AMA SBK - Round 6 - Mid Ohio

Mr. Shupe said:

The other scary part for the ALMS is the inept management. They let the ACO bully them into ruining the P2/P1 balance that made it so great during '07 and '08, rendering P2 cars nearly pointless, as teams spent almost as much as P1 teams to run for class wins. Then they chose to stick with the ACO's ruling that Audi's cars were not legal for Sebring in order to please Peugeot. Audi has supported thes eries since 2000 and actually sells cars here, making them a more likely candidate to actually campaign in the sieries in the future. Now they're talking with Grand-Am about allowing Zack brown's cars in.



Finally, one thing that needs to be fixed is the prototype homologation rules. That's right, under ACO rules, prototypes have to be homologated. In the P900/675 era, Rob Dyson and mechanic Pat Smith tested their Lola B01/60 numerous times, upgrading the car and molding it into a package that ran with and occassionally beat Audi's R8 prototype. They can't do that anymore. Only the maker of a chassis has the rights to homologate any upgrades. So the factories who build their own cars can upgrade all they want, but the privateers can't do a thing to their customer chassis. Doesn't take a Lex to figure out how that happened.

Click to expand...

You would no better about the management and the impact of the homologation rules than I would, but I've never considered the homologation concept to be corrupt. I think that constructor-only homologation upgrades is the only way to go b/c it keeps costs down for the privateers and it protects the constructors who commit to build prototype race machines. No one would build a prototype for competition if another team can upgrade the design thus disrupting the revenue stream and the value of the "base" product.



ACO want to change the homologation rules, but herein lies the problem. As we both understand, the current homologation rules are not really protecting the constructors, instead the constructors are using them as a club to beat down the privateers. The constructors homologate a base model, and then they homologate proprietary upgrades that they do not want circulating around the paddock. The only way to end the arrangement is to make sure that all homoloations are available to everyone and they are available at a set price. This is precisely what ACO have done.........in LMP2. The pundits (mainly Autosport) realize this will be the death of the "works" team b/c they can't restrict parts or protect proprietary racing designs, and that ACO is dipping their toes in the water so to speak by making LMP2 a privateers only arrangement.



Imo, eliminating works teams (de facto not de jure) is a good idea. I could go on and on about why, but no one would read it. Suffice it to say that works teams were traditionally nothing more than top-flight pro drivers, professional racing engineers, and pile of racing data from previous seasons. Over time the manufacturers have gotten more and more privileges (b/c the privateers have gone from rich amateurs to dedicated professionals) which harmed the privateers. They tried to replace the privateers with manufacturers which didn't work b/c winning is everything in racing. Winning is everything b/c there really isn't a single production relevant part of racing anymore so no one can lose in the name of R&D or experimentation (so how can anyone truly prototype?). Anyway that's the cliff's notes. Racing must come full circle back to privateers and specialty builders b/c there is not a damn thing useful for the manufacturers in racing other than sales. They can put their stickers on race cars without the accompanying financial death spiral associated with modern "works" teams.

mylexicon said:

You would no better about the management and the impact of the homologation rules than I would, but I've never considered the homologation concept to be corrupt. I think that constructor-only homologation upgrades is the only way to go b/c it keeps costs down for the privateers and it protects the constructors who commit to build prototype race machines. No one would build a prototype for competition if another team can upgrade the design thus disrupting the revenue stream and the value of the "base" product.

Click to expand...

I don't think the Lolas and the Zyteks of the prototype world would be hurt that badly if prototype homologation was done away with. There will always be a healthy base of teams without the capability and/or desire to develop cars on their own. The homologation rule simply holds the elite privateers, like Dyson, back.



Acura's LMP2 car, the ARX 01b was a modified Courage LC75. Courage was being sold to Oreca at the time, and the LC75 wasn't really a major competitor anyway, so I guess that's how HPD got away with it.

Mr. Shupe said:

I don't think the Lolas and the Zyteks of the prototype world would be hurt that badly if prototype homologation was done away with. There will always be a healthy base of teams without the capability and/or desire to develop cars on their own. The homologation rule simply holds the elite privateers, like Dyson, back.



Acura's LMP2 car, the ARX 01b was a modified Courage LC75. Courage was being sold to Oreca at the time, and the LC75 wasn't really a major competitor anyway, so I guess that's how HPD got away with it.

Click to expand...

Elite privateers can become constructors. If they can't become constructors, they ought not be homologating updates for other vehicles unless the sport was designed to support elite privateers, imo. The old 500cc GP was designed to support elite privateers b/c the manufacturers happily made a inferior production race-only motorcycles. LMP is not designed for elite privateers b/c companies like Lola are not trying to sell inferior versions of a works vehicle. They are trying to sell a standardized product to regular privateers who need value for money. I don't see a problem with ACO banning homologations by non-constructors b/c if they lose Lola, they lose Dyson as well. Not condemning elite privateer teams, but I do think LMP needs more rules changes if they want elite privateers.



