Rate the race: Rolex 24 at Daytona (TUSC)

[Beetle]

Lot's of controversy surrounding the first race of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. What would you rate it?

1 (Bad) - 10 (Good).

[Rodger Davies]

I think you're going to need categories, like Coverage, Entry, Racing, Stewardship etc.

[PabloTeK]

Too many adverts, not enough time spent on P2 and PC.

Oh, and that finish.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Quality of Field-9/10

Quality of Racing First 23.5 hours-8/10

Quality of "Racing" last 0.5 hour-5/10

Race Control/Safety Cars/Stewardship-2/10

FOX TV Coverage: 0/10

I'll give it a 4 overall the stewardship and BOP is just unacceptably bad.

[Rodger Davies]

Quality of Field - 8/10
It was a high quality mix, in the top class and across all 4. Likely the best GTE Pro field we'll see all year and the GTD entry was spectacularly good. It loses points because it's a prestigious event without the world's most prestigious cars and the pictures of Ferraris and Porsches winning through the years are a constant reminder of this fact.

Quality of Racing - 8/10
It never genuinely threatened to be a 'race for the ages' but it was well thought and, with so many cars and drivers of different speeds, the driving standards amongst all classes was relatively high and the BoP wasn't as completely broken as it could have been and will hopefully balance over the season.

Coverage Availability - 6/10
The organiser's did a fair job of sorting this out, although nothing was announced until shortly before the race. In the US, network coverage and all of day 2 were on widely available channels and the usual motoring channels picked it up here. No (official) streaming is a deal-breaker for me, and this was a huge disappointment, but everyone has different needs here and I understand not everyone can be catered for. Hopefully this is improved before next year. The 12 onboard cameras were great quality feeds and available everywhere through imsa.com, but not speed.com.

Coverage quality - 4/10
The picture quality on the stream was high and Speed's team are a well-drilled, educated bunch of professionals and continue to do a good job in my eyes. The mix of accents and backgrounds works well. MRN doesn't deserve a score but they bring this right down, when the ALMS radio guys were available and willing. I hope that MRN utilises them later in the year, especially for enduros.

Stewardship/Race Direction - 5/10
With the exception of the two horrible decisions at the end, this was fine throughout. The red flag was correctly called. However, this loses an extra point to me because of the stupid 'lucky dog' rule.

[Brownj]

I agree with a lot of the complaints here regarding the yellow flags, BoP, GTD finish, etc.. I thought the Fox Sports people during the day did a decent job and were professional. Bob Varsha, Tommy Kendall, and Justin Bell were ace. But I think my biggest complaint is the overnight coverage and the clowns from MRN.

So how hard could it be for MRN to hire people like John Hindaugh, Jeremy Shaw, Paul Truswell, etc. to do the radio coverage? We don't need NASCAR people commentating on sports cars, we need sports car people! Even if it isn't branded as radiolemans, I would still be happy to have them covering the races. A long time ago, I used to be a NASCAR fan, and MRN are outstanding at covering that type of racing and they know it inside and out. Eli Gold's voice is NASCAR to me, just like Hindy's voice is Le Mans to me. I just hope they see the need to make changes. It was appalling. Our group of hardcore fans gave up and went to sleep halfway thru the night because we were tired of the NASCAR references and the amount of mistakes the MRN crew made. This needs to change.

[ATLFalconsFAN]

It's all been discussed very well already by most of you, so I can't really add much other than echo what some others have already said.

- For me there are two things that will never sit right with Daytona (one can easily be corrected). First is the circuit itself. I have a very hard time getting excited at the prospect of watching a race held on a roval (if it weren't for the fact that it's the first race of the year and a proper enduro I would surely skip watching it completely). Not much can be done about that. Second issue is the lack of P1 cars. For as long as TUSC has the class structure that omits the top level in our sport these races will be tainted. I don't mind so much when it's some run of the mill race at VIR or Laguna Seca, but when they roll out the old footage showing the top level of sports car racing from years past it ruins the prestige of the current big races. Same will go for Sebring. It would be like having two minor league AAA teams playing in the World Series, not the best of what the sport has to offer.

- Coverage was awful. The commentators on Fox are great, the frequency of the commercials is not. It was truly ridiculous how often the commercials were played. I guess from now on if I'm not at the race and watching on TV I'll DVR and watch later. MRN is a joke. I thought that professionals were required to do a little bit of homework. At least a cheat sheet that shows you how to pronounce all the names, how long would that have taken?! Who ever is in charge of the coverage needs to bring RLM back, let the fans decide. Go ahead and let MRN keep doing their thing, maybe they'll turn some NASCAR fans on to better racing.

