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<body> <Table Width="550" border="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" cellpadding="0"><TR><TD Width="35"><IMG SRC="//www.totalmotorsport.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="35" HEIGHT="1"></td><td> <CENTER><Table border="0" width="100%"> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="5">GRAND AMERICAN ROAD RACING ASSOCIATION</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="left"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="2">10/10/2001</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="4">Grand-Am 2002</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="3">Perspectives and Comments</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="1">  </FONT></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="left"><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="2">This could be posted as a commentary / opinion piece, but also warrants inclusion as a news item, so that's where it is. Ed.<BR> <BR> <BR> The Grand-Am Road Racing Association is the last of the major sports car sanctioning bodies to release their forthcoming schedule. In fact, they have yet to do so. There really has not been a delay, but merely a measure of caution. They do not want to release the final dates and venues until they are fully certain that the events will take place. Others can learn from that perspective.<BR> <BR> Much has been made about the how the new ALMS calendar cuts into Grand-Am turf. However, there certainly are other perspectives on this. Grand-Am is perfectly happy with the prospect of more closely tying themselves in with other series. They had already done so with the NASCAR road course event in August at Watkins Glen and the July race at Daytona. These venues provide ready-made and huge crowds, some of whom may be enticed enough by the Prototypes and GTs to come back for more. There is certainly an argument for that, but I would add a few caveats. First, road racing is intrinsically difficult to follow for the novice, and NASCAR is perhaps not the best source for growth in fan support. Secondly, one of the appeals of sports car racing is the easy access of the public to the teams, something badly lacking in NASCAR, let alone F1.<BR> <BR> To some extent, Grand-Am recognizes the shortcomings as well as the advantages to linking with NASCAR, and thus one can expect a slightly different strategy. It seems that the direction will be a closer alliance with IRL. The former poor cousin of U.S. single-seater racing has persevered and had a better year than CART. Arguments can be made that IRL’s star will continue to rise relative to CART and thus an association with GARRA could help both. <BR> <BR> The joint race (IRL-GARRA) at Fontana next year will be an important experiment in that regard. It is important to note that this will be a co-billed event rather than a case of one being a support race for the other. It is also significant as being the first foray of a major sports car series into the Los Angeles market since the demise of Riverside in the late 1980s. While the details of the calendar have not been released, it is possible that there will be other IRL-GARRA links.<BR> <BR> The bottom line with all this seems to be that GARRA appears to be continuing forth with their cost containment formula, running at a mix of infield and road courses. There are problems with such an approach, but similarly an ALMS without a few key top teams also has problems. It looks like 2002 will be another year of a split American sports car scene. But as with the IRL-CART split circa 1996, it may be premature to declare win, lose, or draw. <BR> <BR> The split in sports car racing can be considered more problematic than the single-seater fued. The Indy 500 and the mixed-course series both started from positions of strength and trickled downwards over the past half-decade. Sports car racing has seemingly forever been working in its own niche-driven world. But the one bright spot in sports car racing (at least on the American side) has been the lack of serious egos at play. Messrs. Edmundson, Panoz, and Atherton are savvy businessmen who at one point are more, rather than less likely, to hammer out the differences. <BR> <BR> Janos Wimpffen </FONT></TD></TR> </TABLE><BR> </CENTER> <BR><CENTER><font size="1" color="#808080" face="Tahoma">Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport</font></CENTER> </td> </tr> </table> </body>