ALMS Long Beach Entry List

FIA GT is boring. OH LOOK! A PASS IN THE PITS! OMG!!!

No, that's F1! I dunno, I just watched a race yesterday, there was plenty of passing, ON the track......that's just all racing nowadays, it's all too "the same and spec" so yeah a lot is "passed in the pits" i'll even admit that. The ALMS race today...sorry yesterday, finished under caution.....good GT race though throughout the race, wish I could have seen the whole thing in real time.

saw Brands Hatch for BTCC, an awesome race, just watched the Donignton race today, that was some damn good racing, they still aren't afraid of running into each other and it's good competition between RWD, FWD, AWD, turbo and N/A and factory efforts and private efforts, 4, 5, 6 cylinder

I still think Continental Sports Car Challenge and World Challenge has the best racing

NickF40 wrote: I still think Continental Sports Car Challenge and World Challenge has the best racing

FINALLY, something we can agree on!

haha well that's good

Hey, i'm not trying to pick a fight, obviously I have a different view on the professional circuit nowadays then you two but I stand by what I said. Like I said, you guys can make fun, call me a bob costa and such but I really don't care haha

at least though we can agree on what's the best haha

I think the internet coverage kinda sucks I don't have a newish tv so the cable from the computer doesn't work for me. That said the day after coverage on ESPN2 was good and I enjoyed it. Doesn't matter to much because I will be at petit but it can be good for the series that they don't have live television coverage.

The only good thing about the ALMS entry list is the GT field. The rest of it is pretty much a joke unless the teams are practicing for Le Mans. As far as Grand-Am DP I wouldn't want to run in that class either because of the Ganassi teams complete domination the past few years. Somehow they always manage to pull out a win just like JimMy Johnson in the parent series. Conti challenge and World Challenge are the best racing to watch. BTCC and Aussie V8 Supercars are great as well.

DirtyBird222 wrote: The only good thing about the ALMS entry list is the GT field. The rest of it is pretty much a joke

I'll have to disagree with you there. I MUCH prefer the top classes under ALMS than the Daytona prototypes. Much more diversity and better racing, at least in person. They really captivated you at Sebring in person.

carguy123 wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: The only good thing about the ALMS entry list is the GT field. The rest of it is pretty much a joke

I'll have to disagree with you there. I MUCH prefer the top classes under ALMS than the Daytona prototypes. Much more diversity and better racing, at least in person. They really captivated you at Sebring in person.

At Sebring and Petit, that is true. Almost anywhere else, with Audi and Porsche and Acura having dropped full time schedules, LMP is BORING! There were two cars running the whole race at Long Beach....

Yeah, the LMPC cars were fighting to see who got the last Overall podium spot. There was only one LMP2 car, and it didn't even run the whole race, so they could save it for the 24 next month.

byron12 wrote: I think the internet coverage kinda sucks I don't have a newish tv so the cable from the computer doesn't work for me. That said the day after coverage on ESPN2 was good and I enjoyed it. Doesn't matter to much because I will be at petit but it can be good for the series that they don't have live television coverage.

I was watching both the IndyCar race and the ALMS race at the same time yesterday- on the same track....

For sure, the ALMS coverage was better, BUT- I suspect some of the coverage was due to post-processing. Was it Patrick Long that crashed out of the lead? Whoever- I happened to see it "live"- and the view they had was almost too good, and the announcers were almost too much on the ball. I do hope that it's representative of how good they can be live, though. It was good coverage, and they did a great job of watching what was important and still summarizing what was going on. I liked it.

As opposed to the Indy Car coverage- Versus needs a lot of help with direction and camera crew directions- they STILL are missing a lot.

Tough job to attract the prototype cars out to a race like Long Beach- so little room to mess up, whereas the closed cars do have some margin of error- and I mean the cost results of going off, not actual space. That, and the current focus is probably more on LeMans than anything else, so unless you just need miles, going all that way can be hard to justify.

Isn't there going to be a global series next year? A handful of races in Europe, the US, and Asia? that will help.

