You were never crazy, NASCAR was paying teams and trying to crush the ALMS with Grand Am! (Updated!)

 Since was posted in a NASCAR land newspaper, I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere. Maybe others have seen it and the general reaction is "water under the bridge" since Grand Am bought the ALMS to create the new Tudor United Sports Car Championship that begins at Daytona next year.

 However when Murphy The Bear often spoke of this truth, he was called all sorts of names including the often used "conspiracy theorist". Usually its because the lack of any real investigation leads to opinions about things, rather than facts.

 Well, we finally have the facts and Grand Am fans will need to eat quite a bit of crow.

 http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/06/4367131/divorce-case-exposes-struggles.html#.UldHt1Csg1i

 Its funny how a divorce often uncovers things you wouldn't expect.

 Grand Am was and never well be fondly remembered as much as the ALMS will be and that's just the truth. This sort of information puts a final nail in the Grand Am's coffin. I will be watching the new braintrust very closely.

 Thanks to Peter Delorenzo for posting this on his blog!

 Update #1

 I had to do a bit of searching on Murphy's blog which he no longer post too as he lost interest in covering the downward spiral of the ALMS. I don't blame him... The bungling at under the current management is astounding. The complete and total mismanagement of the Porsche, Audi, Acura LMP story which blew up in Acura's face when they were the only players left in 2009 after committing to LMP1 right before the financial crisis blew up in Oct of 2008.

 Here's the post from 2009 that confirmed NASCAR's payment plan to teams which included Brumos and Spirit of Daytona. Having known this since before 2009 actually; that is why I can't take anything Jim Keane says seriously. As the co-host of The Racing Insiders and employee of Spirit of Daytona when he complains about cost to upgrade the slower than dirt DP's up to LMP2 pace, it rings very hollow. The majority of his employer's bills (and his paycheck) are paid by General Motors or Government Motors as some people like to call them.

 Its this sort of bs that if the general public knew would turn them off of sports car racing.

 I'm going to continue to dig deeper because its unfortunate that we had to lose the battle when we didn't have too. In the end, we as ALMS fans have won the war, but we're forced to accept the DP's and even Michael Shank is giddy about running at Le Mans, in what I have no idea because I doubt seriously DP's in any guise will be accepted by the ACO.

TRG to enter Aston Martin Vantage GT3 at Penultimate Grand Am race

 Looks like TRG-Aston Martin has entered their Vantage V12 GT3 at the Laguna Seca round as Darren Turner, factory Aston Martin driver is on the driver strength with recent World Challenge winner Brandon Davis.

  Entry List

 I am going to guess this is an opportunity to collect data vs the Grand Am spec cars that are basically going to rolled into GT-D next season.

 I'm a little bit skeptical because I really think FIA cars at Sonoma could have finished higher than they did but didn't want to interfere with the championship that is being fought between Sofronas and O'Connell.

 According to Brad Kettler of Audi North America Consumer Sports, the FIA spec car is 4 seconds faster a lap than the car Sofronas runs or the Fall-Line Audi (which are the same). 

 If Sofronas is on pace with the Caddy CTS-V cars and is not considered a Pro driver, what happens when Darren Turner a proven shoe, who's driven Laguna Seca before and owns a professional simulator; is somebody trying to tell me they have no chance to win?

 Will they run unclassifed because there is a tight championship battle in Rolex GT?

 I said to stay tuned because I would have a take on this after seeing the car and how it ran.  

They qualified 10th and finished 10th. With as many changes to the car just to run it to Rolex GT specs is astounding. I would post a picture of an FIA spec car, but with this car's dark color scheme its a bit hard to see without high res pictures.

 But I can tell you (also explained in the press release) that they changed the front fenders (less aggressive), front splitter and looks like the GT4 rear bumper. From the first laps turned in the car, Darren Turner and Brandon Davis both said the car lacked balance or a loose condition (oversteer). 

 This is the same problem that has plagued the Fall-Line Audi R8 LMS Grand Am since getting the car. Grand Am has allowed them to install the rear diffuser from the Ultra to help alleviate that problem and that gets back to my point of allowing pure FIA GT3 cars.

 Here's what I don't understand from a few fans pov. Some are adamant that the only Porsche allowed in GT-D next season is the Porsche (997) 911-GT3 Cup "America". I read the press release which I will not link to because frankly this is not the direction USCC should going in. From the announced specs, the America is basically a Super Cup Porsche with a NASCAR/Grand Am mandated rollcage thickness. The main difference between the cars running Rolex GT or ALMS GTC is the Super Cup car has ABS.

