Contrasts. For most of us, the last weekend in January and the three days that followed it provided a major contrast in the way professional road racing is conducted here in North America.
First came the Grand American’s Daytona Rolex 24 season opener. This was followed immediately by three days of winter testing at Sebring for the American Le Mans Series contingent. And, while this columnist has often discussed the differences in philosophy and approach between the Grand Am and the ALMS, the reality of those differences was striking in visual terms between the enclosed Daytona Prototypes of the Grand Am and the narrow F-16 like coupe shape of the Peugeot 908 diesel which was trying out the rough Sebring pavement three hours down the highway from the France family’s speed emporium.
After five years of existence, the Daytona Prototypes have provided some of the best racing ever seen in road course competition. Tight, fiercely fought contests that on occasion require a yardstick to measure who won and who lost. This is not to say that there haven’t been similar battles in the ALMS, particularly last year when the Penske Porsche RS Spyders took on the Audi R10 diesels, cars that were a full class ahead of the Porsches, and beat them eight times for outright honors. Yet, those contests were more often than not decided by strategy rather performance.
The war between the Audis and the Porsches is tenuous, based on “rules adjustments” not particularly favored by the organizers of Le Mans from whom the ALMS leases its regulations. As far as the Le Mans camp is concerned, the LMP2 Porsches and their Acura counterparts should in no way even attempt to challenge their bigger Audi and Peugeot brothers, the Le Mans changing its scriptures to ensure that the LMP1 crowd rules supreme in 2008, and trying to force the ALMS to do the same.
Indeed, the ALMS has made adjustments to slow the Porsches and Acuras down, although not nearly down enough for the officials of the 24-Hour classic. In contrast, the Rolex tour is all about equality, with Grand Am representatives more than once juggling things to keep the identity of the winning cars under the last minute.
Moreover, at Daytona there were motorsport stars oozing from nearly every cockpit, Helio Castroneves, Jacques Villeneuve, Jimmie Johnson, Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya just to name a few. Still, it appeared that Daytona was an “inside” story with only the hardcore paying any attention.
So why, if the Rolex has the action and the stars, doesn’t it do better in the real world where the fans reside? Indeed, at the Rolex 24 there were no less than 25 prototypes and 42 GT contestants, a massive number not seen elsewhere in sports-car racing, the majority of whom were trading the lead back and forth throughout.  In contrast, the ALMS will be lucky to bring a total of 45 cars to Sebring, and yet even with the smaller number, and though it won’t necessarily have the name recognition for the casual American fans that Daytona did, it will draw far more attention than the 24-hour affair. Again why?
The answer is simple: appearance.
For all their good qualities, including safety, the Daytona Prototypes simply look dowdy and dowdy isn’t what the road racing set wants. Rather the road racing community believes in dreams, and in this case that is based on the exotic. Clearly the Peugeot 908 coupe is exotic.
Talk to Grand Am officials and they say that they’re trying to enlarge the road racing audience, and that the people they want to attract are less worried about appearances than they are the quality of the racing.
Yet, in five years, the Grand Am’s audience hasn’t grown that significantly. So one has to wonder if the Rolex tour is caught in that position where it can’t bring in the new audience it wants, while at the same time it isn’t truly appealing to those who traditionally support the sport.
On the other hand, the costs of being “exotic” have grown to the point where there aren’t that many who want to pay for the privilege of losing to the Audis and the Peugeots of the world; hence the small fields that have been the unwanted hallmarks of the ALMS recently.
It is, in the end, all a matter of contrasts.