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JHS18

Sports Car Racing Thread

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Neel Jani announced as the third driver of the Porsche LMP1, along with Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/neel-jani-joins-porsche-for-lmp1-project/

Speculation that they might announce the rest soon. Contenders include Nick Heidfeld (blow for Rebellion if both Jani and Heidfeld jump ship), Mark Webber, and Jean-Karl Vernay.

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As you've probably read already, Webber is the latest of Porsche's drivers to be confirmed.

Their line-up now stands as this: Bernhard, Dumas, Jani, and Webber.

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On the subject of Porsche, super classy tribute to Simonsen from them:

Saturday represented the time I hate motorsport. But things like this remind me why I love it. Motorsport, as a community, knows how to be classy and respectful. Drivers, manufacturers, teams, and everyone else involved with this incredible sport know how to honour those who we've lost.

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Daily Sports Car speculates that thanks to Jani and Webber's links to Red Bull, the the RB logos will appear on the Porsche.

Possibly paves a way for a certain Sebastien Loeb to drive the car too interestingly, as long as there aren't many calendar clashes with the WTCC next year...

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The Porsche tribute was measured and honorable.

Regarding RB and Porsche, Dietrich M did say that Webber will have the RB logo on his helmet next year so I guess they may be title sponsors for the coming campaign

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Thanks for sharing!

Is the grass new to COTA? I don't remember it ever being there.

The Élan DeltaWing is so interesting. It's a shame that Nissan, Ben Bowlby, Don Panoz, and RML could not all get along. I guess the upside is getting both the Nissan hybrid at Le Mans and the Élan DeltaWing in the newly-named "IMSA Tudor United SportsCar Championship," which might be the most cumbersome thing I've ever typed. "Rolex Sports Car Series" and "Grand-Am" of the present sound so much better...

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Thanks for sharing!

Is the grass new to COTA? I don't remember it ever being there.

The Élan DeltaWing is so interesting. It's a shame that Nissan, Ben Bowlby, Don Panoz, and RML could not all get along. I guess the upside is getting both the Nissan hybrid at Le Mans and the Élan DeltaWing in the newly-named "IMSA Tudor United SportsCar Championship," which might be the most cumbersome thing I've ever typed. "Rolex Sports Car Series" and "Grand-Am" of the present sound so much better...

Yeah they really screwed the pooch when naming the merged series.

Re: the grass, it looks a lot better on tv than it does up close. It's still very thin & patchy & when it's wet out, like Friday and early on Saturday, your show pick up lots of mud even when walking in the grass.An employee they fired recently tried to tell them how to get the grass to grow, but they must have known better than him. dam.gif Had they pulled in more than the few thousand people that were out there, it would have been a mess Saturday morning.

Great racing all weekend. Track was lightly staffed & seemed pretty disorganized all weekend. COTA told Stadium People earlier in the week to staff for 8-10K people & we heard there were about 11k tickets sold. Announced 3-day attendance was only ~33K. After rain all day on Friday, the weather was stunning on Saturday & Sunday. I'm working on more photos to post. I'll let you all know when they're up.

Also, I never got to post my Friday pics here, as I couldn't ever load this page for some reason. I'll get those up asap.

I see that the USCR 2014 calendar has been released, with Austin in the same slot as this year. I really hope the WEC comes back too. The USCR will lose a lot with no P1s and the P2s neutered so the DPs can compete with them. I wanna see P1s in full effect. They were nothing short of amazing. If you didn't go see these cars in the esses cutting through traffic like it was butter, you really missed it this weekend.

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OK, I've added a couple of COTA ALMS/WEC galleries. Still more to come from Saturday!

Sunday during the WEC 6-hour:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.714372641910617.1073741902.157330087614878&type=1

More Friday rain pics:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.713094175371797.1073741901.157330087614878&type=3

Preview:

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1237900_714386525242562_1108319690_n.jpg

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Wow! COTA's a neat track, and your photos capture that. The one with Pecom's Oreca and AF Corse's Ferrari is particularly cool. Thanks again.

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Wow! COTA's a neat track, and your photos capture that. The one with Pecom's Oreca and AF Corse's Ferrari is particularly cool. Thanks again.

Thanks so much! I try not to make it all about the cars.

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Confirming what we heard over the ALMS/WEC weekend, Autoweek just released an article on the state of sportscar racing in the U.S:

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20131002/ALMS/131009957?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign

Several nights before the International Sports Car Weekend at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas—the American Le Mans Series on Saturday, Sept. 21, the FIA World Endurance Championship on Sunday, Sept. 22—FIA officials summoned COTA management to a hastily called meeting. The officials proceeded to slam them mercilessly, claiming this was one of the worst-promoted, worst-run races they've seen; that they expected this in China, but in America? Where their sophisticated Audis and Toyotas should be playing to a packed house in their only appearance here this year? Not acceptable, and we wondered if the WEC's three-year contract would see year two. This was days before the races even started.

Friday, rain trimmed the crowd, but on Saturday and Sunday, the weather was perfect. COTA claimed a three-day crowd of about 35,000, which seems optimistic. Near the end of Sunday's WEC race, it is simply not possible to claim there were more than 5,500 fans there. The ALMS, with its familiar Corvettes and Vipers and comparably loud cars, outdrew the WEC significantly. That's item No. 1 you should know about.

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