Re: What's With SportsCar / PTG M3?

["Calvin Hare" <harem3@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg,

I believe there is some truth in what your saying when it comes to GT3,  
however, I think the primary problem with US sports car racing is the 
presence (and resulting "fight") of two sanctioning bodies (SportsCar, 
USRRC) instead of a unified one like the IMSA (and even SportsCar) of 
old.  I don't think a "fear of PTG" had anything to do with only one GT1 
and two or three WSC teams showing up at the Mosport race.

When USRRC got into the mix and tried to push another, almost identical, 
series because of a dislike of Andy Evan and some of his ideas for the 
future, sports car racing took a big dive downhill.  Now, both series 
are scrapping for events, participants, and fans.  Teams can't afford 
(time or money wise) to go to the full schedule of both series 
especially when subtle rule differences require costly changes from 
series to series.  As a result, the fields at most events are 
significantly diluted.  The major events like Daytona and Sebring here 
in Florida were basically unaffected (even though USRRC had Daytona and 
SportsCar had Sebring) because they are big enough events to attract all 
the teams.  It's the smaller events that have suffered.

There have been several articles in Autoweek about the squabble between 
the the two series and they both realize that if they don't find a way 
to unify by next year, sports car racing in the US may die. I've read 
that Tom Milner and Don Panoz are two of the primary names involved in 
the negotiations to "save sports car racing in the US".  Let's all hope 
they're successful and deliver us a bigger and better unified series for 
next year.

Calvin Hare
Orlando, FL
'96 M3

**************************************************************

>Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:56:41 -0700
>Subject: Re: What's With SportsCar / PTG M3?
>From: "Greg Koenig" <gregk@domain.elided>
>To: BMW Digest <bmw-digest@domain.elided>
>
>Time for me to get flamed hardcore, but hey, this is how I feel.
>
>In my opinion, the whole series is going to hell because of the BMW PTG
>team.   When one takes a good look at there competition, you are 
looking at
>Porsches and other cars raced by weekend warriors who are not in the 
game
>for the money, hold real jobs most of the time and have little to no 
factory
>support behind them.  PTG, on the other hand, has a few million bucks 
behind
>them, a whole team of professional race mechanics, drivers who are the 
cream
>of the crop (probably looking for rides in the top level of motorsports 
very
>soon) and full factory support.  Umm, I don't think that such is really 
all
>that fair a set of competition.   There closest rival is the Schumacher
>(sp?) Porsche team and if you look at there setup, they are simply dirt
>broke when compared to the PTG team.
>I appreciate what BMW has done to get the whole PTG thing going, but if 
they
>really wanted to do it properly, I think they would have started in GT2 
of
>even GT1.  Yes, they sucked in there first year, but it was a brand new 
car
>and once they got the ball rolling, watching them race is sort of like
>watching the Harlem GlobeTrotters play against those other guys they 
travel
>with.  
>I do not know what, if any, series they could compete in that would 
allow
>them to be a match for the competition, the PTG M3s strike me as a 
tough car
>to match up with some of the other competition series out there.
>Unfortunately, when you get one team who simply runs away year after 
year,
>it is tough keeping the lesser teams in the running.  Look at what 
Mercedes
>did with the International Touring Cars.  These C280s were incredible.  
They
>had a moving weight on the underside of the car that could move back 
and
>forth for acceleration and braking in order to keep it running against 
the 4
>wheel drive cars in the field.  Each one cost something like US$700k 
and
>even had an airbag for the driver!  In the second season, Opal and Alfa
>Romeo both dropped out half way through because they simply could not 
win,
>they were out spent, outclassed and outrun.  Look at the effect that 
the
>McLaren, Porsche GT1 and, more importantly, the Mercedes CLK GTR has 
had on
>the FIA GT series.  The GT1 class is OWNED by the CLK GTR and, as such, 
most
>other teams feel pretty happy to get a 4th or 5th.
>I think the IMSA Sports Car series might just end up in the same 
quagmire. 
>I do not expect or want to see PTG drop out or anything, but at the 
same
>time, I should expect a multi million dollar factory program to whip 
the
>hell out of a couple of weekend racers.  
>
>Greg Koenig
>
>
>


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