IMSA GTP cars should have been 2,000+ horsepower cars

[Fogelhund]

Bob - I actually am old enough to remember IMSA GT, and do have a pretty good understanding of their rules, and how things worked.

I do disagree with your principles, many of your points though.

The huge amount of money spent by Audi is spent the same way it is spent in NASCAR, how to overcome the restrictions that was imposed by the sanctioning body.
Do not try to say these recent restriction rules are the same as the old basic displacement and weight rules. Beyond those, one could develope engines systems to create as much horse power as one wanted

Any racing series, at any point in time, is about finding the way to be the fastest within the rules. This has not changed from Day 1, and will never change. People still try and make engines with the most horsepower within those rules.

Yes, there are more restrictions within the rules these days, as sanctions try and control speeds. I would hardly categorize that the rules as written by the ACO result are "contrived".

One may wax poetically about the old days, but it is nothing more then romantic garbage. The racing today on balance is no better, or no worse in GT/Proto racing then it was back in the day.

"Look how hard an R8 can be pushed for 24 hours."
I hope so, look how hard a MK IV Ford and a Lola GT were pushed for 24 hours and they only had 2 drivers, each, it didn't take a fist full of drivers to get the job done.

We know full well that the race pace of MKIV Fords was not near the race pace that present day cars run. How many drivers talk about this? Again waxing poetically about something that isn't true.

A show about racing said the "devil may care attitude" has been replaced by safety.
A certain amount of consideration for safety, has always been taken into account. The day the racing was no longer the first concern and safety something that merely had to be addressed, was the day, racing lost it heart and soul.

Well, certainly the general public no longer has the heart for the blood sports that were once tolerated. Racing was one of those blood sports, and it did have to change. If because of these concerns for safety, it has lost its heart and soul to you, then so be it. I for one don't believe that the quality of racing has been reduced in situations involving rules for the construction of racecars. (Though how I hate the chicane ladened race tracks). There are races today, that are just as exciting as they ever were, and at lap times faster then they were in the past.



.

It has been replaced by greed, fascists and fascist wannabes.....I am tired of seeing how slowmobiles, because some little Hiltler likes to pull strings.

:confused: Ummm, ok

Rules evolve, racing evolves, and some fans do too.

[Bob Riebe]

Any racing series, at any point in time, is about finding the way to be the fastest within the rules. This has not changed from Day 1, and will never change. People still try and make engines with the most horsepower within those rules.
Yes, there are more restrictions within the rules these days, as sanctions try and control speeds. I would hardly categorize that the rules as written by the ACO result are "contrived".
One may wax poetically about the old days, but it is nothing more then romantic garbage. The racing today on balance is no better, or no worse in GT/Proto racing then it was back in the day.

Any time an engine, without a blower,( that involves different physics)that forced to produce less horsepower than it is capable of by a strict atrificial restriction, that is a contrivance. Which means it is contrived (CONTRIVED: artificial, forced (from the OED) Ignorance is bliss.

The racing is not worse unless you like NASCAR style equivalence. No longer can manufacturers go out and build a new engine, ala in the Ford Trans-Am, to find a winner. Nope, now they have to piddle around figuring out how to beat a "official" contrivance.
The racers race just as hard now as ever, only with less freedom to go fast.

We know full well that the race pace of MKIV Fords was not near the race pace that present day cars run. How many drivers talk about this? Again waxing poetically about something that isn't true.

The Ford and Chevy boys did it with an engine designed to push around a 4,000 passenger car.
Audi did it with a race car special.
Who accomplished more.
Driving a car over 200 mph and back down, in a car that has lessor brakes, tires, engine management--well, which car is actually being pushed harder, and which driver has a greater chore?
How many drivers you say spoke, were driving the cars of near forty years ago. How would they know?

Well, certainly the general public no longer has the heart for the blood sports that were once tolerated.