Intercontinental LeMans Cup, http://www.intercontinental-le-mans-cup.com/

I think it's inaugural season was last year, IIRC

alfadriver wrote:

byron12 wrote: I think the internet coverage kinda sucks I don't have a newish tv so the cable from the computer doesn't work for me. That said the day after coverage on ESPN2 was good and I enjoyed it. Doesn't matter to much because I will be at petit but it can be good for the series that they don't have live television coverage.

I was watching both the IndyCar race and the ALMS race at the same time yesterday- on the same track.... For sure, the ALMS coverage was better, BUT- I suspect some of the coverage was due to post-processing. Was it Patrick Long that crashed out of the lead? Whoever- I happened to see it "live"- and the view they had was almost too good, and the announcers were almost too much on the ball. I do hope that it's representative of how good they can be live, though. It was good coverage, and they did a great job of watching what was important and still summarizing what was going on. I liked it. As opposed to the Indy Car coverage- Versus needs a lot of help with direction and camera crew directions- they STILL are missing a lot. Tough job to attract the prototype cars out to a race like Long Beach- so little room to mess up, whereas the closed cars do have some margin of error- and I mean the cost results of going off, not actual space. That, and the current focus is probably more on LeMans than anything else, so unless you just need miles, going all that way can be hard to justify. Isn't there going to be a global series next year? A handful of races in Europe, the US, and Asia? that will help.

Yeah, Pat Long crashed out of the lead just one straightaway after he took the lead...Bad Bad luck. It was due to red mist, which we all succumb to occasionally, but partly due to the major hurdle that was Scott Sharp in the Extreme Speed Ferrari.

Maroon92 wrote:

alfadriver wrote:

byron12 wrote: I think the internet coverage kinda sucks I don't have a newish tv so the cable from the computer doesn't work for me. That said the day after coverage on ESPN2 was good and I enjoyed it. Doesn't matter to much because I will be at petit but it can be good for the series that they don't have live television coverage.

I was watching both the IndyCar race and the ALMS race at the same time yesterday- on the same track.... For sure, the ALMS coverage was better, BUT- I suspect some of the coverage was due to post-processing. Was it Patrick Long that crashed out of the lead? Whoever- I happened to see it "live"- and the view they had was almost too good, and the announcers were almost too much on the ball. I do hope that it's representative of how good they can be live, though. It was good coverage, and they did a great job of watching what was important and still summarizing what was going on. I liked it. As opposed to the Indy Car coverage- Versus needs a lot of help with direction and camera crew directions- they STILL are missing a lot. Tough job to attract the prototype cars out to a race like Long Beach- so little room to mess up, whereas the closed cars do have some margin of error- and I mean the cost results of going off, not actual space. That, and the current focus is probably more on LeMans than anything else, so unless you just need miles, going all that way can be hard to justify. Isn't there going to be a global series next year? A handful of races in Europe, the US, and Asia? that will help.

Yeah, Pat Long crashed out of the lead just one straightaway after he took the lead...Bad Bad luck. It was due to red mist, which we all succumb to occasionally, but partly due to the major hurdle that was Scott Sharp in the Extreme Speed Ferrari.

Sharp was too busy checking out his hair in the mirror...

You guys do know that this week is practice week for the prototypes at LeMans....so why risk your 150k car at Long Beach, when you are going to be running LeMans in June.

Prestige factor precludes running Long Beach--even if it's only a 10th place finish at LeMans, I'd rather be running there with a complete car, not a repaired or car not 100% from having had been wacked by a back-marker at Long Beach

I was at the track for Friday qualifying which they do class by class. Ok in the GT and GTC classes,. the LMPC was ok - 5 cars. Time for the big guns - out of the 4 LMP1 and 2 cars - only the 2 LMP1 cars came out to qualify. 15 mins of watching two cars go around. It doesn't matter if you watch it live, online or on ESPN2397 - it's not very exciting. Was seriously considering going to the ALMS event at Laguna Seca but now reconsidering.

I haven't had a chance to watch the race yet on my DVR so can't comment on that.

Finally - the World Challenge Cadillacs sound waaaay better than the ALMS Corvettes.