- The race itself was fine up until the last half hour, we all know why. No sense in getting upset with P class BOP unless the same thing happens again at Sebring. I have to disagree with what people are saying about PC. I think it's a good class with a quality field of drivers and professional teams. It belongs there. GTD is also very welcome. A pleasant surprise for an ALMS fan.

[Maelochs]

Post-Race notes

Great field, good race

BoP: I was ****ed until someone pointed out that the Oak Morgan Nissan did a lap within .7 of the Sebastian Bourdais’ fastest lap of the race. Now I have to eat all my words (which will be a few big meals) because given the unfamiliar tires, I’d have to say that’s about within the margin of error.

A lot of people ridiculed Michael Shank for asking for a BoP adjustment because his Riley EcoBust Ford was .5 slower than the quickest Chevy-powered car. So … what was that about BoP?

As for the long yellow after the early wreck---could not someone have been computing the running order while they were instead in Race Control watching the driver extraction on the monitors? I understand that some cars drove around and some cars stopped, and the order had to be calculated, but it took half the time to cut two drivers out of two crumpled cars that it took to count to 65.

Other yellows—three laps minimum to pit the two types of cars plus a catchall lap for the wave-by cars, plus a lap to reorder the field. Only solutions I see are Not closing the pits and going Code 60 so cars don’t race back to the pits at full speed And having twice the pit space to avoid safety issues when five dozen drivers all try to be first in and out, or Only having two laps for pit stops and no wave-by, (and I do Not mean the lame LBWB) which sucks if the safety car splits the various classes.

I still haven’t seen video of the Level 5/Lizard incident.

As for the AJR incident with 21 minutes to go—I simply n not willing to say that was a deliberate wreck.

I think it took 12 minutes—three laps under caution—to clean that up. Considering that there are safety vehicles practically right there … I don’t know if it could have been done more quickly. I will watch the broadcast and surely invent some BS in response.

[EDIT] I didn’t realize until after the race that the AJR car drove away under its own power. Wow. (I switched spots to watch the finish when the yellow waved because I figured I’d have lots of time.) Three laps to pick up pieces? When there is a corner-worker station Right There?

I so didn’t want to see this as Race Management … I will watch that whole incident a few times before hiring assassins to “fix the problem.” (Take that, NSA.) Seriously I will lose a Lot of respect for TUSC if that last cleanup looks anything but frantically high-speed.

Re: MRN—I have listened to Hindy et al through a Lot of 12- and 24-hour races, and sometimes they talk about silly stuff … And I didn’t pay that much attention because they were sometimes talking about silly stuff … but aside from the names, which I have heard from a lot of crews (I spoke with one journalist at Petit two years ago who went to every prominent driver, taped them saying their names, and learned them (“Yurg BAyrk-Mice- Tuh”)—every announcer I have ever heard has some variety (“Negg-ree, ne-Gree”?)

The guy who used to do PA at Sebring had a gorgeous voice and made every Euro name into a moment of comic relief. When Oreca won in 2011? And Hugues de Chaunac had to be announced …

Anyway, I will watch the video and I will invent a huge load of controversial BS we can argue about. Just give me time.

[wheelz22]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

I think you're going to need categories, like Coverage, Entry, Racing, Stewardship etc.

Good one !

[Articus]

Hahaha we all know where this thread is going...

[Adam43]

On all aspects that was a joke of a "motor race". Better both series had failed than that.

[belt driven]

Originally Posted by Adam43

... Better both series had failed than that.

Hate to hear that; but now that you mention it...

I've had a gnawing suspicion that Nascar bought out Panoz just to get Road Atlanta for a Nationwide and eventually a Cup race. Both series test road course cars there already. GTLM/GTD would make a dandy support race. I'd be there.

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by belt driven

Hate to hear that; but now that you mention it...

I've had a gnawing suspicion that Nascar bought out Panoz just to get Road Atlanta for a Nationwide and eventually a Cup race. Both series test road course cars there already. GTLM/GTD would make a dandy support race. I'd be there.

That reminds me. MRN said that when ALMS went to Road Atlanta for PLM last year it was a twin bill with the K&N East series. Yeah. All those sportscar fans showed up to see the co-headliners, the K&N East series. The ones that wouldn't race in the rain.

[rwintle]

I gave it a 5.

