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Mustang going GT3?

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JDee

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Interview with Mark Rushbrook on Ford's potential racing activities. Very interesting comments on the Mustang.

 
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Did I read that right that IMSA is moving away from the GT4 class? Or is my lack-of-coffee brain struggling to understand?
 

JDee

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Did I read that right that IMSA is moving away from the GT4 class? Or is my lack-of-coffee brain struggling to understand?

I don't think anything is cast in stone, yet. Lot of blue skying there if the Racer article is factual. Frankly, given the less than favorable BOP (trying to be nice here) that IMSA has been laying on the Mustang for the last few seasons I am somewhat surprised that they even consider doing anything new with IMSA.
 

Dave_W

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I think the bigger question is, with GTLM going away in 2022, will GM convert the C8R to a GT3 spec?
 

JDee

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GTLM is going to be GTD Pro. It will be the only game in town if GM wants to race the C8 in a Pro series in North America. Unless it might fit in somewhere in SRO America's undersubscribed offerings.

 

Ludachris

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I think the bigger question is, with GTLM going away in 2022, will GM convert the C8R to a GT3 spec?
I remember Corvette being in a similar situation when ALMS dropped GT1 and they had to build a GT2 car (named GTE) just over a decade ago. Competition was greater in that lower class for them. Wonder how the move to GT3 will go.
 
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uugghh! too many classes, silver drivers, gold drivers, titanium drivers? needs to get back to under/over 2 liter, pick the best guys and let them eat. Unfortunately, all of modern sportscar racing piles up buckets of money like a snow plow on meth, so they have to make room for the driver that funds the team. I have mixed emotions about that, not all "gentleman drivers" are the same talent wise, so you can get some real ringers if you have the ability to shop around. There was a rumor at Daytona that one of the GT classes were going away, I guess that would make room for this "GT Pro" deal. I don't know, Grand Am had a great thing going with 60 car fields, now all of those guys have been "obsoleted" and I see the old ALMS crew appearing more and more. Hopefully they will be more successful in IMSA because they ran ALMS right into the crapper.
 
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uugghh! too many classes, silver drivers, gold drivers, titanium drivers? needs to get back to under/over 2 liter, pick the best guys and let them eat.
because they ran ALMS right into the crapper.

No one is every happy in racing except the guy who wins. I can't think of a worse business to be in for everyone involved. As a club sport like skiing or playing golf it is the best sport ever.
 

Ludachris

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uugghh! too many classes, silver drivers, gold drivers, titanium drivers? needs to get back to under/over 2 liter, pick the best guys and let them eat. Unfortunately, all of modern sportscar racing piles up buckets of money like a snow plow on meth, so they have to make room for the driver that funds the team. I have mixed emotions about that, not all "gentleman drivers" are the same talent wise, so you can get some real ringers if you have the ability to shop around. There was a rumor at Daytona that one of the GT classes were going away, I guess that would make room for this "GT Pro" deal. I don't know, Grand Am had a great thing going with 60 car fields, now all of those guys have been "obsoleted" and I see the old ALMS crew appearing more and more. Hopefully they will be more successful in IMSA because they ran ALMS right into the crapper.
I remember always enjoying the World Challenge racing. I haven't had the time to follow it like I used to though so not sure how much it's changed. They had some pretty big fields running for a while. I'll have to see what they're doing these days.
 

JDee

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World Challenge is now SRO owned and operated. Car counts are way off, last year there were only 13 or so GT3s most of the time. GT4s doing a little better but neither class is as heavily subscribed as IMSAs comparable product. Their class/driver rules are confusing, there seems to be about 6 levels of classing between cars, drivers and race lengths. It just shouldn't be hard to understand but it is. The whole show is just a shadow of what it was when it was World Challenge and allowed garage built race cars built to series rules. Too bad, it used to be a great show, years ago....
 

Ludachris

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World Challenge is now SRO owned and operated. Car counts are way off, last year there were only 13 or so GT3s most of the time. GT4s doing a little better but neither class is as heavily subscribed as IMSAs comparable product. Their class/driver rules are confusing, there seems to be about 6 levels of classing between cars, drivers and race lengths. It just shouldn't be hard to understand but it is. The whole show is just a shadow of what it was when it was World Challenge and allowed garage built race cars built to series rules. Too bad, it used to be a great show, years ago....
That's unfortunate. I'm guessing once Cadillac dropped out it dried up - or maybe that's why they dropped out. Hopefully they make it more spectator-friendly again soon. It was pretty easy and fun to watch years ago, when it was just GT and Touring Car.
 

JDee

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Yes, the Caddy's were built to WC rules and not SRO's GT3 rules and were ineligible once SRO took over, as I understand it. There's no pro series in N. America that I know of that doesn't use some type of SRO classing, and that means you are buying an OEM race car and your builder skills count for nothing in terms of cost savings. It's too bad because there's no place in Pro racing now for garage built cars.
 
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Not too familiar with it, but reading all this it seems as though it's dismantling itself similar to the ways the Trans Am Series did back in the 70's. As stated, unfortunate to say the least.
Trans Am was going OK until they did 2 things, they allowed foreign entries, then to get the American stuff competitive again, they allowed tube frame cars, at that point, the production based format was done, costs up and entries dwindled until the mid 80s when it became a factory war again. They managed to kill it off a second time by allowing 4WD Audis in.. a shame really.
 

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