DTM USA; Looks like its happening in 2013!

[Valker]

Originally Posted by helgi

Herr Draeger said BMW is returning to its roots and it's touring car or silhouette racing, not sports cars.

Actually this is what he said:

The return of BMW to the DTM is a fundamental part of the restructuring of our motorsport activities. With its increased commitment to production car racing, BMW is returning to its roots.

Even though he means DTM, which is not production car based, that comment suits their S2000 and GT programmes.

[helgi]

We were talking about that long time ago. Works BMW need to compete in the series where their market rivals are. BMW need to advertise their M3 in USA and Japan. What they can do? Of course, they are already in Grand-Am (well, their engine and nostrils) and ALMS. But they can not make money with their M3 GT2. They need cheep solution. Voila, here DTM M3 comes.

And. FIA couldn't work out a true international platform for touringcars (well, smth like touring, as only BMW 320si is a true touring car and Chevy and Seat are real prototypes with non serial engine, not saying about Lada). Maybe manufacturers will be able to make it on their own? Put a new Group 5 forward!

[juicy sushi]

I have to say I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it could be really interesting. But in order for it to work it would need a lot of promotion from NASCAR (so far not seen in their Grand-Am offshoot), at least one US manufacturer (to give some hometown appeal on the branding front) and significantly different technical rules (that would allow the cars to actually put on a good race).

I think that the second and third aspects may be resolved (Opel is looking at possibly jumping in, and if they do, it wouldn't be hard to rebrand an Opel in North America as a Buick). And the 2012 rules should be much better on the racing front (unless the ITR is completely incompetent; although I have not encountered a sanctioning body that isn't).

But with regards to the first issue, I have some serious concerns. If NASCAR genuinely want to do this as a new premium series to reach fans not interested in their traditional product; then I think the series could really work. However, part of me thinks that this may just be a way to divert big manufacturers away from competing series by providing them somewhere to race which satisfies their technical requirements (since they are not about to go for pushrods, carbs and suspension from the 60s), but which keeps them in a convenient location which denies resources to NASCAR's competition.

I really don't know if it's the former or the latter.

[Speed-King]

Official statement with quotes from Aufrecht and Grand Am president Tom Bledsoe

[Last2LiftOff]

Stateside coverage available this am, for a change.

[johntt]

They should call it Trans-Am

I like the idea of DTM cars going round tracks like Road America, Montreal and Watkins Glen, lets hope it will happen.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by johntt

They should call it Trans-Am

I like the idea of DTM cars going round tracks like Road America, Montreal and Watkins Glen, lets hope it will happen.

The SCCA, AFAIK, owns the rights to the name, which I presume could always be purchased or leased.

[NaBUru38]

Where could they race? These are Nascar's and Grand-Am's most high-profile races:

January / February - Daytona
May - Charlotte
June - Watkins Glen
June - Road America
July - Indianapolis
August - Watkins Glen
August - Montreal, Trois-Riviéres?

Plus boring Grand-Am races at Homestead, Virginia, Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, Miller, New Jersey.

[Speed-King]

Grand Am draws relatively well at Barber, New Jersey, Virginia and Mid Ohio, so I'd think those would be on the schedule.

So here's what I think the schedule will be

Daytona (N) - Barber (G) - VIR (G)- Lime Rock (G)- Road America (N) - Sonoma (N) - New Jersey (G)- Watkins Glen (N) - Montreal (N) - Mid Ohio (G) - Homestead (N)

That's one race short and mostly based on this year's schedules, but I think overall that should be about it.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

Grand Am draws relatively well at Barber, New Jersey, Virginia and Mid Ohio, so I'd think those would be on the schedule.

So here's what I think the schedule will be

Daytona (N) - Barber (G) - VIR (G)- Lime Rock (G)- Road America (N) - Sonoma (N) - New Jersey (G)- Watkins Glen (N) - Montreal (N) - Mid Ohio (G) - Homestead (N)

That's one race short and mostly based on this year's schedules, but I think overall that should be about it.

