Round 3: American Le Mans Series Monterey

[FstrthnU]

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...mazda-raceway/

Muscle Milk sailed to the pole of course

Level 5 on top 1-2 because Conquest had suspension failure in final practice, they're trying to forge the broken part at a local shop to try and make tomorrow's race. Dempsey in P3 though

AMR on GT pole as mentioned, #4 Corvette P2, #55 BMW P3 (!), #45 Porsche P4 Also, AJR tried the 2012 engine in the Lotus but it broke down in first practice so they switched back to the 2011 engine again

RSR with another pole, but can they use this one effectively? Core Autosport still looking like the best overall with P2

Green Hornet Racing with pole, looking very healthy for the rest of the championship this year. TRG is hungry behind them though, P2 and P3 in GTC.

[The Badger]

AMR on pole ..... fantastic news

[haribo]

Bit disappointed with Dyson. Muscle Milk are soooo much faster that they'll disappear into the distance in no time! In fact the Dyson Lola is only 0.5s faster than the Level 5 HPDs so they might have to watch themselves from the P2s at this rate!

Loved watching Montagny in the HPD in qualifying. He was really throwing it around, but Bochut just edged it.

GT is very close. No idea what will happen but I'll going to stick my neck out for a Corvette victory.

[The Badger]

Differance being , both the P1 and P2 HPD are turnkey chassis , the Lola isnt . Makes a big differance imo .

[haribo]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Differance being , both the P1 and P2 HPD are turnkey chassis , the Lola isnt . Makes a big differance imo .

Turnkey or not, I'm still disappointed that they're 1.8s off the Muscle Milk

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by haribo

Turnkey or not, I'm still disappointed that they're 1.8s off the Muscle Milk

if you think well, there is nothing new; when in 2010 highcroft used the arx-01c, the honda car was too much faster than all the other lmp1 and lmp2 lola coupè; so really nothing new. Last year cytosport used the lola aston that was a good car but at the end of the development and more than once suffered of reliability/burning problems.
About GT i'm surprised that #56 bmw wasn't able to run for the pole, 8 months ago joy hand was able to run in 1.22.2

[wheelz22]

Originally Posted by FstrthnU

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...mazda-raceway/

RSR with another pole, but can they use this one effectively?

Sure...as a long as a certain someone doesn't muck things up...

[picchiofan]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Differance being , both the P1 and P2 HPD are turnkey chassis , the Lola isnt . Makes a big differance imo .

How you figure? Dyson is allegedly a professional race shop, they've run this engine for what, 5 years and the chassis is just an evolution of the same platform they've run the past 3-4 years.

Cytosport is a smaller shop, and this is a completely brand new setup for them this year, despite that they're light years quicker than the Dysons. They were faster at Sebring, they absolutely trounced Dyson at Long Beach, and they're 2 seconds quicker here.

Granted, because Muscle Milk didn't make 70% at Sebring and the ALMS point system is so horrendously broken Dyson has already pretty much clinched the title for the year, so it's all sort of for not.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by picchiofan

How you figure? Dyson is allegedly a professional race shop, they've run this engine for what, 5 years and the chassis is just an evolution of the same platform they've run the past 3-4 years.

The new Lola is a significant update (new aero concept at the front, revised suspension to fit the wide front tyres) and this is the first year for Dunlop with the wide front tyres.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by picchiofan

How you figure? Dyson is allegedly a professional race shop, they've run this engine for what, 5 years and the chassis is just an evolution of the same platform they've run the past 3-4 years.

Cytosport is a smaller shop, and this is a completely brand new setup for them this year, despite that they're light years quicker than the Dysons. They were faster at Sebring, they absolutely trounced Dyson at Long Beach, and they're 2 seconds quicker here.

Granted, because Muscle Milk didn't make 70% at Sebring and the ALMS point system is so horrendously broken Dyson has already pretty much clinched the title for the year, so it's all sort of for not.

You may be thinking of last years sebring. This year Muscle Milk was running 3rd overall till last pit stop and the car had a fueling problem and retired. So they made well over the 70% this year

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by joeb

You may be thinking of last years sebring. This year Muscle Milk was running 3rd overall till last pit stop and the car had a fueling problem and retired. So they made well over the 70% this year

And right now they're tied 40-40 on points, so if MM beat Dyson at Laguna, they'll be ahead in the series points.

[Jonerz]

My personal opinion is Chris Dyson is about a half-step behind the Pickett Racing drivers and the Mazda motor probably isn't as strong as the HPD. But that is purely based on observations and biases.

