Petit Le Mans 2012

[CyberMotor]

Heard the interview with Scott Atherton with Hindy. He said that setting schedules is a complex and fluid action involving tracks, sponsors, other events, etc., etc.. He added that in resolving the conflicts, it comes down to doing what is best for the ALMS and 'our interests' while everyone else works their things out.

[WMUCarGuy]

Originally Posted by scottypinthemix

the thing that ****ed me off the most was that the scoring light system on the cars didn't function all day.
It's hard to follow when you're moving all around the track and can't hear the PA system all the time.
To me that was a HUGE FAIL.

Definitely less people this year than last, but it was still a fun 4 days.

Totally gangster move by Rebellion. swap engine/tranny, toss car and crew in a plane and win it.
Congrats to them.

My thought is maybe the ALMS is attempting to artificially inflate the "success" of their mobile scoring app by forcing us to use it (which is no easy task when 100K people are trying to used the same bandwidth...) rather than the extremely awesome and easy to follow leader light system.

[Mike Hedlund]

Wish I could have made one of the Falken tours during the week but there was just to much stuff going on!

It was my first Petit but I was impressed by the number of people who started showing up early on Thursday and Friday. Saturday night when I was left the track after 11PM there was still a lot of people hanging out. The grid walk Saturday morning seemed pretty crowded as well.

-mike

[Ron S]

Was there thursday night and Friday. The Falken Porsche had a bright light in the left rear fenderwell or right infront of the left wheel. The Corvette had a similar light but not as bright. What was its porpose.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Crowd was healthy but maybe 2/3 of last year's if that much. Losing the Euro factories really hurt attendance.

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

The place was still pretty slammed when looking at the actual places where you can view the course, but certainly a noticeable drop in people. It was one of the most chilly PLMs I have attended.

Last year was a record attendance, so I didn't expect those kind of numbers again. I do wonder what effect the later date had on the attendance vs. the lack of factory P1's.

[Maelochs]

I base my statement about Audi/Peugeot being a main factor on conversations I had with fans who did show up; I never got a chance to talk with fans who didn't.

Camping areas were pretty well packed; I'd say the drive-in one-day count is what took the hit. No real clue, just observations from a guy who doesn't pay much attention.

No one mentioned the weather at all, probably because it was beautiful. It was a Lot colder Saturday night last year.

I don't know if we just got lucky with the weather this year---we may find out next year.

Could endurance racing become a winter sport? I talked with a fan from L.A. who said it was 102 out there when he left for Atlanta.

[Canada ALMS fan]

I was there all 4 days and the only thing that seemed noticeably less busy was the grid walk, maybe the race day only walk up was lower too. Although the quantity of cars was down from last year the quality was very high. The 7 Euro teams were all very extremely professional outfits and the Deltawing actually won me over. I talked to Gunnar his helmet never touched the ground.

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by Ron S

Was there thursday night and Friday. The Falken Porsche had a bright light in the left rear fenderwell or right infront of the left wheel. The Corvette had a similar light but not as bright. What was its porpose.

I believe that is data logging ride height.

[FalkenALMS]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Thanks to the Falken team for running a second tour and confirming to me not only was I not destined to be a driver, I'm probably too big to be a crew member if I had to work in the hauler. But then carrying enough stuff to test or rebuild about everything in the car doesn't leave much room for crew space and makes a better race for us fans.

Haha, our pleasure! We're all on vacation this week, but we'll get around to posting the pictures of all those who came out to the 10 Tenths tours in our paddock. Thanks again for stopping by!

[FalkenALMS]

Originally Posted by Ron S

Was there thursday night and Friday. The Falken Porsche had a bright light in the left rear fenderwell or right infront of the left wheel. The Corvette had a similar light but not as bright. What was its porpose.

It's a light so that the camera in the wheel well can show us how well the tire construction and compound is holding up. Most of ALMS tracks are hard on left rear tires, so a few teams put cameras there to constantly monitor the tire's performance.

[The Badger]

Thats a clever bit of kit then .

[Ron S]

Thanks for the awnser on the light.

[FalkenALMS]

first, big congrats to our very own Bryan Sellers who won the Most Popular Driver of the year! Our Crew Chief Alex Zaric also won the GT Mechanic of thd Year! We unfortunately didn't win the From the Fans award, but hopefully over the next season, we can increase our fan base and win the award again next year. Thanks to all who voted!

Here are the Team Falken Tire driver quotes following Petit Le Mans...

Bryan Sellers
The race is what we hoped for from the beginning. We knew we didn’t have the outright speed, but it’s like we said in our pre-race interviews, if we ran our race and did everything we needed to do that we could improve where we qualified and race our way forward. We were able to do that. Unfortunately we just fell literally five seconds short of being able to come into the top five, which would have been a huge accomplishment for us. All in all, I think today showed the resiliency of our guys and how we were able to run a race with little to no mistakes. Ultimately have a relatively successful race. As a whole for the season, we probably under delivered in some ways and over delivered in others. Any time you can get a win in ALMS GT, you’ve accomplished something, and we did that. However, I think we all came in with higher hopes for a manufacturer’s championship and drivers’ championship then what we actually got to. That’s not to say we’re disappointed, just that we have to do more work in the off season to make sure that next year we do reach our goals. Thankfully, the time is being invested to be able to do that. We’ll just keep plugging along and working hard like we have for the past couple years and see where it leads us.

