A Glimpse Into the Future

Photo Credit: Grand-Am.com

Plowman was nearly a second faster than this Corvette DP
Photo Credit: David Land/Overdrive

Tuesday marked an historic step forward in the merger of American sports car racing at the Grand-Am November Test on the road course at Daytona International Speedway.

For the first time in over 10 years a modern Le Mans prototype joined the Grand-Am Daytona Prototypes and GT cars on the historic high banked circuit.

The LMP2 Morgan-Nissan prepared by Conquest Endurance and piloted by Martin Plowman turned around 50 laps and according to Grand-Am team owner Michael Shank on Twitter, the car turned a best lap at 1:40.5. The time which was over seven tenths of a second faster than the top DP car, Joao Barbosa's Corvette/Riley, was only .5 tenths of a second off of the DP track record set in 2011 by Jorg Bergmeister in a Riley-Porsche.


Le Mans Prototypes have been a staple of the ALMS and may still be seen in America
Photo Credit: David Land/Overdrive

The Morgan-Nissan ran in full ALMS downforce spec and used the same tire compound from Continental that the DP cars use at Daytona.

Video of this historic test can be seen HERE.


The sight of a Le Mans prototype back at Daytona, something many longtime sports car racing fans thought they would never see again, has given some hope to those who feared the American Le Mans/Grand-Am merger would be a repeat of the IndyCar/Champ Car merger of 2008 where one series would take over completely and seemingly bury the legacy of the other.

One of the details of the merger that came out immediately after the merger was announced was that the assets of the Panoz Motorsport Group (who owns the ALMS and tracks like Road Atlanta and Sebring) would be absorbed by the France family that in addition to Grand-Am and other such things also owns a little southern based racing series called NASCAR, you may have heard of it.

Now in the company of hard-core racing fans the acronym NASCAR is like a swear, it means low tech, dumbed down, slow race cars that appeal to the lowest common denominator and everybody else be damned.

 This is a stark contrast the the ALMS's philosophy of fast, exotic racecars pushing the boundaries of speed and technologies. This led many fans to believe that NASCAR would try and force the existing ALMS teams into buying Grand-Am spec equipment and thus killing much of the appeal of sports car racing in the US, this however has not been the case.

The management in Daytona has shown a willingness to accept the American Le Mans Series cars, drivers, and teams and that will only make the combined series stronger when the merged series takes the green flag at the 52nd Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.

Next time on the Overdrive Blog I will discuss what will and will not survive the Grand-Am/ALMS merger. Stay tuned!