Pluses: field size, lots of manufacturers, some good drama and battles

Minuses: manufactured yellow, insanely long safety car periods throughout, dumb-ass penalty to the 555, brain-numbing barrage of mindless commercials

[Salamus]

Coverage was horrible. It was either watching a third of the race go to commercials or listen to MRN cock up everything.

The actual race was good. Pretty cool seeing LMP2s and GTEs at Daytona. But the P2s had no chance today. And the race was ruined because it was so hard to follow.

I was expecting a final yellow and wasn't surprised when it happened. I gave the race a 3. Not a race I will remember, except for the Malucelli/Gidley accident sadly. I hope both of them get healthy soon!

[Disraeli Eers]

I enjoyed the time I spent watching it (including taking a day off work).

This is my first race as part of this forum. The chat was fun, but Jesus Christ the ALMS and GA are dead and gone. Give it a rest. Also, we all know there were a lot of commercials. Pointing it out every time doesn't make you an expert analyst.

For a first race in a new series produced by some new people, I can't complain much. That final caution was a bit maddening as the end of the race was starting to really offer some good battles, but it is what it is. I don't think it changed the results any. Maybe for GTD but #45 was coming at a decent pace and it would've been a battle without the caution I bet.

[MJ_N_09]

Simply put, Would have been an 8, but I decided to cut the score in half, to 4, because really, how could the late race decisions not affect the overall quality of the race experience?


EDIT: I decided not to count the race coverage (TV/streaming etc.) because that was not going to effect the overall racing and finish order.

[J Jay]

Voted 5. There was a good race in that mess of BoP and cautions, too bad Elkins only wanted to see it for 23 and a bit hours

[FordCosworthPanoz]

One other thing except for the early morning hours and some crazy driving by Max the overall "P" class was mind-numbingly boring but then again that's par the course for prototype racing of all kind: LMP1, LMP2, DP ect ect for the past few years.

[Breitling24]

MRN: I've never heard Oz Negri's name pronounced so many different ways by one person. Guess Gold figured one of those many ways had to be correct.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by Breitling24

MRN: I've never heard Oz Negri's name pronounced so many different ways by one person. Guess Gold figured one of those many ways had to be correct.

MRN Bubbas get 10/10 for effort.

[Breitling24]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

MRN Bubbas get 10/10 for effort.

From Marshall Pruett's Facebook:

"I've made the decision that, just as one should not reward bad behavior, the letters M, R, and N will not be spoken or written in reference to sports car coverage. The new code name is "Radio Tallahassee" ..."

[FstrthnU]

I gave it a 7, the finish and last yellow and the HORRIBLE Tv Coverage brought the race down, but I give IMSA credit for making the event happen and getting a quality field here. The race was very unpredictable, lots of front-runners dropped out! That's endurance racing!

[Chris Draper]

I hear a good analogy. When Lexus launched, they didn't want owners to think they bought a Toyota. Maybe TUSC should bury the Nascar "stuff" a little bit.

Here's my opinion:

TV Broadcast: 5/10 - Qualifying was not available anywhere (even online). I give them kudos for putting the first 2 hours of the race on FOX, but switching between 4 different channels/online was ridiculous. Commentators carried over from Grand-Am are not my cup of tea (as well as many others)

Radio Broadcast: 0/10 - MRN had no coverage of the Roar/Practice/or Qualifying. Lack of sportscar knowledge was painful, and the number of times Nascar references were mentioned was comical.

Social Media: 10/10 - This is one thing the series has going for them.

Race Control: 7/10 - Other than the last 20 minutes of the race, the calls were ok. Not perfect, but ok.

Quality of Field: 10/10 - No question

Quality of Racing: 9/10 - A lot of good racing. A lot of small issues hit a lot of top teams

Initial BoP: 8/10: Have to give IMSA props, they did a good job. I don't think ANYONE thought a year ago that this was possible. That being said, there is still room for improvement.

[jasonjessica09]

The race itself was good. Knocked down to 7 due to external factors: 1)Memo Gidley's injury 2) heard Tv coverage was bad (I was at the race) 3) And obviously the way the yellow/red flags were handled. Its not just the phantom yellow at the end that was a fiasco, it was the handling of the red flag after the crash site was cleaned out. Why did it take so long to figure out who lined up where.

IMSA has a lot of work to do to sort out their officiating. A grade of "F" goes to the race officials for sure! An "A" to all the fans including me who turned out to the race. I did not get to watch as much of it as I hoped as I had a wife and a 2 year old to look after and a plane flight delay Saturday morning but it was fun still though. Watching the race from the grandstands is great and I got spoiled to get to see so much of the race track.