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Sears Point Raceway

X-Factor

22/07/2001

Sears Point

Retrospective

© Tom Kjos

San Francisco, California, USA--It was a long drive in heavy traffic leaving Sonoma and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge after the race, so your TotalMotorSports reporters had some time away from the scramble of coverage and deadlines to share thoughts on the weekend. By the time we were done, we decided that the view in hindsight gave us a different perspective. So here it is, just miscellaneous thoughts and observations of the kind that a lot of time and a few beers will bring out.

Historic GTP Race
It was nice to see the Wynns' Porsche 962, but what a faux pas to schedule this first event on the weekend of the Chicago Historics at Road America. Reportedly that was ALMS's decision, not HSR's, the latter just saying "OK, our guys that will be around would love the track time." Still too many folks in management at ALMS that don't understand the varied interests and lore of sports car racing? The idea itself is a good one, as sports car fans are unique in racing in their love for the older cars and history of the sport, but it does not make sense to schedule an event that you know (or should know) will not get a turnout. Almost any sports car fan we have ever met could easily have called this result. That aside, the projection of excellent turnouts at both Laguna Seca and Petit Le Mans, especially the latter, is quite credible. Joe Pendergast, HSR Competition Director, is confident of a field of well above thirty cars for each event.

Competition

Oh, yes, there was some racing out there, and here is the way we saw it:

Silver on Silver: The two Audi Sport North America R8s had a great time racing each other. That's pretty good, I guess, given the reports we have read and heard that NBC didn't cover much else. Best of the Rest: Champion and Panoz had a quite good race for third place among the prototypes.

Prototype Pack: We listened to the Judd. Otherwise there was little or nothing to pay attention to.

Star Driver: This man from Denmark has assumed McNish's mantle as the ace in silver squad, although we never doubted that anything else would be the case.

Turbo V8s: They ought to be outlawed. Not because they are fast, but because they are so silent they take away almost entirely the aural impact of auto racing. Since they also weren't racing anyone, the net result was that the Cadillacs disappeared from the race, virtually long before physically.

Ford versus Chevy: Saleen and Corvette had a great race, at least for the first 40 laps or so, before we ended up with a yellow car sweep. This is really the only viable marque-to-marque competition in ALMS now, making Corvette's partial schedule all the more disappointing.

Time to Panic: Our Race Preview correctly foresaw a BMW sweep, but advised that Porsche fans need not get too upset, as there will be tracks more favorable to the GT3-RS later in the schedule. After watching the carnage here, we retract. It is time to panic. The M3 GTR was so dominant that there is no chance of a Porsche GT win for the remainder of the 2001 season. Only the rule makers can make the Porsche competitive this year. Whether they should or not is another question entirely.
(No chance, Tom? Can you be that sure about anything to do with racing? Ed.)

The Crowd: Attendance was good, larger than last year, not overwhelming, but good. John Brooks was out among them and reported a very favourable response to the cars themselves and the spectacle they created.

Class: After the race, Alex Job Racing's press release did not mention the Porsche opinion that the M3 GTR is a rule-breaker. That's a much-appreciated touch of class.

Siblings Squabbling? The late-race incident that led to a penalty for BMW Motorsport driver Fredrik Ekblom is not the last scrapping and bumping that we will see amongst the Bimmers. They both know that one of them (BMW Motorsport and PTG) will win the GT Championship and that both are capable.

Tire War: Yokohama on the PTG cars and Michelin on the Motorsport M3s. Everything else is equal, or nearly so. Tires will have a huge impact on the championship, and may well determine it to the exclusion of anything else.

Footnote: We had a nightmare TotalMotorSport weekend, not only trying to cover touring cars in distant Scotland, GTs at Donington and the ALMS in California (with no manpower back at base), but there was also the matter of a very worrying accident at Donington on Sunday, plus computers being disabled by a virus, which is still affecting matters here. Some information and photographs are still locked into machines that are unuseable. Apologies if it was apparent that we were struggling. To the reader who then demanded that a Saleen image be posted up for his personal gratification, well, you know what you can do. Ed.