There are rumors flying everywhere since Robin Miller repeated a rumor he heard from "a team principle" that Grand Am and in turn the France Family is looking to eat up the American Le Mans Series.
It would be nice to see sports car racing come together. ALMS car counts are down. LMP1&2 are sorely lacking. Eight cars across the two prototype class causes me to question if I want to buy tickets for this season's Road America race. GT1 has been on life support for the previous 2 seasons and died this year at Long Beach. The ALMS in Utah brought up GT3ish cars from the Challenge series to fill the grid.
Still, Le Mans style racing is the best thing going. The GT2 grid is growing. The fan experience is second to none. Where else can any fan with a general admission ticket walk the pre-race grid among the drivers and their cars? There is hope of Audi coming back with the R15 in 2009 and 2010. Porsche's prototype plans remain to be seen, and we have heard rumors of a Ferrari LMP1. It is true that this is a down year for the ALMS, but the ACO is successfully running the LMS in Europe and kicking off a new Asian Le Mans Series. When FOTA threatened to walk away from F1, we saw F1 team leaders and manufacturers talking to the ACO about running sports cars under ACO rules. Something must be attractive about this form of sports car racing. I had high hopes for 2010.
If a merger is to happen in sports car racing I'd like to see Daytona adopt the ACO's rules rather than ALMS going away. If the ALMS is eaten up by the NASCAR machine this isn't a merger or a coming together at all. It is both sides digging in.
If the France Family gobbles up the American Le Mans Series it is a sad day for the fans. It was fun while it lasted.
I'll be watching this closely.
