Two sides of sports cars

Browse pages
Current page

1

Current page

2

Current page

3

Current page

4

Current page

5

Current page

6

Current page

7

Current page

8

Current page

9

Current page

10

Current page

11

Current page

12

Current page

13

Current page

14

Current page

15

Current page

16

Current page

17

Current page

18

Current page

19

Current page

20

Current page

21

Current page

22

Current page

23

Current page

24

Current page

25

Current page

26

Current page

27

Current page

28

Current page

29

Current page

30

Current page

31

Current page

32

Current page

33

Current page

34

Current page

35

Current page

36

Current page

37

Current page

38

Current page

39

Current page

40

Current page

41

Current page

42

Current page

43

Current page

44

Current page

45

Current page

46

Current page

47

Current page

48

Current page

49

Current page

50

Current page

51

Current page

52

Current page

53

Current page

54

Current page

55

Current page

56

Current page

57

Current page

58

Current page

59

Current page

60

Current page

61

Current page

62

Current page

63

Current page

64

Current page

65

Current page

66

Current page

67

Current page

68

Current page

69

Current page

70

Current page

71

Current page

72

Current page

73

Current page

74

Current page

75

Current page

76

Current page

77

Current page

78

Current page

79

Current page

80

Current page

81

Current page

82

Current page

83

Current page

84

Current page

85

Current page

86

Current page

87

Current page

88

Current page

89

Current page

90

Current page

91

Current page

92

Current page

93

Current page

94

Current page

95

Current page

96

Current page

97

Current page

98

Current page

99

Current page

100

Current page

101

Current page

102

Current page

103

Current page

104

Current page

105

Current page

106

Current page

107

Current page

108

Current page

109

Current page

110

Current page

111

Current page

112

Current page

113

Current page

114

Current page

115

Current page

116

Current page

117

Current page

118

Current page

119

Current page

120

Current page

121

Current page

122

Current page

123

Current page

124

Current page

125

Current page

126

Current page

127

Current page

128

Current page

129

Current page

130

Current page

131

Current page

132

Current page

133

Current page

134

Current page

135

Current page

136

Current page

137

Current page

138

Current page

139

Current page

140

Current page

141

Current page

142

Current page

143

Current page

144

Current page

145

Current page

146

Current page

147

Current page

148

Current page

149

Current page

150

Current page

151

Current page

152

Current page

153

Current page

154

Current page

155

Current page

156

Current page

157

Current page

158

Current page

159

Current page

160

Current page

161

Current page

162

Current page

163

Current page

164

Current page

165

Current page

166

Current page

167

Current page

168

Current page

169

Current page

170

Current page

171

Current page

172

Current page

173

Current page

174

Current page

175

Current page

176

Current page

177

Current page

178

Current page

179

Current page

180

Current page

181

Current page

182

Current page

183

Current page

184

Current page

185

Current page

186

Current page

187

Current page

188

Current page

189

Current page

190

Current page

191

Current page

192

Current page

193

Current page

194

Current page

195

Current page

196

Sports car racing’s big challenge has always been to achieve a level playing field for both factory and independent teams, a rare balance no sanctioning body has ever been able to strike for anything more than a few years. In America, IMSA ruled sports car racing for almost 20 years until it imploded amid domination by Toyota. Run by former SCCA man John Bishop, IMSA operated quite effectively during the heyday of the Porsche 962, which provided plenty of teams with a high-quality, competitive car. Ultimately, however, US-based factory efforts from Jaguar, Nissan and Toyota upset the applecart.

IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) went out of business at the end of 1993 and following various attempts to rebuild itself, a pair of competing series emerged in 1999 known as the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am. Essentially, the ALMS has a more open rulebook and is predicated on an equivalency formula which the ALMS has so far been able to manage reasonably well. In the end, the ALMS caters primarily to factory or factory-backed teams. On the other hand, Grand-Am is much more restrictive and its Daytona Prototype formula is modelled on the NASCAR concept. It’s not a spec car formula, but appears that way to the uneducated eye. There’s competition between chassis and engine manufacturers, but all the teams are either independents or privateers.

