Production Based Road Racing versus Specialty Class Road Racing

[Layla's Keeper]

Okay guys, there are ten tons of road racing classes out there. You've got everything from Daytona Prototypes/LMP's to Spec Miata.

But the question is, in these days of smaller sponsorship oppurtunities and rising racing costs, what's the real future of road racing? What sort of formula should the sanctioning bodies hedge their bets on?

Are specialized cars like Daytona Prototype racers the way to go? Or is the Speed World Challenge paradigm really where it's at? Or do the two need to meet half-way like Trans-Am, GTS, or DTM cars?

C'mon, let's hear some opinions. Wake this forum up people!

[ac427cpe]

road racing will always be most successful where there are people with a lot of money to throw into it. as costs go up, that field will narrow. what we will be left with are cars with basic bolted on modifications in ameture classes, and high power/ new technology/ few drivers. sanctioning bodies need to broaden the lower classes for cars....

but then again, i'm just ranting about my issues with club racing! lol

the most successful sanctioning bodies will have cars where you can buy the car, tweak it a little, put slicks on it and go race.

though, i'd love to see more formula classes

[kfoote]

It's the same deal with the pro racing ranks. In order to race an ALMS LMP car, the car cost is about $750k to be competitive, and there's not much competition. There were 3 each LMP1 cars at Lime Rock and Sears poin...Infineon Raceway, and the LMP2 field was about the same. GTS has the potential to be the big series, with Corvette and Lamborghini having factory efforts, and the dangling carrot of the Ferraris that no one has run since Sebring in the US. GT is getting interesting among the Porsche temas with Flying Lizard becoming a legitimate threat to Alex Job Racing, the Ferrari finally having won a race, and the Panoz is there if they can get it sorted. Unfortunately, teh GTS cars are still in the $500k range, and the GT cars are in the $275k range. The $400k for the headlining cars in Grand-Am looks appealing, but there is no inherent manufacturer appeal in that series. World Challenge has the best variety of cars, and has a very good TV package (the second Touring race from Sears Point was on live), and the bargain there is the Viper Competition Coupe where you can run in the top 10 for $135k for the car ready to race, where Touring isn't much less expensive $125k+ for the top cars there). Grand-Am Cup has the closest cars in a pro series to their showroom counterparts, but the format doesn't really suit itself to TV as good as World Challenge does.

[2.2 Straight six]

i think we should have more emphasis on the lower-down-the-food-chain cars racing like dtm and btcc and of course things like nascar and WRC and V8 supercars because the likes of F1 dominate motorsport because there's so much money involved in the uk we get to see BTCC (touring cars) once a week for about an hour yet there's constant F1 coverage and also, who can relate to F1 ? who has an F1 car in their driveway ? no-one. yet we all have simple road cars that are almost similar to DTM V8 supercars and BTCC beacuse they are all road cars underneath the skin