Eliminating homologation would be nice, but every international prototype series I can think of (besides MotoGP) uses homologation to regulate the rate of updates and the number of variants for a single vehicle. They also have to homologate at least the safety cell or the chassis for crash protection reasons nowadays. Even F1 homologates nearly the entire car these days. Without homologation I doubt constructors would sell anything. MotoGP is a perfect example.

mylexicon said:

Elite privateers can become constructors. If they can't become constructors, they ought not be homologating updates for other vehicles unless the sport was designed to support elite privateers, imo. The old 500cc GP was designed to support elite privateers b/c the manufacturers happily made a inferior production race-only motorcycles. LMP is not designed for elite privateers b/c companies like Lola are not trying to sell inferior versions of a works vehicle. They are trying to sell a standardized product to regular privateers who need value for money. I don't see a problem with ACO banning homologations by non-constructors b/c if they lose Lola, they lose Dyson as well. Not condemning elite privateer teams, but I do think LMP needs more rules changes if they want elite privateers.



Eliminating homologation would be nice, but every international prototype series I can think of (besides MotoGP) uses homologation to regulate the rate of updates and the number of variants for a single vehicle. They also have to homologate at least the safety cell or the chassis for crash protection reasons nowadays. Even F1 homologates nearly the entire car these days. Without homologation I doubt constructors would sell anything. MotoGP is a perfect example.

Click to expand...

With the prototype homologation, one can see an increase in the gap between factories and private teams. The sport has a long history of teams making revisions to their cars while the suppliers still sold cars. IMSA GTO flourished when privateers like Kremer and Akin were tooling with their 935s. March and Porsche 962 GTP cars were revised by their owners too. In the WSC/early ALMS times, teams were able to modify the venerable, yet aging, Riley & Scott chassis and successfully found more speed, gaining more life out of the car (Rafanelli being a good example, and this happened in the FIA SCC/ISRS as well). When Ferrari stopped providing support for the 333sp, and Grand-Am choked the V12 with air restrictors, Kevin Doran retrofitted a Judd V10 and was able to return to the sharp end of the grid, this car was affectionately named the "Fudd" (this again happened in Europe). Finally, there was Dyson's extensive refinements of the MG Lola B01/60 that allowed them to run with Audi and keep things interesting.



Homologating the crash structure may not be such a big deal, since privateers' ingenuity seems to come in the areas of aero and suspension, not altering the monocoque.



Privateers haven't been up there with regularity since the prototype homologation started. I feel you have valid points, but sports car racing doesn't compare to Moto GP or F1. The sport is pro-am in nature, which means there will always be for-the-love-of-the-game teams wanting to buy product from constructors. Under the current arrangement, elite privateers like Dyson are handicapped badly. Porsche sold them two RS Spyders, but Dyson was behind Penske in terms of parts, and the team never really came to grips with the car. Who knows, if they had been able to tinker with customer chassis, and they had an engineer the caliber of the retired Pat Smith, maybe they could have fared better?

Mr. Shupe said:

With the prototype homologation, one can see an increase in the gap between factories and private teams. The sport has a long history of teams making revisions to their cars while the suppliers still sold cars. IMSA GTO flourished when privateers like Kremer and Akin were tooling with their 935s. March and Porsche 962 GTP cars were revised by their owners too. In the WSC/early ALMS times, teams were able to modify the venerable, yet aging, Riley & Scott chassis and successfully found more speed, gaining more life out of the car (Rafanelli being a good example, and this happened in the FIA SCC/ISRS as well). When Ferrari stopped providing support for the 333sp, and Grand-Am choked the V12 with air restrictors, Kevin Doran retrofitted a Judd V10 and was able to return to the sharp end of the grid, this car was affectionately named the "Fudd" (this again happened in Europe). Finally, there was Dyson's extensive refinements of the MG Lola B01/60 that allowed them to run with Audi and keep things interesting.



Homologating the crash structure may not be such a big deal, since privateers' ingenuity seems to come in the areas of aero and suspension, not altering the monocoque.



Privateers haven't been up there with regularity since the prototype homologation started. I feel you have valid points, but sports car racing doesn't compare to Moto GP or F1. The sport is pro-am in nature, which means there will always be for-the-love-of-the-game teams wanting to buy product from constructors. Under the current arrangement, elite privateers like Dyson are handicapped badly. Porsche sold them two RS Spyders, but Dyson was behind Penske in terms of parts, and the team never really came to grips with the car. Who knows, if they had been able to tinker with customer chassis, and they had an engineer the caliber of the retired Pat Smith, maybe they could have fared better?

Click to expand...

I don't disagree, but the sport must be designed to support elite privateers. The sport would need constructors who happily produce "base" models, and low costs that would allow the privateers to buy materials and talent necessary to upgrade the cars. Imo, LMS does not have the proper cost benefit and they do not have the constructors who are willing to lose control of their cars. Back in the 70s and 80s the manufacturers happily sold their cars and they couldn't care less which team won as long as it was their brand. Back then the cars were less complicated, cheaper, and had less sensitive technology.



Maybe if they manipulated the cost-benefit structure more aggressively, and they made it known to all competitors that non-constructors can upgrade the cars. For whatever reason, they didn't think LMS could sustain elite privateer teams.