 I understand the reasoning  behind this is to save teams money. But as I keep saying, even spending $100K more for most racing teams is nothing, they will spend it somewhere else and they will spend it, they won't save it.

 There is some interest from some Audi GT3 teams in Europe to run at least Daytona and possibly the North American Endurance Championship (Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Petit Le Mans) and I know there interest in GT-D from Black Swan and others.

 This is not the time to force teams into making expensive changes to existing cars, blunting the impact of the FIA GT3 cars that I and other fans are clamoring for.

 Some are concerned about the overall lap speed of the FIA GT3 cars. Being the slowest class where they are now some 8-10 seconds slower than P2/LMPC/DP and 5-6 seconds GTLM; Again according to Brad Kettler of Audi Customer Sports USA the FIA GT3 spec Audi R8 Ultra is 4 seconds faster than the Grand Am/GTC spec car. In many championships GT3 cars run a spec tire as well.

 On a optimized tire they can lap very close to a GTLM car. But development has been halted by SRO and the FIA; Even then they are 2-3 seconds per lap slower. At a recent International GT Open race at Spa, the best lap time by a GTS (FIA GT3) car was 2:22.556 and the best lap by former F1 driver Montermini in his GT (GTE spec 2013) Ferrari F458 was 2.20.360.

 On tighter tracks and slippery surfaces, the GTS car may have a slight advantage over a GTLM car because they ABS and Traction Control, while the GTLM cars have just Traction Control.

 With the Pro-Am mandate for this class, at its fastest the car will be 2-3 seconds slower than GTLM and at least 4-6 seconds slower with the Am driver.

 This will make them 6-7 seconds slower than the fastest class which is plenty. 

 With the Pro-Am mandate removed from P2 in USCC competition, I don't see any difficulties with pro drivers being forced to make quality passes around Pro Am drivers, which is something they are used too, it doesn't matter if they don't quite blow away the slowest class as dramatically as they do now.

 Please join me in my push to make Elkins and USCC bring FIA GT3 cars into GT-D WITHOUT ANY CHANGES to the cars. 

I'll take a stab at it - USCR Schedule (11 Races?)

I can't post on Ten-Tenths anymore, right? No problem, I got a blog....

So recently (August) this thread was started and it talks about the possible full season entry list and schedule for the first year of the new USCR series. 

 I talk a bit about the entry list, at least in GT-D here. 

This post will focus on the schedule.

 After reading the tea leafs, listening to podcast and reading various things around the internet, I come up with this -

1. Rolex Daytona 24
2. Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring
3. Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix*
4. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
5. 6 Hours of Watkins Glen
6. Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (Mosport)
7. Road America
8. Baltimore 
9. Detroit (Labor Day Weekend)
10. Circuit of The Americas (Austin)
11. Petit Le Mans

The (*) is for the possible split race(s) we might see. Long Beach (Southern California) is a very important market for the automakers. The problem is paddock space. There are usually six different series/races at the track that one weekend. 

 Marshall Pruett has said that Long Beach is for sure back on the schedule likely for the reasons I said above but that because of the limited paddock space, might be a GTLM/GT-D only race.

 Again this would make sense because these are based on actual street cars unlikely prototypes.

 I do believe however there is an element of the sports car fan base that wants to see prototypes racing even if they are DP's which have proven unpopular in California or P2's which are the same as P1 but use stock block based engines.

 It seems IMSA/USCR could be bringing back the split race format just for this event.

 You'll notice Kansas Speedway which was run for the first time by Grand Am a few weeks ago. As I understand it, NASCAR recently signed that deal with Kansas to have racers there. I included Laguna Seca because both series have run there for the last 5-9 years. But to keep it the season at 11 races, Laguna might be on the chopping block.

 I based that on the desire for Atherton to keep the shared dates with Indycar. That would lock-in Detroit, Long Beach and Baltimore. There is also a rumor of Indycar using the road course at Indy and I know Grand Am had run there the last two seasons, but nothing is confirmed yet.

 So if I had to add Kansas and Indy to the schedule, who else is on the chopping block?

