still be incredibly fast? Would a previous-generation GTE or GT3 car still be quite a machine to see? As was mentioned earlier, if a Trans-Am car can make the same pace as the GT3 car, or an older GT3 car runs at similar pace to the new one, why not let the old one race? What would be the problem with Trans-Am TA1 cars joining the field in IMSA? Grand-Am did that for years, and they were never a problem there. What about letting the Oreca FLM09s back, but with Oreca 03R bodywork and a choice of production-based V8s of similar-displacement to the old engine that are readily available - Chevrolet LT2, Ford Voodoo, Chrysler 6.1 Hemi, Nissan VK56, Toyota 3UR, et cetera - and let them race once again? (This assumes you don't just let the LMP3s into IMSA, but I think the evolved-FLM09 with the roaring V8s is a cheaper - and allows more freedom - option.) And what about the current DPis not specifically having to change the bodywork, just the engines and electronics and gearboxes to go with them? Before we go to a field of smaller-engine cars for IMSA - large engines are still quite common in North America, and will be for some time to come still - why not simply let the cars we have extend their lives? They don't have to last forever, of course, but making suitable race cars cheaper and more accessible is certainly not going to hurt IMSA. (And in all fairness, the DeltaWing showed that a two-liter-or-less race car can go quite fast indeed....) Quote:
Beyond that, what else? Advertise on college and university campuses, and get college and university engineering departments to partner up with race teams? Maybe a challenge to build a DeltaWing-style competitor that would be legal to race in IMSA? The world has changed, yes. But priority number one needs to be getting more cars on the track to get greater action to get more people watching. That can be done, if IMSA has the will. |
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