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If you've heard Radio LeMans' Sportscar Review, you'll see there's a few 'Europeans' who actually think ACO has stiffed the ALMS (and ELMS).
I, for one, am Canadian but live in Europe so I'm a bit halfway and if ACO was at all interested in keeping their 'support' series alive and kicking, they wouldn't have done what they did to Petit Le Mans. No, it would never be part of WEC, and I think the Americans need to concede to that. To be in the WEC, you'd have to slaughter your consistent foundations in favor of a one shot, per year, overseas travellers. However, ACO could have easily allowed a 2 week gap before and after this race to allow some teams to come to this race, especially the more funded ones, and promote Petit as a race with a prize for Le Mans of the next year.
It's no coincidence the race has been called Petit LeMans for a long time, and ALMS was, for a pretty long time, one of the stallwarts that kept the LM name going, noone can doubt that.
The ALMS fans need to also realize, and most do, that without a WEC, Audi and Peugeot would still only do Sebring and Petit probably. Different times. These companies and factory programmes function based on marketing decisions. They went to America because there was a market to grab. Once that was over, they turned their guns to Asia.
The obsessive thrust for the friggen buck makes things change in the snap of a finger, and it will happen with the WEC eventually, as well.
WEC seemed clearly only interested in P1 programs at one point but they probably realized they would not have a grid so they opened the flood gates and came with the rule of a full season effort guaranteed a LMs entry. And business tells the small teams "if some guys are starting to creep over to WEC to guarantee the big piggy bank event, we need to push our budgets also."
First, PLM being overlapped by WEC was a kick in the ass for ALMS by ACO. Then ACO kicked ELMS in the ass after this championship said "ok, we'll give you P1 and focus on P2" and ACO suddenly said "we need more entries.... come on P2s, we give you LM spot!!!". And shafted ELMS.
Not really helping their feeder series in this economic landscape.
I'm sure we'll have all 3 championships, because some teams will be stretching their budgets. But I fear they are stretching their budgets thinking the payoff will compensate the investment.
And if it doesn't, how many of these privateer teams will survive for 2013?
I mean you guys gotta be wondering, all these smaller teams, how did they suddenly find money with the same sponsors when the economy is as bad as it is? Maybe I'm being pessimistic and there was more money available but before a World Championship, the companies didn't want to invest so much, and now they do. But I don't know....
Don't get me wrong, the WEC is going to be very interesting on the track but I'm a bit spooked at the perspective that we're sacrificing privateers for 10-12 short/mid-term big name factory cars on track. Eerie resemblance to the early 90s.
But, hey! LM and Sportscars survived that whirlpool so they'll survive it again if it happens.
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