DukeOfUndersteer wrote: Sharp was too busy checking out his hair in the mirror...

I LMAO'd at that! God that was funny!

monark192 wrote: Finally - the World Challenge Cadillacs sound waaaay better than the ALMS Corvettes.

The Caddys sound awesome, don't they?

monark192 wrote: I was at the track for Friday qualifying which they do class by class. Ok in the GT and GTC classes,. the LMPC was ok - 5 cars. Time for the big guns - out of the 4 LMP1 and 2 cars - only the 2 LMP1 cars came out to qualify. 15 mins of watching two cars go around. It doesn't matter if you watch it live, online or on ESPN2397 - it's not very exciting. Was seriously considering going to the ALMS event at Laguna Seca but now reconsidering. I haven't had a chance to watch the race yet on my DVR so can't comment on that. Finally - the World Challenge Cadillacs sound waaaay better than the ALMS Corvettes.

Thank you

carguy123 wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: The only good thing about the ALMS entry list is the GT field. The rest of it is pretty much a joke

I'll have to disagree with you there. I MUCH prefer the top classes under ALMS than the Daytona prototypes. Much more diversity and better racing, at least in person. They really captivated you at Sebring in person.

Like someone else said at Sebring and Petit, other than that the past few seasons of the ALMS have been very vanilla to say the least. At least Grand-Am racing and the Conti challenge are exciting to watch even with Ganassi dominating. I really thought the spirit of daytona squad was gonna pull it out at Barber.

You can have all the diversity you want in racing as far as cars go, but the parity won't necessarily make it exciting.

I've been to Sebring and the Rolex 24 and a ton of other races in between. I still wanna watch a good race, I don't go to ooooooh and aaaahhhh at cars, if I wanna do that I'll A) go to a car show or 2) look at pictures on the intraweb.

NASCAR x ALMS = GrandAm

NASCAR Grid size / ALMS Grid Size = GrandAm Grid.

David S. Wallens wrote:

monark192 wrote: Finally - the World Challenge Cadillacs sound waaaay better than the ALMS Corvettes.

The Caddys sound awesome, don't they?

Sheer ground-pounding brute force. The opposite end of the racing engine sound spectrum from the Aston Martin V12 which was equally awesome.

Well DP cars do seem to provide more passing and such and have a better tv package. The gearhead racecar engineering enthusiast in me just loves le mans style prototypes I will admit that other than sebring and petit are the only races and the states to see the real E36 M3. I guess I am just lucky that petit is my home race because watching audi and peugot duke it out at road atlanta is just the E36 M3 in my opinion. The incredibly awesome GT class is just really tasty icing on the cake.

This old prototype fan will admit that the last couple of seasons in the ALMS haven't had much depth in the prototype fields. OTOH, I find the cars so stinking amazing that I'd rather see them (especially in person) run than a limited technology series. Maybe it's because I still occasionally work turns and have the opportunity to get closer to them, but seeing an LMP car working at speed is something no one should miss. It's simply incredible how fast these things are, it's almost pornographic. Even if only one shows up, it's a "show" in and of itself.

I wonder if we're really discussing what the nature of road racing really is..I love lots of passing and a small MOV as much as anyone else, but I can also enjoy watching somebody who is so smooth and precise that they can just get down the road (even if they're doing it to the tune of another second ahead at the end of every lap) better than someone else. I do enjoy watching Grand-Am (for the passing, etc.), but I find that if I really watch the driver's technique (expecially when combined with the astounding capabilities of the car), I don't mind that ALMS races often turn into a parade. There's just so much else to watch besides the passing.

And of course, on the occasions where some equal rivals show up, it gets even better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXq8rkf9HKI

Not dissing anyone else's view, just tryin' to splain something..

EDIT: just a lil' grammar clean up.

If they could just get 6 or so LMP1 &2 prototypes it would be good. ALMS prototypes much > than GrandAm Prototypes. I like the technology - spent some time in the Long Beach ALMS pits drooling over the carbon fiber V12 goodness that is the Aston Martin Lola - but there has to be a race. That 2 car qualifying I mentioned earlier was embarassing.