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Audi Presents Petit Le Mans

06/10/2001

Changes

Big and Small—Mostly Big

Professional SportsCar has been relegated to the dustbin of sanctioning body names and IMSA returns as of the end of this ALMS race season. It’s about time and now we have the proper historical continuity intact.

The 2002 schedule:

General: No more “rovals”—great! No more ELMS? (actually, it’s still “under discussion”). I’m quite surprised that the season is wholly North American. I’m poring over my atlas to find out which state Kuala Lumpur is in.

It actually opens, and then ends, with the rescheduled Malaysian non-championship race (Jan. 11-13). I would not bet the house on either of these actually taking place.

The Sebring 12 Hours opener; not much new here but the 50th anniversary show should be a good one. Ken Breslauer, press director, has rounded up nearly all the previous winners for a nice exhibition.

Miami 3 Hours; return of a good IMSA classic—also does some damage to CART and GARRA’s plans.

Sears Pt. It is not surprising that this race has survived while Portland did not.

Mid-Ohio, good follow-up on this year’s success. It’s June date is another blow to Grand-Am, as is . . .

The venerable Road America 500 is passing to IMSA. It should finally bring crowds back.

National GP; see previous dispatch. This may go the way of San Diego before we’re done.

Trois-Rivieres. This has been the longest running and most consistently appreciated North Am. Street course. An excellent choice.

The last three races are little more than continuations of standards. The later date of Petit Le Mans was chosen to avoid some conflicts.

On the plus side, all the races will be televised. Some will be flag-to-flag on Speedvision (good). Some will be alternately on CBS and NBC. A big minus will be the format. The time-warp compression will continue. It will likely be worse with some of the races being of 4 hour length digested into two hours.

New Timing and Scoring innovation: In their attempt to do better fan marketing, the cars will be equipped by a tower of three sets of three lights. The lights will flash on the top three in each class; one triangle of lights = first place, two sets = second, etc. Cars below third will be dark. At this weekend’s race the system will be experimented with. Six cars in the GT class (teams of Schnitzer, PTG, and AJR) will be equipped with various colors to test visibility and performance.

Details such as points system and privateer allowances have not been finalized.

Prior to the announcement of the reprise of IMSA, Scott Atherton, Panoz CEO, stated that there was a case of "Back to the Future" coming along. Ever quick on the take, Kerry Morse quipped, "They must be announcing a De Lorean series."