Martin Ragginger
Out of the situation we had, we did the best job we could. Last year, we finished fifth; this year we finished sixth in Petit Le Mans. The team and us drivers and everybody did the best we could. Of course there was speed missing, but in the end we made the car good to run a full stint, which was our goal. I’m happy that we finished where we did. I’m happy I could support Bryan and Wolf and the team this year.

Wolf Henzler
Finishing sixth was a good result for us today. We really managed to set up the car and get the consistent lap times from the first lap to the last lap, which was very good. We couldn’t hold the pace of the top cars; we were missing a little bit. This is something we really have to work at for next year. We’ll use the winter break for testing to develop the tires. The team did a great job today and the mechanics did good tire changes, and the strategy was good as always. That gave us the sixth place. It was very close at the end to finishing fifth. That would have been the best Porsche today. I’m happy and looking forward to next year and a busy off season with testing and developing the tires.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by FalkenALMS

We unfortunately didn't win the From the Fans award, but hopefully over the next season, we can increase our fan base and win the award again next year. Thanks to all who voted!

If your presence here continues to be as pleasant and as informative as it has been so far, I know where my vote will be going.

[HJJ]

Originally Posted by FalkenALMS

It's a light so that the camera in the wheel well can show us how well the tire construction and compound is holding up. Most of ALMS tracks are hard on left rear tires, so a few teams put cameras there to constantly monitor the tire's performance.

Wow, pretty and smart!

Kelly and the whole Falken crew did a great job on our first tour on Wednesday. I had no idea that Cybermotor had a 13 hour trek to get to Road ATL. The free parking along Hwy 53 was packed on Saturday morning when I drove in. Lanier was charging $20 to park this year. It may have not been 133K as last year, but it wasn't off by much. The only thing I noticed was a few empty RV spaces out on the backside by Turn #7.

[carsten66]

Great video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX7uv9RAfQU

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by HJJ

I had no idea that Cybermotor had a 13 hour trek to get to Road ATL.

I didn't either! Actually, it's a one hour drive for me. Had a pleasurable time this PLM...drove up on Wednesday before the crowds arrived, drove up for Thursday night practice and then on Saturday watched the live stream of the start of the race while working; took a nap; drove up for five hours of the race; and then back home to watch the finish on the stream while working on photos from the track.

Also during the week I wrote a little App that runs on the iPhone and iPad. It has my photos from 15 years of the PLM, plus links to the PLM websites I have running. Showed it to Megan, Charlie Cook and John Brooks and got positive responses from each. Now to see if I can market it!

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by carsten66

Great video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX7uv9RAfQU

Only part way through and can say that I like it! I really like the style with the steady shots of the action in the midst of the action.

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by FalkenALMS

It's a light so that the camera in the wheel well can show us how well the tire construction and compound is holding up. Most of ALMS tracks are hard on left rear tires, so a few teams put cameras there to constantly monitor the tire's performance.

I knew when I put my guess I would be wrong Thanks for the definitive answer!

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by joeb

Last year was a record attendance, so I didn't expect those kind of numbers again. I do wonder what effect the later date had on the attendance vs. the lack of factory P1's.

I don't know the official numbers but I do spend quite a bit of time at Road Atlanta, and this was the second best attended event there after last year's PLM. It was slammed. Attendance was down, but maybe 10%.

[Dyson Mazda]

I don't know the official numbers but I do spend quite a bit of time at Road Atlanta, and this was the second best attended event there after last year's PLM. It was slammed. Attendance was down, but maybe 10%.

I would say that it was down about a quarter

[TrueBlueFlyer]

I had an awesome time volunteering at Road Atlanta... huge thanks to the Atlanta Region of SCCA for letting me play with them even after I was a bit late coming back from Korean GP.

[TrueBlueFlyer]

Originally Posted by FalkenALMS

It's a light so that the camera in the wheel well can show us how well the tire construction and compound is holding up. Most of ALMS tracks are hard on left rear tires, so a few teams put cameras there to constantly monitor the tire's performance.

first time I saw that I thought it was on fire... apparently I wasn't the only one because it came on the net with other marshals wondering what's going on.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

I would say that it was down about a quarter

With all due respect, that is not possible. If attendance were down 25%, that would be around 2007-08 numbers and there were most certainly more people than that.

[Maelochs]

TrueBlue, were you working Turn Six around sunset? Maybe curly hair and small eyeglasses? We might have endured part of that enormous "Who's in first?" caution period together.