 Peter Delorenzo is reporting that USCR will not be returning to Baltimore. If thats true, then I guess we run Indy during the month of May on the road course to the Indy 500 weekend, instead of with the NASCAR and the Brickyard 400 weekend.

 I know Indycar has expressed the desire to end the 2014 season on Labor Day weekend. The rumor has Detroit being that race and that would make sense. The race previous to its current location on the calendar is late August.

 Seems there's a general agreement that VIR won't return, but that likely depends on the response to the share WEC/ALMS weekend in two weeks.

 On Mid-Week Motorsports Marshall commented that if USCR doesn't give a date to Lime Rock, that it could send the Continental Tire series and other support series to the track. I also agree with him that there should be at least one more race in Canada.

 So given the explanations, the revised schedule would look like this -

1.  Daytona
2.  Sebring
3.  Long Beach
4.  Indy 500 Weekend
5.  Watkins Glen
6.  Mosport
7.  Road America
8.  Detroit
9.  Kansas
10.  Circuit of The Americas
11.  Petit Le Mans (Road Atlanta)

 This sort of makes sense and would please most of the ALMS fan base. The lost of Laguna Seca might be temporary as I think 2014 is sort of a holding pattern to find out who is going to go with the series long term. By having only 11 races, when 12-14 are very possible its likely taking in account the increased budgets needed just to complete all the added endurance races.

 Grand Am is adding 12 and 10 hour races to its schedule. While the ALMS is adding a 24 hour races to its schedule and that doesn't include the teams going to Le Mans.

 *Laguna Seca was a 6 hour race but reduced to 4 hours this season

 Any questions? 

GT-D will see the most changes in USCR's debt season

 A continued discussion from this post, I hope your enjoying it and find it easy to follow along, I understand it can be confusing at times.

 Now where were we...

 Actually it was suggested by Cory over at Motorsport.com that I shorten my blog post a bit, he believes many readers suffer from ADD. I don't think you can be a sports car racing fan and have ADD, it just wouldn't work.

 Anyway, we'll finish up with the ALMS GTC teams and I'll give you a final count of what the grid will look like next season.

 Last time I talked about the TRG and its switchover from Porsche to Aston Martin. I also talked about Alex Job Racing and the possibility of them switching from Porsche as well.

 If that happens, like it did in 2008 when Porsche was in triage mode and expanded support to Flying Lizard to three cars after Tafel Racing (there's a blast from the recent past huh?) left to join Ferrari (and give them a mighty run to the 2008 GT Championship). Porsche could be again in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar spot in the United States that they are not the prefered brand for endurance sports car racing.

 Especially with Mercedes Benz dominating the Endurance races this season. Bernd Schneider has had an unbelievable string of successes this season. Not only did he win the Nurburgring 24hr race, but the Dubai 24 to open the season, Bathurst 12 hr and finally the Spa 24 a few weeks ago.

 In fact if you don't count Porsche's victory at Le Mans which honestly was a bit tainted by Aston Martin's valiant run and death of Allan Simonsen, Porsche has not won a major international race this season. In fact they may not win any national championships of note this season. At least Manthey is defending International GT Open Champion but they aren't racing in that series this season, to focus on WEC and the factory Porsche effort.

 That just means there are several competitive marks/brands and all of them are interested in the merged series next year. In fact the only momentum towards next season seems to be in the slowest class, GT-D.

 With that in mind, where does that leave Flying Lizard, Patrick Dempsey and JDX Racing?

 I think we're about to see how deep Seth Neimans loyalty runs toward Porsche. Since they were not picked to run the Porsche factory effort in the WEC and Porsche was not going to release the 991 based car to customers yet, Flying Lizard severed their ties and for 2013 moved down to GTC where ironically you are forced to run Porsches. That mean losing the services of not just Jorg Bergmeister but also Patrick Long, as he scrambled to find work and landed rides with Park Place in Grand Am and Core Autosport in the ALMS.

 As the preeminent Porsche Semi-works team since 2007, it would be hard to imagine them going another direction.

 For Dempsey-Del Piero, entering GTC was viewed as a stopgap measure to keep his team together while Mazda sorted out its SkyActiv Diesel program that was originally slated to be installed in Dempsey's Lola Coupe. But that was not to be as the birth of the SkyActiv racing engine was difficult and that part of the program with Dempsey was scrubbed. They decided instead to reskin Speed Source's Mazda RX-8's to make them Mazda 6's since that was the car the SkyActiv diesel production engine was going to debut in.

