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. 

  

  

Nevermind The Bollocks.... Here Comes FIA GT3!

 More pressure on the USCR to accept FIA GT3 and I think its working.... Pirelli World Challenge Series announced  two weeks ago, they would allow full FIA GT3's into the series next year, no changes.

 Bentley has stated publicly on two occasions, here at official public showing at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and here on Racer via Marshall Pruett; That they would NOT build a version of their new GT3 car just for US regulations. 

 That means the trial balloon that Scot Elkins launched in a press release to John Dagys and said in an interview with Leo Parente on Drive/Shakedown that FIA GT3 cars would be balanced to current Porsche Cup performance, caused Porsche NA to also play the press release game by announcing a US only Porsche GT3 Cup "America". Of course that was a fishing expedition, I wonder how many interested parties have contacted them?

 Its very likely that the USCR will also accept unmodified FIA GT3 cars (ie: No Spec Wing), they MAY get a air restrictor but I don't think the data set I have supports that. Even if the FIA spec Audi R8 GT3 LMS Ultra as tested by Brad Kettler (Audio Customer Sports NA) is four seconds a lap faster than the Grand Am spec car, it still 2-3 seconds slower than the other classes.

 For the teams currently in the GT class of World Challenge that run non-FIA GT3 cars (Cadillac, Volvo and the Porsche Cup) their cars have Traction Control and/or ABS already. 

 The Volvo being AWD is not legal for any FIA/SRO run series. But the Cadillac could possibly be homologated as Cadillacs are sold in Europe and the CTS-V's direct market competition is BMW (M3) and Mercedes Benz (C63).

 Memo to the brass at GM:

 Why not?

 With North America finally getting on the FIA GT3 bandwagon it opens up possibilities for the USRC which has lost all its momentum after its announcement last year. The slow drip of rules and regulations has not helped because many teams really want to compete in the series next season but want to know what the regulations will be for each class.

 The main question marks are:

• Daytona Prototype BoP vs ACO P2
• Adjustments to FIA GT3 cars

 We'll focus on GT3 cars because I don't find the new class structure for Prototypes all that exciting, it's often not even the best race on-track.

 You are about to see an explosion of GT3 cars in America and many teams will run both World Challenge AND the USRC, especially when the Le Mans break comes up. So it's KEY for Scot Elkins and the braintrust at USRC to just allow FIA GT3 cars as-is with MAYBE a air restrictor to slow them down.

 This will save the teams money and I am not one usually to say something like this. But the fewer changes that have to be made between teams that want to run World Challenge or European teams that may come over to run Daytona or Sebring, the better.

 The potential for both series grids to be huge just got a massive boost.

 Right now both ALMS & Grand Am are averaging between 30-32 entries for the shorter races (24 for Grand Am in Kansas) that make up the majority of the season. 

 John Dagys who currently blogs for Foxsports/Speed says to expect 35-45 full season entries in the new series.

 But didn't I just say both series (Grand Am and ALMS) average 30-32 entries per event save for Sebring, Daytona? Put another way, that's 60-64 cars if you combined both fields since no Rolex GT cars have run in the ALMS this season.

 How does it get pared down to 35-45 cars? 

 Read how 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!

Thoughts on this weekends racing action

1) Props to fellow Californian Charlie Kimball for his first victory in the Indycar series

 He drove a great race, was fast all day.  Another caution-free run at Mid-Ohio and the decision to split the strategy from the other Ganassi cars benefited him greatly. But he had to make make a daring pass on Simon Pagenaud to secure the victory. Pagenaud actually had a enough of a lead to beat the pit lane/stop delta time needed to stay ahead. 

 He came out ahead of Kimball but with cold tires couldn't hold him off.

 Not sure what happen to Sato as his weekend went from bad to worst. I believed he finished 1 lap down with transmission issues but finished the race.

 2) What happen to BMW in Moscow?

 Only Farfas managed to make it into superpole qualifying only for it to be cancelled because of President Putin's plane flying in the airspace required for the helicopter to take aerial shots.

