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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

Pit Pass

By Bill Chadwick
NOR'EASTER Online - August 2005
Northeast Region Logo

The early summer club racing schedule has a break in the action in the North East this year. This allows me to delve into some topics that are a little bit off my normal beat. This month I’ll offer some general information and commentary on the top professional racing series 
   
First though under old business let me follow up on one thing. Last month I mentioned that two times Formula Atlantic Champion Jon Fogarty did not have a top rank open wheel ride. Well I have found out John has a solid ride in sports cars and best of all it is in a Porsche! John is sharing a ride with Johannes van Overbeck in the GT2 class of the American LeMans Series. The Flying Lizard team is well known for good results. This year their highlights include a 3rd place at LeMans and just last week another 3rd at Lime Rock.
   
There is one rock of Gibraltar in the top ranks of racing today. That is NASCAR circle track “stock car” racing. It stands alone with no serious competition as a bastion of racing and marketing at the very highest level.
   
Formula One too is alone at the top of the open wheel scene but serious cracks seem to be showing in the empire. There is a three cornered tug of war going on and I believe real trouble is on the way. The players are the teams (both independents and manufacturer owned) , the sanctioning and rules making body FIA and “F1” the marketing arm and money making machine controlled be Bernie Ecclestone.  The teams involved want a bigger cut of Bernie’s F1 Marketing pie. And it seems FIA’s head honcho Max Mosley is roundly hated by everyone but Ferrari. In this world wide series that involves huge amounts of money and gargantuan egos the main problem seem to be this.  Gobs of money being spend by the teams to be competitive and put on the show. Then a gob of money coming in to F1 from the tracks and TV rights and it is not getting spread around. No has been able to agree on much of anything for the last two years. There does now seems to be a pretty strong group of manufacturers and independent teams that are pretty well agreed that things will change for their benefit or they are going to force the issue into a major schism.
   
On the open wheel scene in the US we have the predominantly oval track IRL “Indy Car” series that seems to be taking off after a long gestation period. There fan base has been growing and the recent good showings by Danica Patrick have brought them a major amount of prime time media. Now they are expanding into some road racing. I know I’ll be very interested in the racing and turnout they get at one of our favorite venues Watkins Glen this month.
   
Our other top open wheel series is Champ Car. This series races predominantly on road courses and features racing at a very high level. They seem to have gotten their management in order of late. While not setting the world on fire with TV ratings they do offer very good racing with an excellent driver lineup.  They are currently in talks with the American LeMans Series about some joint ventures. While there seems no hope of any unification at the top, this series seems to be stable for the long haul. The one sad part of this split in US open wheel racing is that nether series will reach a really high level of competition or excitement on the national scene as fast as if an accord could be worked out.
   
Sports car road racing in North America is diluted with three organizations running “professional” races. American LeMans offers “high tech” racing for the fans. They have four classes, two for prototypes LMP1 and LMP2 and two for “production cars” GT1 and GT2. This series is getting more interesting all the time. As the Audi R8 that has ruled prototypes for several years’ starts to fade away we see Porsche and Penske Motorsports team up with a new LMP2 car powered by a 3.4 liter 10,000 RPM V8. The way the rules are written it is very possible for an LMP2 to win overall. We might see what every P person has been crying for the last several years a Porsche prototype racing for the overall win in a top series. Also this series is the last home of the GT3RS. This aging model is still strong in GT2. Several other marques are fielding entries in GT1 and GT2 so I think this will be the series to watch. At some of the American LeMans races you will see several of our club racers competing with there Cup Cars in the IMSA Cup Car series being run for the first time this year. 
   
Grand Am is base on a different concept. This series is “for the racers”. They offer a tightly specified prototype class called Daytona Prototype. The cost factors and tight fun racing seems popular with team owners and US car builders like Riley, Crawford and several others. As you would expect with a France family (read NASCAR) run series Detroit manufacturers are a strong presence with both money and engines. Even though Brumos Porsche was one of the founding teams they have never let them turbo charge the boxer six so they can run at the front with the Detroit eight cylinders. Maybe the new Porsche eight will be seen here soon? This series seems to have a pretty good presence and viewer ship on TV but the crowds are definitely lacking at many tracks. Grand Am leans heavily on Porsche privateer team to fill out their other classes. The Rolex division’s GT class is a major home for the GT3 cup cars and Grand Am Cup division has rules for 996 and 997 coupes. 
   
The final major sports car hat is worn by SCCA (Sports Car Club of Americas) “pro-racing” division. They offer World Challenge with GT and Touring car classes. Here you can see Cadillac’s racing at the front with Porches. A pretty interesting turn of events! Also this is the place that the stalwart TRANS AM series continues to survive. Basically SCCA GT1 tube frame cars with fuel injected V8’s with various plastic bodies to “badge” the cars. These cars are like no Corvette or Jaguar or Viper I have ever seen but they are fast!
   
The amazing thing about the sports car scene is that all three Professional efforts are apparently healthy and feature full fields and interesting racing. When you factor in the amateur racings PCA, SCCA, BMW, Ferrari, HSR, SVRA, etc. there is just a ungodly huge amount sports car road racing going on in this country. No wonder race tracks are sprouting up from Calabogie, Ontario to Birmingham Alabama. See you at the track 
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