Where are the Spyders?
 

Hello all...does anyone know why the Porsche Spyders are not competing this year
in the ALMS? That's the main reason I watched!!
I can't find any press releases or good info.
Cheers
Mike

The factory has basically quit supporting the program and Penske/Dyson weren't about to venture out on their own, without support or $. The way the rules have been re-drawn, the Spyders would have great difficulty competing for overall wins (unlike prior years), so Porsche did not want to race only for P2 honors.

Porsche has chosen to concentrate on the GT2 class, whilst developing a new P1 prototype for the 2011 season, when all the new rules go into affect. Penske is running Grand Am Daytona Prototypes to keep the boys/drivers busy until the new car comes out.

I, for one, will greatly miss the RS Spyders. Watching them rip around Road America was one of my summer's highlights. Now it's the bulldozer Acura fighting with the Field gang for most the season. At least we'll get a good P1 show this coming weekend with Sebring; the new R15's look pretty hot.

GT2 is where the action will be, so stay tuned.

Me too Jmatta, I wonder if Porsche handing everyone their a$$es had anything to do with the chronic rule changes....

It always does...

:cheers:

I'm with you guys...I'll definately miss the Spyders this year.
I'll look forward to 2011.
Thanks for the info.
Cheers

OK then, doesn't that turn the racing series into a spending competition?

Now I'm glad I got these during the last race of the season in Monterey

History does repeat itself...everytime Porsche has developed a car "within" the rulebooks, the sanctioning body comes back with everything they can to render them less competitive. Granted, sometimes Porsche took the "gray areas" a bit far, but that's what nurtures good competition and racing.

Just look at what happened when Porsche showed up with the 917/30 in the CanAm and blew the McLarens (and others) away?

ALMS (IMSA) was embarassed that it's top class (P1) was consistently losing to a P2 manufacturerer, though I'm sure Porsche didn't mind rubbing Audi's face in it. Audi cried enough to get the officials to listen, and now they're effectively leaving the series.

I say let 'em run...there's enough "spec" series out there, including the one that goes around in circles like "Skittles flushed down a toilet" (use your imagination).

That's funny.... By that standard, my old dog used to "taste the rainbow"...

It's funny that no-one ever seemed to tire of McLaren winning race after race for almost the entire series, nor did anyone tire of many other manufacturers dominating series. For some reason Porsche just made everyone else look so bad at what they did............
Maybe that's where the "Nothing else comes close" line came from?
Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!

I'm going to the St. Petersburg Grand Prix in a couple of weeks. They have ALMS as a companion event. I, too, will miss the Spyders.

For that matter, during the glory years of IMSA, John Bishop spent the majority of his time changing rules to try to get ANYONE else to win a race! It seemed like every two weeks he was changing anither rule to favor John Greenwood's Corvettes, to little avail, anywhere except Daytona.
Then, low and behold, Porsche found that little exhaust driven air pump loophole and came out with the 934/935 and the Corvettes could no longer win at Daytona, either.
If I remember correctly, the final phase was in the GTP class, restricting Porsche to one small turbo and letting everyone else run twin 454's!!! :rolleyes:
I think that year, 962's were beaten twice!! :cheers:
I can remember going to IMSA races in the mid seventies that would have 40 to 45 3 Liter Carerras, with Gregg/Haywood and Holbert and Penske leading the fields. It was the best racing I ever witnessed, week after week, but for some reason it had to be ruined so someone beside Porsche could win. After they destroyed it, every racing body has since tried to come up with a "spec class" to equal that level of driver competition.

I'm with you Quickurt...I used to love going to the track to watch the Porsches in IMSA. 911's evolved into 934's and 935's, while IMSA allowed the big block DeKon Monzas, Camaros and Corvettes.

Then 1985 came along and introduced the 962 to the racing world, until they found a way to make the Jaguars and Nissans more competitive, whilst further restricting the Porsches.

Let's hope the new RSR's have a good showing Saturday!

Anyone else going to be there Saturday?