 It was a failure from the start and thankfully will be shelved next season. But what does that mean for Patrick Dempsey for USCR and Le Mans?  If GX lap times are any indication, I don't think that is the direction they are going even if they go back to P2.

 He could just opt to stay in GT-D and this is where I believe a few Cup cars might make their way onto the GT-D grid next season.

 JDX Racing has no connections to Porsche but could be in line for one of the many Semi-works programs slated to be in GT-D next season. I know Audi, Bentley, SRT, Nissan and Benz are actively seeking partners (you buy the car, they supply the pro drivers  and tech support).

 The same goes for N-GT, even if they run in Yokohama Cup as well, that doesn't not signal any allegiance to the brand.

 My prediction is that one of these teams will not return for 2014 and that if there are less than 3 teams that want to run Cup cars next season, then there will be no Cup cars next season.

 No reason to balance what is possibly a of minimum of ten GT3 cars to one or two Cup cars

 As it stands I have at least 10 confirmed entries in GT-D, all FIA or upgraded Grand Am GT3 cars (Fall-Line, AJR, Black Swan, AIM, Scuderia Corsa & TRG-Aston Martin) based on present car count and historical norms.

 Its likely more and here's why -

•  Fall Line has fallen back (no pun) to a one car effort (was two) in order to continue to develop the cars for next season (committed to USCR and GT-D). Its likely they will return with a two car effort and support from Audi (drivers/tech support). +1
• Black Swan hasn't made it official yet but has expressed interest in at least a partial USCR schedule next season. +1
• Peter LeSaffre (Green Hornet) has sold his SLS GT3 according to John Dagys. An announcement is expected soon +1
• Global Motorsports Group (GMG) has competed in the ALMS GTC class before, they switched to Audi R8's this season in World Challenge, so I am going to assume we will see them a few times next season +1
• Ben Keating is first buyer of the soon to be built SRT Viper GT3 car +1
• Nissan is likely to enter a car for its current US GT Academy Winner Bryan Heitkotter as it has been doing with its other drivers in Blancpain and FIA GT +1
• Bentley is actively looking for partners (semi works) +1
• Elton Julian's Dragonspeed team has a Audi R8 LMS Ultra. Given Julian's history in the ALMS and the fact that he runs a LMPC car for somebody, I'm sure he would like to enter his Audi into GT-D

 Out of those seven, six are likely full season entries, well GMG is the likely part-time entry focusing on World Challenge.

 That means of the current total of 18 cars in GTC/Rolex GT combined, we'll have a field of at least 17-18 regular season entries, that could easily double for Sebring, Petit, Daytona and Watkins Glen.

We'll just have to see what happens...

FIA GT3 in USCR: How do we get down to 35-45 entries as John Dagys has mentioned? I'll Show You....

 When John first said that, I was taken aback as I didn't see how that could be possible, but then I thought about it more and as rumors have turned into reality; Its very possible to get a combined field of 60+ cars down to about half of that plus a few more.

 Let's take stock of what we have in GTC and Rolex GT currently. 

 At Kansas last weekend, 10 GT cars showed up and raced.

 Next weekend's ALMS@Baltimore, 9 GTC cars are entered.

 For a grand total of 19. That will fluctuate 1-2 cars in either series because Grand Am has only two races left, while the ALMS has three including Petit.

 What has been confirmed by several sources is that the GX class which was initially thought to be folded into the new GT-D class will not happen. I think this forced the hand of Stevenson Motorsports who bowed out of the series next season to focus on the Continental Tire series.

 Also factoring into this is: Confirmed by Will Turner of Turner Motorsports, that BMW will not support his Prep 2 (Tube Frame) BMW M3's next season. 

 The 4 Series is the sport coupe that BMW will be promoting next season as they just announced that the current M3 bodyshells will be replaced by the 4 series coupe in 2014 DTM.

 So in effect no tube frame cars at all. Mazda I assume will make a formal announcement soon about its intentions, which are rumored to be moving to a customer support roll.

 60 cars, minus 5+3 = 52 or broken down by series -

 All GX cars, both Turner BMW's and the Stevenson's Camaro

 *I am not counting the Marsh Racing Corvette because its been already announced they will be moving up to a DP Corvette.

 That's not all the carnage, that's just the beginning!

