This is it, for me anyway.
The next two ALMS races are on cable, and I will presumably miss
them. Then next season will be the
merger with Grand AM, and I think Fox Sports 1 will be carrying their
races. Unless I get an expanded cable
package, I’ll miss those races too. It’s
good that there won’t be two competing series anymore for such a niche market,
but the thought of actual Le Mans Prototypes racing against Daytona Prototypes,
makes my skin crawl. What’s worst, LMP
is likely to be hobbled to not make the DP cars look bad, and then eventually
they’ll just be phased out. Maybe it’s
better I don’t see anymore top-level sports car racing in this country.
This wasn’t the race I would want to remember the series
by. For starters (oh, you knew this coming,
just sit back and enjoy it), Kelli Stavast was absent from the broadcast. This is disheartening in every possible
emotional way for me. She did a little
promo video on the ALMS website for this race, why wasn’t she there in the
pits? Why? Why? I
wonder if I’ll ever see her again. Kelli
was replaced by Justin Bell. The reason
I remembered his name was because the first thing he did on the pre-race was
name-drop his famous father, Derek Bell.
Good thinking for promotional purposes; a bad move for any earning
credibility on your own.
For a street race, even in Baltimore, the start of the race
was a new low in excitement. The first,
field-clearing wreck happened, BEFORE the green flag. You see, because of some train tracks (the
bane of all street races) on the front stretch, they inserted a chicane in the
middle of this straight, high-speed section to slow down the cars to avoid
damaging them on the tracks. Instead,
the cars were damaged in more creative ways.
For the start of race, the cars were supposed to parade,
double file directly past the chicane, instead of through it. One car hit the back of another during the
start, and there was a spin and nine cars were damaged in a complete
track-blocking melee that delayed the restart for an hour. There’s a Ferrari, a Viper, and some Porsches
in the scrap pile. At least the in-car
crash footage was impressive.
Several hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair damage
later (little wonder the Delta Wing didn’t show up), the race resumed. They actually got past Turn 1 before having
the next large wreck, but this one only brought out a full course caution. The killer chicane was not through with the
field however. One of the Corvettes got it’s front end realigned. (Didn’t hurt the car’s speed though, it
actually held the overall race lead for a short time, and it won in
class.) Later, after yet another full
course caution, the tire barrier around the chicane had been banged around bad
enough to where it had to be moved back to its original position. On the restart, the leading prototype banged
right into it and knocked it off to the side again, and of course, damaged the
car.
After the driver change later in the race, the two drivers
involved in the incident at the start of the race were interviewed. Both cited different rules laid down in the
driver’s meeting for how the race start was supposed to be conducted to explain
their driving. In other words, the problem
was with race layout and the rules.
Yeah, it’s kind of cool watching sports cars go all “Dukes of Hazard” up
on two wheels as they all end up hitting the chicane too fast, but it’s not
good for the cars or continuous racing action.
Here’s a better idea, when the contract runs out on this
venue, don’t renew it. In fact, go ahead
and cancel all the street races, except for Long Beach (not that it’s good
race, but it’s historical). Put that
Cleveland Airport race on the schedule again (if it’s still there). Yeah, it’s ugly with no elevation changes and
laid out with a bunch of orange cones, but the race is good and there’s no damn
train tracks.
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