ALMS round at Mid-Ohio....what are your thoughts?

[EJ25RUN]

I had to drive my uncle to the airport so i was only able to watch the last 40 mins of the race.

For what i saw.....im glad to see the Corvette team place second in GT2 on their very first outing. Im also really happy to see the Rahal BMW place on the podium as im a big fan of BMW's GT effort.

One comment i have about the GT3 Cup Porsches that took up the ALMS Cup class was that the GT2 cars are already to slow when compared with the Peugeot and Audi diesels and even the Acuras. Introducing a slower class will really hurt the prototypes. I remember at Petit last year the Pug caught lap traffic on the third lap. That's insane.

If anything.....i hope more and more cars join GT2 as GT3 is too slow to be on the same field as a LMP1 car.

Opinions on this?

[Elbow]

I love more cars, and love seeing traffic a player in races. I do think just Porsche Cup cars are a little boring to throw in there though.

[EJ25RUN]

Oh...c'mon. 1 response (actually, i'm not surprised.)

Yeah....i feel the best solution is more GT2 variety in a single class. Both the Vette GT1s are a thing of the past as are the MC12s and DBR9s.

I just think modern GT3s are too slow to share a track with the LMP1s but who knows? I might be wrong. In fact, a Morgan in ALMS would be great to watch.

[cjhutch]

All those Porsches in one class is just boring. That's what they have the Porsche Super Cup for. I only caught the last part of the race as well and it was nice to see De Ferran get another win on his way to retirement. The Corvettes look great out there and I love how they resemble the ZR1 so closely even down to the same front splitter. I just love the look of the Dyson Lola chassis. It's something about that shape that just appeals to me.

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/1796/watermarkedimagehandlers.jpg

[blacknightteg]

i honestly have not been able to keep up with the season this year and it kind of stinks. but what i do feel is that the introdution of more slower cars will become a bothersome too the series. Reason i say this is because of the LMP cars. there are already not so many that are regular competitors of the series and to see more lower class cars come in will make it even more boring to watch. dont get me wrong i love the vets, gt40's, and BMW's but there needs to be something about helping the LMP class grow, it always seems to just dwindle.

[Elbow]

I don't think GT3 is a solution to get more cars, I DO think it will be an issue at an event like Petit where you have some more LMP entries, such as real cars like Peugeot. It's kind of like throwing IT cars in a GT SCCA class lol.

As I said I love traffic, these might be a little too extreme traffic being much slower, but I think if more cars entered GT3 it may be interested. As Blacknightteg said though I think they need to to focus on making LMP grow, as that's the premier class really, GT2 is pretty good and may grow, LMP is dying and boring.

[Jenson]

Im hoping the rumors of combining P1 and P2 will happen. Of course the 2011 season all prototypes will be limitied to 5.5L. Basically it sounds like ALMS will turn into Daytona prototype/Grand am racing...just faster and hopefully better looking. Those DP's are just ugly. And maybe there will be a slower, spec chassis racing as P2 cars?
TheBear (http://murphythebear.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/06/134-new-alms-class-tangled-webs-porsche-performance-reigned-in/)

[EJ25RUN]

pics from Mid Ohio.

http://www.autoblog.com/gallery/mid-ohio-2009-corvette-gt2-racing/full/