 I believe all the Porsche GT3 Cup cars are in jeopardy as well. They might now all disappear from the series but they will not be competitive and will drop away completely by the end of the season in 2014.

 This is mostly from my personal belief that nobody buying a brand new FIA spec GT3 wants it to be dumbed down to Grand Am Porsche GT3 Cup/ALMS GTC speed.

 So with that, let's talk about what will happen to the teams that currently run these cars.

 From the Grand Am side of things, that is two regular season entries; Park  Place Motorsports and Magnus Racing.

 Nobody knows these teams intentions for next year at the moment but I expect something next month as both series start to wind down. That said John Potter spoke to John Hindbaugh on Mid-Week Motorsports about the history of Magnus and the possibilities of next season. Potter didn't confirm anything or really tip his hand, but from what he said. I believe he'll be in the USCR next season and in a FIA GT3 spec car, maybe a Porsche, maybe not.

 Park Place on the other hand is a Porsche specialist out of Dallas, TX. Similar to Turner Motorsports with BMW, they live and breathe the cars they specialize in and that's what they race. Weather that is their current Cup car modified to roughly World Challenge spec (larger engine inlet, ABS) or soon to be announced 991 based Porsche 911 GT3-R is unknown.

 So that's Magnus confirmed, Park Place unconfirmed and not on the entry list at Laguna Seca in two weeks.

 Things are a bit more firm over in the ALMS paddock...

 TRG (The Racer's Group) announced they would be the US representative for Aston Martin Racing late last year (2012). We haven't seen much from this, only a flash here and there, mainly in SCCA World Challenge GTS with modified GT4 Vantages.

 I personally saw the cars at Long Beach earlier this year (2013). 

 However that is changing with the official US competitive debut of the Vantage GT3 car at this weekend SCCA World Challenge round at TRG's home track (where they are based) Sonoma. I am going to assume TRG will finish the ALMS GTC season with Porsches but at Daytona next Feb they will have Aston Martins.

Testing at Sonoma

 Buckler himself will return to the cockpit for this race, I am not sure if that will carry over into next season, I sort of doubt it.

 Alex Job Racing can go in one of several directions. Since they broke out of their Porsche specialist mold a few years, they have successfully run an Audi R8 LMS Grand Am (Winners at Daytona 24) and run a Ferrari in the very competitive ALMS GT class with Yokohama tires. 

 I am fairly sure, they will be defending their Daytona 24 class victory but with what is the question? They have connections to Audi via Brad Kettler, Bill Sweedler owns the Ferrari F458 GT and of course AJR are defending GTC class champions in the ALMS. Alex Job himself is on record saying he would buy whatever car was competitive and give him the best chance of winning. In the past, that usually was a Porsche, but that might not be the case any longer and here's why.

 The Ferrari F458 GT3 car is extremely easy to get a good lap time from. This has been echoed around the world if you bother to listen. The latest to sing its praises is former Indycar driver Alex Tagliani who liked it so much, he put it on the pole at Kansas last weekend and has had only limited running in the car. He said it reminded him of his days in Toyota Atlantic with Anthony Lazaro who also drives a Ferrari F458...

 Now that AJR has a connection with Ferrari and is currenting running two cars in two classes, its is not much of a stretch to assume he could run both the GT3 and GT versions of the cars. In fact, I think it would be idea. Sweedler and McNeil can run Ferraris in GT-D with a Pro co-driver, while Townsend Bell and Leh Keen can continue to drive the GT-LM car.

 If you're reading this Alex, be sure to put a check in the mail or at least invite me into paddock next season at Long Beach...

 From there its a bit muddy and I talk about the possibilities here. 

  

  

The beginning of a Fan Forum?

 A few days ago, Leo Parente and some of this staff at Drive Network/Shakedown got together to tackle the mammoth task of repairing the sport of auto racing in America, which is
badly needed.

 I also made a video reply to their 30 mins video. 30 mins is not enough time to get to all the problems, not just in America but around the world. So I plan on making a series of videos in the hopes of generating interested in a fan forum.

 The only way to keep this opaque sport from self-destruction and that's for the fans that watch the races on TV and attend the races in person to speak up!

In the dept of overlooked stories in the media: USRC GTC/Rolex GT unaddressed thus far in the media

 Be sure to catch International GT Open on YouTube this weekend. If you can't catch it live, give it about an hour and watch the reply. Its not Geo Blocked so anybody can watch it.

