Super GT

Well, apparently JGTC has been renamed to Super GT, in view that it will now be an international event with at least 3 rounds in foreign circuits every year.

Cool... apparently it is deffinately coming back next year to the US. YaY!

And Supaa GT is a more Japanese-sounding name than JGTC was anyway (even though JGTC had "Japan" in the name). It's not really Japanese unless it's "Supaa" or "Mega" or "Challenge" or something. That's one thing I love about the Japanese: they're unabashedly cheesy.

Yeah, they are trying to get more international teams and drivers as part of the concept, but most of them will not race under the JAF. If a deal was to be made with say, the FIA, it could grow quite popular with international teams.

http://marvin3m.com/supergt.jpg
But I feel old for rememebering "Sega Super GT" ;)

Dude! That game rules!

uGH...If FIA gets involved JGTC/Super GT may never be the same... for the worse! FIA and there stupid rules! Why mess with perfection?

But I agree... an International Challenge would rock.

We're already seeing so many import cars like the 360 in JGTC.. it was only a matter of time before someone had the idea of incorporating FIA rules.

The FIA and the JGTC have the right idea with beginning an alliance and beginning to bring their rulebooks more in line with each other.

JGTC has a good product that's viable the world over, but Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are not enough to run a worldwide series if your privateers don't have money enough to travel AND compete.

FIA GT has a good product but is low visibility due to living in the ACO's shadow. There's a ton of rich privateer teams who're already experienced with travelling and there are loads of established factory and factory supported programs.

From what I understand, talking to stateside PR people who were with the GT Live event, the Super GT's ambition is to create a worldwide GT series that unites the numerous similar regional GT series.

Problem is, Super GT hasn't quite figured that in order for them to unite, their teams are going to have to lose quite a few rounds. Chevrolet is not going to tell Pratt & Miller to toss restrictors on the Corvette C6R so that a heavily modified, decade old, out of production Toyota can beat it. They've invested too much in a winning ALMS program to go lose elsewhere.

Super GT can include a huge number of cars. Think about it.

Series Cars From America

- SCCA Trans-Am and GT1
- ex GARRA AGT
- ALMS GTS
- ex GARRA GTS

Series Cars From Europe

- FIA GT
- British GT Championshop
- Belcar
- DTM

Series Cars From the Pacific

- JGTC
- Australian V8 Supercars
- Procar championship

That's a ton of cars. Two cars from each series would be a 22 car field!

However, in order for this to happen, there has to be excellent communication and co-operation between all of these rival sanctioning bodies (I do NOT envy the guy who tries to get SCCA Pro, IMSA/ALMS, and GARRA to all work together). There cannot be a clearly superior formula, save perhaps for local races.

Think about it. If you have a fairly free and open rule set, instead of relying on a few very well-funded teams to make up the grid, you can pad the grid with local entries.

Say, for example, Super GT holds a Championship round at Portland. The big budget teams that travel the whole series would definitely be there (from a purely hypothetical standpoint, I'll use FIA GT, ALMS, and JGTC teams as examples) as it's a championship round. The car lineup could look like this.

Motul Works Nissan 350Z
Xanavi Nissan 350Z
Woodones Toyota Supra
Denso Sard Toyota Supra
Hasemi Sport Nissan 350Z
Takata Dome Honda NSX
Arta Honda NSX
AF Corse Maserati MC12
AF Corse Maserati MC12
Konrad Saleen S7R
Acemco Saleen S7R
Prodrive Aston Martin DB9R
Chevrolet Corvette C6R
Chevrolet Corvette C6R
CARE Racing Ferrari 575GTC
Lister Storm GT
RML Racing Saleen S7R
JMB Racing Ferrari 575GTC
BMW M6 GT1

Okay, that's the cream of the crop in JGTC, ALMS, and FIA GT. That's only a 19 car field. Hardly enough to fill up Portland.

So what do we do? We appeal to the locals. Portland is a Trans-Am/SCCA GT1 stronghold. Let guys like Brian Simo, Leighton Reese, and (provided he can stop bitching for ten seconds) the whole of Paul Gentilozzi's Team Rocketsports run with the guys.

And don't force them to change their equipment any more than weight ballast. No bitching about "they have full tube frames" or "they have big 600+ cfm carburetors". If the Trans-Am boys can beat you on their turf, congrats. There's media sizzle right there. Best in the world versus "hometown heroes". Technological War of the Worlds, and so forth.

Racing is like theater. You gather the players, place them in the roles they are best suited for, and but for the grace of the audience will they enjoy the show. The most you can do to ensure that is to give them a story they're guaranteed to like.

And, by the way, page out of the GTP handbook. Nothing sells like speed.

Well, back to this year's Super GT, Eric Comas will be running in the G'zox Z car once again! I can't wait to see them in action.

The FIA and the JGTC have the right idea with beginning an alliance and beginning to bring their rulebooks more in line with each other.

JGTC has a good product that's viable the world over, but Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are not enough to run a worldwide series if your privateers don't have money enough to travel AND compete.

FIA GT has a good product but is low visibility due to living in the ACO's shadow. There's a ton of rich privateer teams who're already experienced with travelling and there are loads of established factory and factory supported programs.

From what I understand, talking to stateside PR people who were with the GT Live event, the Super GT's ambition is to create a worldwide GT series that unites the numerous similar regional GT series.

