Does the US really care about endurance racing?

With the only WEC event in the Americas kicking off here this week at COTA in a few days, it got me thinking does America really care about endurance racing?

I'm a member of a many general automotive boards and you rarely hear anything about WEC outside of Lemans. Even most racing websites don't publish a lot of information.

Last year the WEC event at COTA only drew 39K spectators and looking at the ticket availability, this year is not doing much better. I'll be there working the event again but I really wonder if the normal race fan even really cares.

What does the grassroots community say? Does anyone really care?

I care about it and I'd love to go. I make it two at least two endurance races a year when possible and make sure I at least help the TV ratings for every race. The problem with this September race at COTA is a perfect storm of suck for the WEC. Most hardcore endurance fans plan on going to Petit as it's established itself as a fall time race for people to travel to. Also it's football season in Texas. Not sure if you know about Texans and their football; but, it is the lifeblood of that state in the second half of the year. Cowboys and Texans on Sunday. UT, UTSA, TTU, TAMU, TCU, NTU, Rice, UTEP, Houston, SMU, etc. all FBS schools in Texas. Plus it's a very new venue, new event, and all things that are probably causes to the lack of ticket sales. If this was in August or late July I'm sure the ticket sales would be on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Just my observation/opinion.

I was going to compare Endurance road racing to NHRA drag racing / Soccer to football. Then I remembered that no one watches drag racing anymore.

'Muricans can't understand it 'cause it's like watching the the Tour de France.

I love endurance racing, I just don't have the option of traveling to them and tv coverage sucks.

give it time... if Chumpcar, 24 Hours of Lemons, the World Racing League, and the few other low dollar endurance racing series have some staying power people will start looking at how the big boys do it..

I do and planned on going until I realized that SWMBO had already made plans that weekend for our sons birthday celebrations. I really wanted to go to a COTA event this year but I'm not paying that much money for F1 tickets. Hopefully next year...

If they were racing Porsche 917's and Ferrari 512's I'd be all over it....

I'll actually be there.

i have no idea what the WEC is, but unless it fits neatly into an afternoon or evening it will never be as big as something like NASCAR to the general public.

that being said, i've always thought that NASCAR needed to add some sort of an endurance race to their schedule.. put them out on the track for 24 hours in all weather conditions and see how it all shakes out.. a lot of the drivers already run in the 24 at Daytona and a few of the teams are really big into endurance racing, so it's not like it would be totally foreign to them.

Cool David. I'm working the corners for the event. Is GRM having a booth or just providing coverage?

I know it's a tough time of year schedule wise especially in Austin. You can't go earlier and get crowds because of the 100 degree heat and it puts you close to Petit and square in football and music festival season in Austin. Really the best time is spring time.

I love the heck out of endurance racing and my office is covered with autographs and endurance racing art.

I know WEC was not happy with the results from last year. I just hope they work it out to best long term because I love the GT class.

Sadly no booth, but Sarah and I will be checking things out, taking photos, hanging with the beautiful people, etc.

Thee problem is that the WEC has virtually no coverage here. That makes it a tough sell. Only the hardcore people even know what it is. Unless that changes there is really little chance you will see it as anything more than it is now.

We get the IMSA / Tudor series at a number of venues (WGI, RA, NJMP) local to those of us for whom traveling to COTA would be a prohibitive endeavor for a 6hr race. They also get TV coverage so while the WEC will be running on the same weekend as IMSA at COTA... I can only see one of those unless you happen to have live stream info I can use?

Oddly enough, two of my non-gearhead friends are going, while I'll miss it due to traveling.

I was really surprised when they invited me. But as far as the general public is concerned, no, they don't care about endurance racing.

I have been watching and going to Endurance races since I was little. I have become slowly less interested each year because of TV coverage is horrid, they chop it up, or don't even play it. The disaster of the Prototype class. Add to all of this the split. I was excited when the split ended, but after this years rules and fumbles I was disappointed in the overall product. I would apply the same rules to the WEC and add they stopped running full seasons with ALMS.

Endurance is my favorite to watch but like others have said TV coverage sucks. I can not justify the trip fro Ohio to Texas to watch the race live but if I can fins a stream of I will watch.

I really enjoy the WEC. However, the TV coverage sucks.

I didn't even know they had a US race.

Rob R.

Next Daytona 24 will be my 6th as a spectator, I watch what I can get on TV, am building a Lemons car, that said as an Aussie we grow up on semi endurance racing (Bathurst is 1000 km)so maybe I don't fit the OP question.

That's a good point on the coverage. It's also been a long time since Lemans and that was the last race. I had to look hard just to see where they were being broadcasted.

Both The Tudor race and the WEC race are going to be aired live on Fox Sports 2. Come to find out Fox Sports 2 is on contract to air all of the WEC races going forward for the US so that is good news. You would think that they would promote that on the website more. I had to run through the FS2 programming schedule just to find that info out.

Realistically, seeing how racing has changed in Europe, it's safe to ask if WEC is even popular there.

Whatever FIA endurance series there has been, it's always been overshadowed by LeMans, and if the rules were different, LeMans always won in terms of support.

And like here, prototype racing has a tough time figuing out what works. GT racing seems pretty easy to find drivers/cars/teams. But the P-cars struggle- feast or famine, just like here in the US.