 DTM will be making their annual appearance at the Norisring street circuit. Its also live and unblocked on YouTube as well.

 Anyway I was unaware of this, but driver Mike Hedlund apparently has a blog on called Maximum Attack. He's made in my mind an insightful post about the "other" GT class in the upcoming merged series (USCR). It also appears on Motorsport.com's web site.

 He supports moving the entire class to FIA spec GT3 cars.

 I also support this move, it makes sense, but of course as with lots of things in America today, it might not happen. 

 That is unless YOU the fan get involved.

 I have made it my personal mission to make USCR accept changing the Rolex GT/ALMS GTC class to FIA GT3 spec. It offers close racing via BoP and spec tire regulations. Some call these unregulated regulations are a cause of concern in media circles (Radio Le Mans) that I believe are largely unfounded.

 The base technological regulations are spec across the board. All the cars have mandated and restricted aero devices such as the size of splitters and rear wing dimensions. All the cars have ABS, Traction Control and Sequential/Paddle Shift.

 Balance of Performance which is controversial with some fans of Sports Car/Road Racing, it makes for close and competitive racing (the show) so I really don't have a problem with it as long as its fair.

 The results and popularity can not be argued.

 The only arguments against a change would be based on Grand Am's founding principals of close competitions and affordability. The results you see are a DP class slower than P2's in ACO spec at are the same price and a Rolex GT class slower than ACO GT and FIA GT3 yet cost no less.

 It will add the diversity that the ALMS fan base love. Some of these cars are already in the United States -

Black Swan (Tim Pappas) racing in SCCA World Challenge.

James Sofronas' of GMG also runs a GT3 spec Audi R8. I know these are not brand new cars (LMS Ultra) and seem to be 2009-2010 spec. The cars they run have open side windows like Grand Am Rolex GT spec cars.

 The real issue with having a Grand Am spec car is that technology that is allowed by rules in Europe are removed in a bid to reduce cost. But they don't reduce cost! These cars cost $450K + or the same prices as an FIA GT3 spec car. 

 It doesn't have to be this way, there are minor differences between FIA GT4 cars and Continental Tire Sports Car Championship. The biggest differences is fuel cell size since refueling is common in America, diameter of the rollcage (larger in America) and as of 2011 an FIA spec rear wing and splitter.

 I am unsure why Grand Am runs open side windows other than I think again to reduce cost, but again they don't. Audi had to use wind tunnel time to reposition the rear wing as the open side windows impacted the effectiveness of the rear wing. They run closed side window in FIA GT3 and I believe have air cond like ACO GT cars.

 Also removed from the Audi's especially are the front dive planes and the updated aero of the LMS Ultra.

 USRC is a reboot of two series merged, there is no reason to continue this foolish notion of cost savings for the sake of cost.

 This is our chance as fans to shape the series we pay to watch, please join me, Mike Hedlund and others who I know share this vision.

 Update: Elkins "I think what we need to do is do things that are more inviting to manufacturers to come play with us and not things that hold them up,” Elkins said. “By building a car to a single specification, where it can only race in one place, puts us in a difficult path. 

“I'm not being critical on how things were done in the past but I think we need to be more open-minded on how we approach realizing that people are going to want to come and race with us because there's only one series. So we have to look at things differently."

 Ding Dong the witch is dead! Its only a matter of time (I'd say ONE season) for Prep 2 cars to be phased out completely and the entire paddock switching to GT3 for loads of reasons.

 First: It would allow an American based team to ship a car to Dubai to run a 24 race in preparation for the Daytona 24 about a month later.

 Second: It would allow an American team to run Blancpain, ADAC GT, British GT, FIA GT Series, Blancpain/Spa 24 or VLN/N24. No changes needed, put the car on a ship or a plane and run those events.

 Third: It would give GTD (Rolex GT, GX, GTC) some badly needed diversity

 Fourth: Teams and the new series would be getting out ahead of any potential merger between SRO/FIA GT3 regulations (or lack thereof in somes cases) and ACO/Le Mans GT (LMGT) regulations that are likely to happen by 2016 since the manufacturers are pushing this.

 John Dagys has the full interview here

 Update # 1

 SRT has just announced 2-Time Viper Club Champing Ben Keating is the first customer for the recently released Viper GT3 that's eligible for the various GT3 based championships including GTD in next year merged USRC series.

 Check out the story by John Dagys here