The ALMS is owned by Don Panoz and based at his road and race car building facility near Road Atlanta in Georgia. Scott Atherton runs the ALMS for Panoz and the overall operation includes IMSA, which functions as the sanctioning body. IMSA is run by Teddy Mayer’s son, Tim. Grand-Am is owned by the France family and led by NASCAR’s vice-chairman Jim France, who is also the CEO of the International Speedway Corporation (ISC), the publicly-traded company that owns Daytona, Talladega, Watkins Glen and 10 other tracks across the USA. Roger Edmondson is the president of Grand-Am, which is based at Daytona Beach in company with NASCAR and ISC. Starting in 2009, Grand-Am officially becomes a NASCAR-sanctioned series.

Audi dominated the ALMS for many years, first with its twin-turbo R8 LMP1 Le Mans sports cars and more recently with its ground-breaking turbo-diesel R10. Audi won the P1 championship again in 2008 with Lucas Luhr/Marco Werner who won six races, while Allan McNish, Emanuele Pirro and Dindo Capello added a superb seventh win in the Petit Le Mans event at Road Atlanta in October.

But some serious Audi challengers have arrived over the past three years, starting in 2006 with a team of Penske/Porsche RS Spyder LMP2 cars. Porsche signed a three-year agreement with Penske and the combination has come on strong over the past two years using their lighter weight and better fuel mileage to beat the Audis in some races. The Penske/Porsche team started the ’08 season on a high note, winning the Sebring 12 Hours outright with Romain Dumas/Timo Bernhard/Emmanuel Collard, and Dumas/Bernhard took the P2 drivers’ championship for the second year in a row. But Penske moves to the Grand-Am series in ’09, where he’s expected to run a pair of Porsche-powered Rileys. Rob Dyson also ran a pair of Porsche Spyders and will stay in the ALMS, but switch to a Lola-Mazda for the new season.

Honda entered the ALMS in 2007 with its Acura brand, running three P2 cars with three teams – Andretti-Green, Fernández Racing and Highcroft Racing. A fourth Acura team, run by owner/driver Gil de Ferran, joined the party this year. Acura’s teams were very competitive in 2008, with Duncan Dayton’s Highcroft team scoring two outright and four class wins thanks to some superb driving by David Brabham. But Brabham’s co-driver Scott Sharp threw away their P2 title hopes by crashing in practice for Petit Le Mans in October and hitting the barrier again in the early laps of the race. Andretti-Green’s Acura P2 car was also healthily competitive in many races and won the Detroit/Belle Isle race outright driven by Franck Montagny and James Rossiter, the pair leading a one-two-three overall sweep for the Acura marque.

Acura moves up to P1 in 2009 with a twin-turbo V8 engine built by Honda Performance Development in California and a chassis designed by Wirth Engineering in Oxfordshire. Testing starts in December. It will be raced in 2009 by de Ferran’s team and Highcroft.

The 2008 Grand-Am championship was won by Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas aboard Chip Ganassi’s Riley-Lexus. Pruett is a wily veteran who took his second Grand-Am championship, while Ganassi’s team enjoyed its third title in the past five years. Ganassi’s team has also won Grand-Am’s season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona the last three years. Second in the ’08 Grand-Am championship were Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty, co-driving Bob Stallings’s Riley-Pontiac. Gurney and Fogarty were the defending champions, winning seven races in ’07. They were equally competitive in ’08 but not quite as effective.

Thanks to a tight rules package Grand-Am produces close racing and more depth of field than the ALMS. Dallara and Lola have built cars to challenge the dominant Riley, while Lexus, Pontiac, Ford and Porsche supply engines. Wayne Taylor’s Dallara-Pontiac driven by former champion Max Angelelli and Michael Valiante had a disappointing year, and will very likely switch to Ford engines in ’09 as Pontiac cuts back. Gurney and Fogarty in Bob Stallings’s car will be the only factory-backed Pontiac effort in the forthcoming season.

Grand-Am’s new season kicks off at the end of January with the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the race is sure to be a cracker. Ganassi’s powerhouse team will be hard to beat, with two cars and star drivers including Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon. But with plenty of other good teams and drivers competing it’s likely to be a close battle all the way, as it has been in recent years. Sebring seven weeks later should be equally interesting and exciting, with the prospect of another Audi versus Peugeot Le Mans tune-up and the debut of the new Acura P1 car.

But I can’t help thinking what a tremendous launch pad American sports car racing would enjoy each year if these two long-distance classics were part of a combined series featuring the same drivers, cars and teams. Unfortunately of course, given the opposing power bases and respective strengths of the two series, that dream is unlikely to happen. We’ll just have to continue enjoying both series for what they are.