Problem is, Super GT hasn't quite figured that in order for them to unite, their teams are going to have to lose quite a few rounds. Chevrolet is not going to tell Pratt & Miller to toss restrictors on the Corvette C6R so that a heavily modified, decade old, out of production Toyota can beat it. They've invested too much in a winning ALMS program to go lose elsewhere.

Super GT can include a huge number of cars. Think about it.

Series Cars From America

- SCCA Trans-Am and GT1
- ex GARRA AGT
- ALMS GTS
- ex GARRA GTS

Series Cars From Europe

- FIA GT
- British GT Championshop
- Belcar
- DTM

Series Cars From the Pacific

- JGTC
- Australian V8 Supercars
- Procar championship

That's a ton of cars. Two cars from each series would be a 22 car field!

However, in order for this to happen, there has to be excellent communication and co-operation between all of these rival sanctioning bodies (I do NOT envy the guy who tries to get SCCA Pro, IMSA/ALMS, and GARRA to all work together). There cannot be a clearly superior formula, save perhaps for local races.

Think about it. If you have a fairly free and open rule set, instead of relying on a few very well-funded teams to make up the grid, you can pad the grid with local entries.

Say, for example, Super GT holds a Championship round at Portland. The big budget teams that travel the whole series would definitely be there (from a purely hypothetical standpoint, I'll use FIA GT, ALMS, and JGTC teams as examples) as it's a championship round. The car lineup could look like this.

Motul Works Nissan 350Z
Xanavi Nissan 350Z
Woodones Toyota Supra
Denso Sard Toyota Supra
Hasemi Sport Nissan 350Z
Takata Dome Honda NSX
Arta Honda NSX
AF Corse Maserati MC12
AF Corse Maserati MC12
Konrad Saleen S7R
Acemco Saleen S7R
Prodrive Aston Martin DB9R
Chevrolet Corvette C6R
Chevrolet Corvette C6R
CARE Racing Ferrari 575GTC
Lister Storm GT
RML Racing Saleen S7R
JMB Racing Ferrari 575GTC
BMW M6 GT1

Okay, that's the cream of the crop in JGTC, ALMS, and FIA GT. That's only a 19 car field. Hardly enough to fill up Portland.

So what do we do? We appeal to the locals. Portland is a Trans-Am/SCCA GT1 stronghold. Let guys like Brian Simo, Leighton Reese, and (provided he can stop bitching for ten seconds) the whole of Paul Gentilozzi's Team Rocketsports run with the guys.

And don't force them to change their equipment any more than weight ballast. No bitching about "they have full tube frames" or "they have big 600+ cfm carburetors". If the Trans-Am boys can beat you on their turf, congrats. There's media sizzle right there. Best in the world versus "hometown heroes". Technological War of the Worlds, and so forth.

Racing is like theater. You gather the players, place them in the roles they are best suited for, and but for the grace of the audience will they enjoy the show. The most you can do to ensure that is to give them a story they're guaranteed to like.

And, by the way, page out of the GTP handbook. Nothing sells like speed.

I just don't see that happening... I hope they just leave well enough alone.

Another option for "International" participation is to send over racers from all-over the world (think WRC) to Japan and other countries to compete. Having companies like Ford, Chevrolet, etc. become involved is going to be a job though.

Except that sports car racing is and always will be CAR oriented. It's one of the hurdles that GARRA is trying to conquer by giving drivers more recognition than individual car types.

(notice, the big news out of Daytona wasn't that a Riley Pontiac won, but that Max Angelleli and Wayne Taylor won)

JGTC already has a multi-national grid of drivers (Krumm, anyone?) so bringing in an even bigger mix of drivers won't help a damn thing.

Cars attract people to sports car racing. Bring in more cars, bring in more fans. And the way to bring in more cars in sports car racing is to have a strict but open ruleset that encourages close competition. The minute one car type is favored or one manufacturer begins to completely outpace the rest of the field, say bye-bye to the rest of the field. They'll spend their money elsewhere, and so will the fans.

Ever wonder where the Speed World Challenge fans came from? They're two groups of people, primarily. Folks who enjoy SCCA club racing and like seeing it on the Pro level and folks who used to watch Trans-Am. SWC grabbed the Trans-Am fans because Trans-Am folks were sick to death of seeing Paul Gentilozzi and Rocketsports dominate with their Jags.

SWC has Audi RS6's, Viper Competition Coupes, Cadillac CTS-V's, Volvo S60R's, Porsche 911GT3 Cup Cars, Corvette Z06's, BMW M3's, Saleen Mustangs... The list goes on and all of them have a realistic shot at winning.

You bring out racing like that with the level of modification JGTC has, and I can predict big crowds, but it has to be fair, balanced, and strictly policed. The SCCA tech guys who run SWC are tech nazis. Each individual make of car has a very strict "modification index" that says exactly what can and cannot be done to make the car faster and in fact outlines some of what's done to slow down the cars to keep the field together.

There's the recipe for the perfect "Super GT". Speed World Challenge, except with more modification and pricier cars.

Well, the 2005 entry list is out.

http://supergt.net/supergt/news/2005news/sgtnews05030301.htm

Cusco is running a Subaru again this year... but I see something really interesting in GT300. It's a Boxster GT.

yeah see heres the thing... i dont speak japanese... i got like 3 cars out of that whole list.