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Oct232011

Sunday, October 23, 2011 at 04:39PM

October 26, 2011

Why a unified, major league U.S. Road Racing Championship is desperately needed by 2014. And why it's probably not going to happen.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

(Posted 10/23, 5:00 p.m.) Detroit. Those of you who have followed this column over the years know that one of my biggest pet peeves (among many) about the racing business here in the U.S. is the continued fractured state of major league road racing. On one side we have the Grand-Am series, owned and operated under the auspices of NASCAR and led by Jim France. On the other we have the American Le Mans Series, founded by Don Panoz and led by Scott Atherton.

Simply put, the Grand-Am series was formed as a stopgap measure to prevent Don Panoz from controlling major league road racing here in the U.S. Beyond that there wasn't any noble ideal attached to this endeavor, it was just the France family - which controls the Daytona International Speedway and NASCAR - moving to protect the one major league road race asset they controlled - the Daytona 24 Hours - by forming a road racing series around it. (Much in the same vein as Tony George once did by forming the Indy Racing League through his control over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500.)

The only problem with this strategy was that the Daytona 24 Hours had devolved into a minor league event, propped up by the France family but not commanding the international status that it once did. There were many factors involved in the degradation of this event over the years, of course, but the France family didn't do themselves any favors by creating a series that featured its own "Daytona Prototype" class of semi-prototype racers, a class of racing machines that doesn't fit under any established international racing classification.

This approach was hardly unexpected, however, as it was consistent with the way that the France family approaches all of its racing, which goes something like this: 1. We know what's best for everyone involved, especially when it adheres closely to our interests. 2. It's better when we control things (see No. 1). And 3. We don't necessarily need international certification or acceptance because here in the U.S. NASCAR is the straw that stirs the drink for all of American racing, and if we want to go road racing we'll do it under our rules, with our cars, at our tracks (mostly) and we will do it at a cadence that works best for us.

But the results have been decidedly mixed, to put it charitably. Like the Indianapolis 500 and the IRL, the Grand-Am series has one race - the Daytona 24 Hours - of note. The rest? A makeshift schedule of races that are so poorly attended that they could be legitimately classified as "non-spectator" events for insurance purposes, with negligible interest from the media to boot.

It didn't help matters much that the Grand-Am prototype ranks were and are primarily made up of amateur teams that choose not to compete in the ALMS for whatever the reason - you can zero in on cost as the overriding issue, for starters - and also, Chip Ganassi's team. Ganassi consistently lures a primary sponsorship from an engine manufacturer (most recently BMW) interested in running - and winning - the Daytona 24 Hours and he usually delivers the win, while getting a deal that allows his team to run the rest of the series. The rest of the DP teams make do with limited sponsorships, while having access to substantial subsidies from Grand-Am itself in order to keep running.

As for the GT class in Grand-Am, success hinges upon whichever manufacturer is doling out enough money at any given time, while the Grand-Am Cup events are - surprisingly enough - the best thing Grand-Am has going, with deep fields and ultra-competitive racing.

Let's leave Grand-Am for a moment and talk about the American Le Mans Series, which exists solely because of the vision, considerable financial wherewithal and pure love for sports car racing that one man - Don Panoz - has brought to the table. Panoz, whose love for the 24 hours of Le Mans and everything associated with it is well-documented, legitimized his series by becoming a sanctioned partner of the ACO and the 24 Hours of Le Mans itself. If, as an American sports car team, you aspire to compete in the world's greatest sports car race - the 24 Hours of Le Mans - there's only one way to do it. And that is to win in the American Le Mans Series first.

Strictly adhering to established international racing classifications, the ALMS specializes in (or, at least it used to) the dazzling Le Mans prototype racers such as those entered by the Audi and Peugeot factory teams, and factory-supported GT racers from BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari and Porsche. A high-cost series, the ALMS enjoys its status as the only sports car racing series here in North America with direct, formal ties to the international racing community.

The ALMS affiliation has worked out exceedingly well for Dan Panoz - at least up until last year - with full fields and tremendous races at classic North American tracks such as Sebring, Road America, Road Atlanta, Laguna Seca, Mosport and the Long Beach street racing extravaganza.

But Panoz' strict adherence to Le Mans has begun to take a turn for the dicey. After working for years at legitimizing the ALMS in the international racing community and spending untold millions out of his own pocket on the series, the French-controlled international racing body (FIA) has moved to establish a new road racing endurance championship that supersedes any national or regional series around the globe. This move has immediately neutered the entire ALMS schedule except for two events, the 12 Hours of Sebring (the premier sports car race here in the U.S.) and the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. Meaning that, unless a manufacturer such as Audi or Peugeot commits to run the entire ALMS series, the fastest prototype racers can only be seen at two ALMS events all season.