How Dyson was so out of the ballpark on setup this weekend? There is no excuse. Hopefully they've made another step forward with their setup overnight.

And as for Pickett Racing, though they are a newer team by the end of 2010 the team was already championship calibre. Were I wealthy enough, I'd much rather spend my money on being Pickett's third car than Dyson's.

Chris

[Purist]

I think Dyson messed up on their timing in qualifying after the red flag in the middle of the middle of the P1/P2 session. Also, I'm wondering if the Dunlops take another lap or two to come up to temp/pressure, which with that red flag, would have hosed Dyson really going for pole.

[thudnuts]

What happened to the NGT boys? Must be still reeling from the Sebring crash.

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by Purist

I think Dyson messed up on their timing in qualifying after the red flag in the middle of the middle of the P1/P2 session. Also, I'm wondering if the Dunlops take another lap or two to come up to temp/pressure, which with that red flag, would have hosed Dyson really going for pole.

disagree, also in practice session 2 the arx-03a has been more than 2 seconds faster than the lola dyson.

[fieldodreams79]

Someone has planned a wedding with a "dry" reception, from rumors I heard, that I being forced to attend tonight.

Thinking of being "that guy" with Tune in Radio and T&S mobile. Twelve hours of racing in two weeks time, and I MAY see an hour or two of it .

Should be a good show in GT as standard.

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

Someone has planned a wedding with a "dry" reception, from rumors I heard, that I being forced to attend tonight.

Thinking of being "that guy" with Tune in Radio and T&S mobile. Twelve hours of racing in two weeks time, and I MAY see an hour or two of it .

Should be a good show in GT as standard.

good but altered by bop if we talk about vantage's performance... did porsche receive some bop gift this year too by IMSA?

[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

good but altered by bop if we talk about vantage's performance... did porsche receive some bop gift this year too by IMSA?

I'm really unconcerned with the BoP. This class has been a snowball of BoP since at least '08. With new entries, new cars and various upgrades requiring waivers and the like for homologation the ACO lost control of the class ages ago and I think IMSA in particular has done a good job at managing the rules and making everyone reasonably happy and competitive.

Amongst forum goers it seems balance of performance is the complaint du jours. In 07 we were angry with the ACO's diesel-petrol equivalency, 08 we were offended that a gentleman driver would dare enter P1 in ACO racing or the ALMS at all, in '09 Scott Atherton was the enemy, in '10 the ALMS had no future and the 2011 P2 rules were stupid, in '11 Don Panoz was about to sell everything and IMSA was about to divorce the ACO and now BoP is murdering babies. Quite frankly, we're idiots. Myself most certainly included.

Chris

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by Jonerz

I'm really unconcerned with the BoP. This class has been a snowball of BoP since at least '08. With new entries, new cars and various upgrades requiring waivers and the like for homologation the ACO lost control of the class ages ago and I think IMSA in particular has done a good job at managing the rules and making everyone reasonably happy and competitive.

Amongst forum goers it seems balance of performance is the complaint du jours. In 07 we were angry with the ACO's diesel-petrol equivalency, 08 we were offended that a gentleman driver would dare enter P1 in ACO racing or the ALMS at all, in '09 Scott Atherton was the enemy, in '10 the ALMS had no future and the 2011 P2 rules were stupid, in '11 Don Panoz was about to sell everything and IMSA was about to divorce the ACO and now BoP is murdering babies. Quite frankly, we're idiots. Myself most certainly included.

Chris

i instead think that IMSA was the only one that found the right compromise to balance diesel and petrol car in the past, until audi start on lobbying with IMSA when rs spyder started to win races beating audi cars for the overall victory. I know that the vantage runs with the same ACO shamefull bop values. I just ask my self if also in ALMS this year, the 997 run with 1210kg while ferrari, corvette and bmw with 1260kg,

[Truckosaurus]

First stupid question of the day: will the video streaming on the ALMS website be available in the UK or is it locked down?

As always it looks very unpromising from their website.

[alexkiller8]

yesterday i watched the qualifying session on ALMS site and streaming was working fine (i live in europe, so you too shouldn't have problems).

[911targa]

The ALMS stream link please

[911targa]

Is this the one?Seems there's no live steam at the moment, please post the right link if it's not the one below.

http://www.alms.com/alms-tv

[Truckosaurus]

Your guess is as good as mine... It really shouldn't be this difficult for those of us who take an interest in the sport to find the coverage, let alone a casual fan or encouraging new people to follow the sport.

[Jonerz]

http://www.alms.com/camera/live-broadcast

It's the core American audience that is locked out! Thanks ESPN!!!

Chris