ALMS Washington standings (NAC)

[nicksimc]

snip

>Not quite, but close. First off, the V8 engines as found in the M3GTR
bared
>no resemblance to any BMW engines in production cars *and* there was
no
>production M3 V8 at the time they announced plans to run the cars. A
time
>limit to go into production was well known in advance by BMW and rather
than
>start constructing said cars to become homologated they opted not to do
so
>because the M3 in question would have been in excess of $250k.

The car was supposed to be priced at 250k euros, which would make it
less than $250k, actually.  This price was announced in September of last
year in the M3 GTR press release.  The ALMS GTR chassis is nearly
identical to the ALMS CSL, as well as the M3 CSL due to ship in 2003.
The engine was derived from BMW's F1 technology, so there wasn't a
huge investment in developing a new engine.  I doubt the reason they
didn't make it was due to the fact that the car would have cost what they
said it would cost...

There's
>always "politicking" in motorsport--fact of life. BMW may have told the
ACO
>the cars "were going to be produced in enough numbers to be
homologated" up
>front, but when the time was up no cars (except one prototype which was
>essentially a spare race car with some street stuff tossed back on) were

Of course Porsche may have told the ACO they were going to withdraw
from LeMans...  They can do this because there will always be privateers
entering their own cars, and Porsche has won enough in the GT class
that they don't need LeMans to prove their marque.  Besides, the Porsche
GT3 is a "race car with some street stuff tossed back on."

>forthcoming. The key is, you can go out and buy a new Porsche or Ferrari
as
>raced in the GT class. You could not do so in the case of the fire belching
>M3GTR which really crossed the line and should have been a GTS
category car

The Olive Garden Ferrari is _not_ a turn-key car by any stretch of the
imagination.  At this point, Ferraris are an anomaly in GT (aka Porsche
Cup).  Of the two in ALMS, only the Olive Garden car is giving Porsche a
run for its money and it isn't even completely sorted yet.  If it gives
Porsche
too much trouble this year, it may be gone my next year (IMHO).  The GTR
pushed the line, I agree, but then Porsche moved the line so that the GTR
"really crossed the line."

snip

>What was unfortunate was not being able to keep the PTG team in ALMS
this
>year--they are surely missed. ACO wouldn't budge, though, and ALMS is
>strictly tied to ACO rules.
>
>Mike Veglia
>Motor Sport Visions Photography
>http://www.motorsportvisions.com

The M3 GTR met the letter of the law, but not the spirit.  The spirit was
what Porsche used to lobby the ACO to make the BMW ineligible.  I know
that politics are a fact of life in motorsports, just as they are in
everything.
I'm sure that Porsche could develop a car to beat the M3 GTR, but that
would entail putting forth more effort.  Porsche controls the GT class the
way Microsoft controls the computer market.  They both use their influence
to make sure that any progress is on their terms.  I just object to this
practice in general.

My $.02

Matt

82 4ks
84 4ksq (RIP)