Think the schedule would start with a Friday race at Daytona with the GA guy for the 24 hour? Would give you the full compliment of events but I didn't read any of the articles to see if they are starting with a Speedweek event leading up to the Daytona 500.

[Roninho]

Originally Posted by helgi

Herr Draeger said BMW is returning to its roots and it's touring car or silhouette racing, not sports cars.

Ok, can understand that one from BMW

They already have an expensive F1 toy.

Yes, but that has little to do with this since the alternative for Mercedes to sportcars (DTM) is also costing a lot of money. Opel left DTM because they spent 30 million euro and they were the little spenders in the serie. Just imagine what the costs would be for Mercedes if DTM also ran in the US (and asia). You could run a very competitive LMP1 effort for that.

Besides, BMW and Mercedes bosses have weidhed pros and cons before this step. If somebody thinks he's found some mistakes in their risk weighting then he should connect with Mario - maybe BMW Motorsport boss will change his mind, take his team out of that and employ that "somebody".

Using that logic we should end this forum.

[Roninho]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

Calling Cow-poo on that one. Except for a brief period in the early 80s, Germany's top-series has always been production-based (or at least production-based looking), and that's what people here are looking for...

That seems logical with a history of 25 years of marketing and promoting the serie (if that doesn't make the serie popular, nothing will) in Germany.
But i got the impression that A1gp or champcar (when they raced here) got higher interest over here in the Netherlands then DTM does. And those series had no promotion of manufacturers like DTM does.

I'm just not a believer that people will buy more audi a4's because it is raced in DTM. Imo they buy more cars because the brand is marketed and receives attention by racing. And that could just as easily have been a formula car. By that logic it is more important to race in a serie that gets attention, and nothing against DTM, but i just think that sportcars or a formula like Cart attracts more interest from race-fans worldwide (assuming equal promotion).

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Think the schedule would start with a Friday race at Daytona with the GA guy for the 24 hour? Would give you the full compliment of events but I didn't read any of the articles to see if they are starting with a Speedweek event leading up to the Daytona 500.

There's some speculation in the German press that the Daytona round would be a shared event between DTM and US-DTM, and I think that's a little too big for the Friday evening undercard slot. With the 24hours only starting at 3.30pm these days they could have the race at 1pm on Saturday... But I think they'd rather slot it in somewhere around the Daytona 500-week, if just to shorten the gap till the beginning of the European season a bit...

[helgi]

Well, now it's said that Audi, BMW and Mercedes are going to sell cars, not run them. Grand-Am boss said he welcomes exciting cars, not teams. The only reason to make that American series (from German side) is to make a new market for their silhouettes. They are going to make money on racing, not to spend. From this point of view it's getting clear, why they are working at DTM-style cars expansion and not Le Mans proto works entries.
BMW is not interested in formulae, so this fact should automatically close many questions.

[Speed-King]

That's now what Marshall Pruett seems to think:

The main question to be answered now is how the US DTM series will be populated. Through discussions with parties involved with the 2013 series, we understand the most likely scenario involves factory involvement from Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, with an undetermined number of existing DTM teams running satellite programs in the USA on behalf of the DTM manufacturers.

The German DTM series currently serves as a playground for Audi and Mercedez-Benz (BMW will join for 2012), where full factory racing teams fight for the championship while a number of privately owned teams campaign DTM cars with some level of factory assistance. The same model is expected for the 2013 US DTM series, giving the three marques the chance to battle each other on American soil while completing the rest of the grid with US-based teams.

Details are still somewhat vague, but the opportunity appears to exist for GRAND-AM teams to expand into the US DTM series provided they reach an agreement with Audi, Mercedes-Benz or BMW.

Whether the US DTM series would be open to teams outside of GRAND-AM and NASCAR is unknown, but the fact that the DTM organizers expect to see the new series share the 2013 calendar with the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series could draw the interest from more than just sportscar and stock car entrants.

source: http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-based-series/