Even though the two premier stops on the ALMS schedule - Sebring and Road Atlanta - are indeed spectacular events, the reality for the series is that the prototype class without the regular participation of the top factory teams is sparsely attended, to put it mildly. And even though the ALMS had some of the best pure races in its history this past season, the fact that the top factory prototype teams weren't there for the most part was a glaring negative. (The ALMS GT class racing, on the other hand, has simply been the best road racing this country has ever seen. Yes, even better than the hallowed glory days of the original Trans-Am series.)

So after this admittedly brief primer on these two road racing series, where are they going? Better yet, where is major league road racing in this country going?

Unfortunately it's clear to me after recent developments that the Grand-Am series and the American Le Mans Series are more entrenched than ever in their respective camps.

Grand-Am, knowing full well that its schedule - except for Daytona, Watkins Glen, Road America and perhaps Montreal - is too close to being a running joke, is courting international sports car interests for 2012 and beyond in an attempt at adding legitimacy to its endeavors. Grand-Am believes that by luring some European manufacturers and their road racing teams it will provide exactly the magic elixir it needs to bury the American Le Mans Series once and for all. An unrealistic goal sure to be followed by a bitterly disappointing result, no doubt. But see points 1., 2. and 3. (above) to remind yourself why it will happen anyway.

And the American Le Mans Series, despite being burned by the maneuvering of the FIA to establish a global endurance road racing championship, is hell bent on staying the course by keeping its ties to the 24 Hours of Le Mans solid and active, while tweaking its rules and races to lure more entries.

So this isn't just a standoff, folks. No, it's racing's version of the 100 Year War. Only road racing in this country - and the fans who support it ever so enthusiastically - can't afford even one more season of discord. Why? There are a long list of reasons, but I'll give you a few of the most pressing:

1. Forget the quality of the media coverage of the racing itself and instead zero in on the coverage offered by the traditional "stick and ball" media for both series. Let's call it for what it is, which is borderline nonexistent and abysmal. If I'm a sponsor or a manufacturer I would find this to be totally unacceptable, no matter how much I loved the sport.

2. I can also assure you that in a corporate environment moving toward the globalization of marketing strategies, advertising, media budgets and even creative executions, two road racing series existing in their own little vacuums in a market that's still crucially important in the global arena add up to none. In other words, the fact that there's no single right "buy" for road racing here makes it easy for sponsors and media players to just keep walking on to something else.

3. Manufacturers are devouring new technologies and adding them to their production offerings at a prodigious rate. Direct fuel-injection, turbocharging and other technologies revolving around fuel-efficiency with power are now the basic price of admission in order to compete at virtually every price point in the market. And right now, a manufacturer trying to advertise these technologies has few options. NASCAR can be dismissed by road racing enthusiasts as a branding exercise, but it's still the biggest media play in motorsports in the U.S. Period. Road racing isn't even close. It's barely even on the radar screen, as a matter of fact.

The three above points alone add up to a giant bowl of Not Good all by themselves, but there's more. When you're just barely on the radar screen with the "stick and ball" media and to corporate America's media buyers as these two road racing series are, then there's no rhyme or reason to the support given to them either. Which means if there isn't a reason for being involved with either one of these series as a major sponsor or manufacturer other than "we feel like it" then the strategic, transformative investments so crucial to the long-term health of the sport itself are never established, and thus the series can never grow.

What can be done about this situation, realistically?

When you have two warring factions that would prefer that the other side just go away and die because it would make life easier, well, any form of conciliation or discussion is hard to come by. Damn near impossible, really. And right now I'm feeling that the two road racing factions couldn't be further apart.

But sometimes ideas have to be put on the table and be allowed to percolate in order to ignite discussion or consideration. And that time is now.

Let's consider the two series racing calendars for the 2012 season (below).

2012 American Le Mans Series

March – 12 Hours of Sebring

April – Long Beach

May – Monterey

June – 24 Hours of Le Mans

July – Lime Rock

July – Mosport

August – Mid-Ohio

August – Road America

September – Baltimore

October – Road Atlanta

(A total of 10 races including Le Mans)

2012 Grand-Am Series

January – Daytona 24 Hour

March – Miami

April – Alabama

May – Virginia

May – Lime Rock

June - Detroit

June – Watkins Glen

June – Road America

July – New Jersey

August – Montreal

September – Mid-Ohio

(A total of 11 races)

The two schedules have high points. For Grand-Am the premier event on its 11-race schedule is the Daytona 24 Hours, obviously, with Watkins Glen being the first of the "next best" events. Other highlight stops include Road America, Montreal, Mid-Ohio and possibly the new event in Detroit.