 Farfas finished on the podium (3rd) and Derek Werner finish 7th.

 Anyway the short of it is; Spengler's chances of defending his title took a serious blow when he was bullied off the track by Mortara and finished 1 lap down in 19th. Being 27 points behind with four races to go; Rockie is one victory and Top 10 finish ahead of Spengler and doesn't appear ready to start having reliability problems since he dominated most of this race and won with ease.

 Joey Hand got another Top 10 (8th) finish which is more than I can say about Andy Priaulx. He continues to struggle even with a car change for 2013 (He driving Hand's car from 2012). Andy has had one bright spot during his time in DTM, one top ten finish last year. He was never a dominant driver in WTCC, he was consistent points scorer with about 3 victories on average since 2004.

 I guess he's not cut out for DTM, which isn't surprising, plenty of former F1 drivers have tried to win in DTM and haven't. It will be very interesting to see if he's continues in DTM next season because the only other outlet for Priaulx might be 3rd driver duties in USRC with RLL Team BMW. 

 Of course its possible BMW might decide that Hand needs to focus on DTM, which would open up a seat for regular driving duties in USRC, but I think John Edwards is vying for that spot.

 With four races left in DTM and four races after this weekend's ALMS@Road America combination race with Grand Am, the silly season could start in earnest a bit early and people's lives could be drastically different by Christmas.

 If you haven't seen the race, check it out -

 

 3) Remember Jose Maria Lopez? 

 In 2007, he was recruited by Peterson/White Lightning who was partnering with the new Corsa Motorsport team who was also fielding a Ferrari F430. Brand new tub from Italy.... In opening qualifying, he managed to wreck a two race old car. We wouldn't see Corsa again until the Utah race and then a year later when they tried to run a hybrid electric car for the first time in the ALMS.

 Lopez was tapped in the media for the US Formula 1 team that was to be based out of the Charlotte, NC area.

 When that failed, Lopez was a regular in the Argentinian Touring Car Championship (TC2000), where's he's two time champion ('08-'09). He also made some appearances in the final years of the FIA GT series before it moved too its GT1 World format. 

 I'm fairly sure he's done some Blancpain races as well, but don't quote me on that.

 In any event he won race #2 at the WTCC race in Argentina where he was a guest driver. Even though he benefited from a reversed grid, he steadily increased his lead and was helped out tremendously by a stop-n-go penalty given to Yvan Muller who was running him down after starting 8th but was already 3rd after one lap.

 Race #1 was another whitewash by Yvan Muller who increased his point lead yet again. He could actually quit now and nobody would catch him. I don't know what the magic number is, but I may send a Tweet out to Martin Haven to see if he has any idea.

 Rumors are swirling that Muller might be a teammate of Seb Loeb when he makes his WTCC debut next season in a factory backed Citroen.

 Update #1

 Muller has signed with Citroen - http://www.fiawtcc.com/news/detail/id/1329

 There are new regulations for 2014,  stay tuned as I hope to have a Touring Car expert to explain it not only to me but the rest of you. All we know thus far is the cars will be drastically different and all races will be standing start. Its believed BMW will not return to the championship next season, leaving only FWD cars to compete in 2014.

 Next top for the WTCC, Sears Point! I would love to support the series but the truth is, I am saving up for a trip I will discuss very soon and it's too inconvenient to get to the track without a car.

 4) Another interesting weekend for the British Touring Car Championship.

 All the races were very active, lots of close racing. I guess these new championship specific cars are a success.

 The results and standings are here

 If you want to watch any of this stuff in the United States, you have to wait until the off-season on Speed. But Speed is going to be defunct August 17th, so where will you be able to watch this?

•  If you have access to the Speed 2 web site, both the BTCC and WTCC are shown there I believe both live or time-shifted.
• DTM streams their races live on YouTube and its not Geo-Blocked so you can watch it here.

 Failing that you have another way to access this and all the racing you can stand. I will discuss that soon, so stay tuned.