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Americans and Canadians (or this American anyway) aren't "butthurt" about the ACO. We're actually more angry with the ALMS leadership refusing to step far enough away, in our minds, from ACO rules to better suit US sports car racing. Also, I never said that this year's Le Mans wasn't fantastic or even that ACO rules are bad and should be done away with. I said that their rules don't allow the ALMS to be competitive against competition in the US market. If the ALMS had a media footprint that was significantly greater than Grand-Am and could provide an ROI that makes small professional teams (the Starworks and even Gainscos of the world) indulge in the larger investment for P1 or GT racing in the ALMS than there would be no discussion about doing away with the ACO or changing the formula significantly enough so as to upset the ACO and VAG and Peugeot to equalize competition. (we've already seen in print that even Pickett Racing, an ALMS stalwart isn't happy about running for best of the rest at Sebring.) A greater footprint and ROI for teams isn't likely to happen any time soon (again the fault of the ALMS not the ACO) so it is imperative the ALMS do something to sell itself to the Starworks and Gainscos of the world.
I think there is a lot of blame to go around between the ACO, IMSA and the ALMS and even "blame" falls at the feet of Grand-Am for having done such a great job to provide a platform for professional American road racing teams that both have fully professional lineups and sell to amateurs. Does Grand-Am have the perfect answer? No, they are missing the attraction that factory cars bring to a championship, and the hardcore sports car fan would like an open tire formula and generally faster more aerodynamically open cars (read: more attractive), like those that are seen in the ACO.
JAG is right about the potential the ALMS has remaining with the ACO, if the ALMS can get Toyota of North America, Honda of North America, Porsche, or Audi of America or some combination of the above to return to the series it would be a boon and go a long way in returning the championship to its fantastic status circa 2008. However, for race-by-race anorak supporters of the ALMS and American sports car racing we've seen a serious decline in the professionalism of the championship from its days as the darling of the International racing scene, so naturally we are concerned about the current management's ability to bring back the good days as well as perhaps too impatiently waiting for the return of one or two big manufacturers to P1 who are willing to spend money not only racing, but marketing the championship. Therefore we have a desire to see something change, and allowing a larger range of engines in P1 like 6 liter V12s or 7 liter V8s and perhaps only using ACO tubs as the basis for a prototype formula exclusive to eve US that is more attractive than the current formula and better than Grand-Am financially for the teams running them. It's not impossible, we just want something to happen to fix the series instead of stagnation. Because with stagnation, even though there is potential of ACO manufacturers coming to play in America, there is no indication that either the North American branches or the manufacturers themselves will want to add the cost of an additional US program to their hundred million dollar WEC programs.
I will enthusiastically watch the WEC but I don't want the ALMS to suffer as a result of strengthening global sports car racing. There is no reason it should and if the LMS has hardcore fans the way the ALMS does I'm certain they feel the same way. All aspects of sportscar racing should grow, the strong bits shouldn't be simply moved from one branch to another which is almost what it feels like with the WEC. (of course Toyota and Porsche and the potential Honda programs seem to indicate growth attributable to the WEC.) Again, we wait and see what happens, hopefully the growth of the WEC will help the ALMS and sports car racing world wide, not just one International sports car series.
Chris
Edit: essentially the reason we want the ACO out is because we want the people who are in charge of the ALMS to have US sports car racing's interests at heart and not have a world championship to farm the assets of American racing out to. Hopefully the ALMS returns to its strong days and it can share a weekend at Road America and Laguna with the WEC. Four separate sports car races on two super weekends at two great tracks.
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