For the ALMS it is the 12 Hours of Sebring, America's oldest and most prestigious endurance race, and Petit Le Mans, with highlight stops at Long Beach, Monterey, Mosport, Mid-Ohio, Road America and the new event in Baltimore. And of course the 24 Hours of Le Mans, at least for the teams that qualify. The ALMS schedule consists of nine events, plus the French endurance classic.

Now let's imagine for a moment that a ray of enlightenment reached Jim France and Scott Atherton simultaneously - kind of like the one that hit John Belushi in the church in The Blues Brothers when he realized that he needed to get the band back together - and together they decided to merge their schedule into one, unified, major league, U.S. Road Racing Championship.

Here's what it might look like:

Proposed 2014 United States Road Racing Championship

January – Daytona: The advantages of a new USRRC are apparent right away. The Daytona 24 Hours opens the season with an impressive array of top line cars in a shoot-out that regains its international stature.

March – Sebring: The natural flow that marked U.S. road racing for decades is restored. Daytona in late January, Sebring in March. The way it should be. The road racing world again turns to the U.S. for the second major endurance race on the calendar.

April – Alabama: The heart of the reborn USRRC schedule begins at Barber Motorsports Park.

April – Long Beach: It's a street circuit, it's a happening, it draws tremendous crowds and the USRRC needs to be there.

May – Monterey: Roll-on up the California coast to Laguna Seca (Mazda Raceway) where the unified, new-look, USRRC finally finds its footing with road racing fans in Northern California.

June – Detroit: The Belle Isle venue is not my favorite, but if GM's buying and Roger Penske is organizing, then the USRRC will be there.

June - Le Mans*: Accommodations will have to be made, but the qualifying USRRC teams selected for participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans will be occupied "over there" for the better part of two weeks. A very, very good thing.

June – Watkins Glen: The Glen deserves to be a stop on the unified USRRC calendar, because it's one of the pillars of road racing in the U.S.

July – Mosport: Canada's greatest track with some of road racing's most ardent fans. A natural fit.

July – Montreal: The fervor for road racing in Canada is well-documented, which is why the USRRC needs to make a second appearance north of the border.

August - Mid-Ohio: The first of a Midwest swing of road races, with the central Ohio circuit - the site of many classic battles in Trans-Am - hosting America's new unified road racing championship.

August – Road America: "America's National Park of Speed," the premier road racing circuit in the United States would be a "must see" stop on the USRRC schedule.

September – Baltimore: This new street circuit event, which met surprising initial success, would be an essential stop on the USRRC calendar.

October – Road Atlanta: Petit Le Mans would be the annual crescendo and culmination of the USRRC season.

*Optional Participation. 14 events total, 13 excluding Le Mans.

Yes, of course there are options and choices. The new track in Austin, for instance, could easily be a stop for the USRRC. And this calendar is only roughed-in with track visits during which months needing to be nailed down, but you can see right away that this new schedule makes tremendous sense on so many levels.

And what about the cars? If I were USRRC czar I would have three classes: Prototype, GT Experimental (GTX) and GT. The prototype class would accommodate all forms of prototypes currently running or on the drawing board, but there would be no sub-classes. For instance, if you want to run a DeltaWing car against the bigger machines, then you'll win because of power-to-weight ratio, handling, aerodynamics and fuel-efficiency. GTX would be an unlimited class left to the manufacturers desires. Somewhat production-based and part run-what-you-brung, cars would have to retain production shapes (more or less) but everything else would be open to interpretation. Wide open. And finally, GT would adhere to the current and future ALMS GT specifications. (The current Grand-Am Cup would compete on the same weekend in their own race.)

First of all, the advantages are clear. With unified marketing, sponsorship and promotional opportunities presented for consideration in one package, media buyers and corporate sponsors could focus their interest on one series. I can't stress enough how this would be positively received. The same can be said for the obvious TV network opportunities. A unified series with more significant financial support would naturally make a better content fit for networks trolling for live programming. A new, unified road racing championship would open the flood gates of consideration for TV network partners, the kind that heretofore hasn't been available to major league road racing in this country. At least not to the depth and breadth that has been desired by the players involved at any rate.