Says who or what?
the vocal minority of the puclic, or to use a better name-self serving public servants- were just a vocal in the past as now.
It is there unmeasurable access to the public airwaves that makes it seem louder. Those who they are deliberately preaching to are those who know nothing of racing and really don't care, except that they are so pathetically gullible; they do as told and charge along with the rest of the gerbils, allowing politicians and the courts to tell them what is or is not best for them.
The safety aspect of racing today, is something that would make Joan Claybrook jump up and cheer.
If you have forgotten she is the Carter bimbo who pushed such things as: Rear Steer Motorcycles (Boy I wish I could ride one of those) And
the Saftey mobiles; So heavy they could not get out of their own way and during the so called "energy crisis" got fuel milage which rivaled a Mack Truck. (Of course they were such an embarassing failure that each and every one was crushed before Carter left office.
Yup, Ole Joan is proably real happy with racing today. The harder they tries the more restrictored they get.
Bob

[jhansen]

Just out of curiosity Bob, do you watch racing in any form these days? If yes, which series do you follow?

[Fogelhund]

Bob, your views are interesting and unique. I just don't agree with what you have to say at all, and welcome the change that has made racing as great as it is today. If you hate all that this has become, why bother with it, or a forum then?

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by Fogelhund
Bob, your views are interesting and unique. I just don't agree with what you have to say at all, and welcome the change that has made racing as great as it is today. If you hate all that this has become, why bother with it, or a forum then?

Messers Hansen und Fogelhund:

Let's see, who or what first?
Well I post on these forums because I can and when I first started there were more people who agreed with me, including the gent who runs DSC (when I once posted a blistering post over there he sent me a private attaboy)
There used to be another site by Big Stan but that fine gent passed away.
Plus, the "thank you sir, may I have another" types often know little to none of racing back when IMSA first started in 1971 and get the idea that it has always been the way it is now.
I still follow AlMs but I had hoped that when Mr. Panoz started ihis series, he would go back to a GT formula similar to what was used by IMSA before 1979, but in his own style, not the **** from the ACO.
I follow IRL about as much as I have ever followed OW racing
Here again I despise spec. racing and George is becoming a hypocrite compared to what he BS about when he started.
plus unlimited hydroplanes and snowmobile racing, even though the spec. nazis are hitting them also.


The safety hype annoys me mainly because as when Earnhardt was killed, suddently you get all these talking heads that are going to do this or that, as if they can play God.
You start dying the day you are born, get used to it.

The stock car driver that got killed at Watkins Glen, they changed the track and his wife tried to sue. Back then I spoke on the internet with people who were in the know and they all said, if anyone was to blame it was the driver and the hot air was just that for PR purposes. That they changed the race track they thought was asinine.
My annoyance goes beyond racing and includes the street laws the politicians use just to stay elected. Although I have never heard them apologize the the several hundred killed by their airbags.
If you are going to say that they saved more lives than they have killed, please justify why those children killed by the airbags lives were so worthless.

This is not hatred, do not confuse dispising something because I find it foolish, with hating something. If I have used the term hate, my foolish error.
Bob
PS-When I first started to take an interest in racing,it was not uncommon for a car to win by more than one lap. I loved racing because of the cars, still do.
Yes, if a close race happened, that was something special and made that race something that one did not forget.
Too many of these fans today expect, every race to have a gaggle of cars running on the lead lap, and supposedly fighting for the finish.
This is the biggest farce, as the restricted engines, due to contrivances, will be asphyxiated by the contrivances so so those not in lead have little or no chance to win as they do not have the torque or horsepower to overtake the leader. This is one reason fender banging became more common in NASCAR as no one could simply drive by the other anymore.
I remember well in the early Trans-Am, Sam Posey said his car had a 7,500 RPM redline but he would often come in after the race with the tell-tale reading 8,200 RPM or higher.
HE said while it was not good for the engine, if you want to race for position you push the car as hard as you have to. Maybe it will blow, maybe it will not.
The contrived rules make doing this impossible.
Bob