And what about the advantages to the participating manufacturers involved? Let me stress that the global push for more efficiencies at every level by these companies is real and a daily overriding concern. This extends to the motorsport budgets as well, in some cases even more so because they're so visible. Let's say a manufacturer is involved in NASCAR and the NHRA but lacks a cohesive position in road racing, having to spread its motorsports budget over several series. To participate in one major league road racing series would make a lot of sense and be a huge advantage for planning and budget efficiencies.

So there we are. A reborn United States Road Racing Championship would establish a major league presence for road racing in this country while providing viable sponsorship, TV and media opportunities that heretofore were unavailable, or were scaled back to the point of being inconsequential. The USRRC would fundamentally transform the sport of major league road racing in the U.S., something unthinkable or impossible to contemplate in the current environment.

But does it have a chance of happening? Really?

As long as Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series stay ensconced in their respective silos, moving forward together is unlikely to happen under any scenario. And that is the unfortunate reality. There is too much pride (and ego) involved for it to be any other way. One side is convinced that they're right and the other side is wrong, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

There is one way that things could change, however, and that is if the interested manufacturers banded together and said "enough" to the practice of doling out money in random fashion to the ALMS and Grand-Am series in favor of pooling their resources and interest in a new USRRC. How could this happen? If the manufacturers summoned Grand-Am and ALMS interests to a "summit" meeting and informed them that 2013 was the last year either one of them would be getting technical and financial support, and that beginning in 2014 they would be backing a new USRRC, then things would change - unequivocally and emphatically.

But just how realistic is that?

Well, as you read this GM is preparing to unveil their new Grand-Am DP contender at the SEMA show next week in Las Vegas. This car features a chassis configured for the new Grand-Am DP rules, but it also features extensively revised and dramatically swoopy bodywork (with the assistance of Pratt&Miller Engineering) that's much more racy looking, which admittedly has been something long overdue in the DP ranks. But, and this is a very large but, these new cars will also wear the "Corvette" name, which, as you might imagine, is causing more than a little stir within GM Racing and in other parts of the corporation.

Injecting serious money into the Grand-Am series while calling the racers Corvettes is a direct affront to their hugely successful production-based Corvette Racing Team, an organization that has won the GT class in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans six times in twelve years. What this will do to the reputation of the production-based Corvette C6.R ALMS GT racers - machines that have legitimacy around the world due to their tremendous record in international racing - is anyone's guess.

Oh, and by the way and for the record, isn't this the same GM that ridiculed Ford for calling their Nationwide entries "Mustangs" saying they would never do that? That they would never run "Camaros" in Nationwide because they wouldn't be "real" Camaros? And yet now they're going to hang the Corvette name on DP racers that have zero connection to the Corvette? Sounds a bit disingenuous to me. Oh hell, let's call it for what it really is: Bush League Bullshit.

I am quite certain of one thing after all of this, however, and that is this is a classic case of a manufacturer playing on both sides of the playground. Not only is this move nonsensical and a giant insult to Corvette Racing, it's exactly this kind of attitude that will keep American road racing in a permanent state of chaos for years to come. When manufacturers can only play favorites and compete in arenas that they deem politically expedient - or where they've stacked the deck to be certain they'll win - instead of stepping back and looking at the "Big Picture" and doing what's best for the long-term health of the sport, then any idea of a unified road racing series in this country will remain a pipe dream.

And that's the High-Octane Truth for this week in motorsports.

Publisher's Note: As part of our continuing series celebrating the "Glory Days" of racing, we're proud to present another noteworthy image from the Ford Racing Archives. - PMD

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
Daytona Beach, Florida, February 6, 1966. The Shelby American-entered, 427 cu.in. V8-powered No. 98 Ford Mk II driven by Ken Miles/Lloyd Ruby makes a scheduled pit stop in the middle of the night during the Daytona 24 Hour race. The duo qualified on the pole with a time of 1:57.800 and set a torrid pace over the distance winning the race by 8 laps and averaging 173.093 kph. The similar No. 97 Shelby American entry driven by Dan Gurney/Jerry Grant finished second and the No. 95 Holman & Moody-entered Ford Mk II driven by Walt Hansgen and Mark Donohue finished third.

Publisher's Note: Like these Ford racing photos? Check out www.fordimages.com. Be forewarned, however, because you won't be able to go there and not order something. - PMD

See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" with hosts John McElroy, from Autoline Detroit, and Peter De Lorenzo, The Autoextremist, and guests this Thursday evening, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv.