ALMS To Feature New Position Lights

[Craig]

RACE FANS TO BENEFIT FROM REVOLUTIONARY POSITION LIGHTS IN AMERICAN LE MANS
SERIES EVENTS

BRASELTON, Ga. (October 5, 2001) -- The American Le Mans Series will
introduce a revolutionary car position light system designed to help fans in
attendance at events better understand and follow the progress of races. The
system will make its debut on a limited basis in Audi presents Petit Le Mans
at Road Atlanta on Oct. 6.
Some of the GT class cars in the Road Atlanta event will be equipped
with three lights attached to the passenger sides of the cars. The lights
will indicate first, second and third place in class. One lit light denotes
the class leader, while two lit lights indicate the car that is running
second in class. When all three lights are illuminated, the car carrying the
lights is the third-place car.
"One of the truly unique and beautiful elements of endurance sports
car racing is the fact that there are many exciting battles going on at any
given time among the various classes of cars," said Scott Atherton,
President and COO of the Panoz Motor Sports Group. "However, that has also
been our curse because after the first few laps of a race, it's nearly
impossible to tell which car is leading which class. This revolutionary
system will solve that problem forever.
"Our motto is that the American Le Mans Series is 'For the Fans,'
and as part of our ongoing commitment to the fans, we want to make it easy
to see just which cars are leading within each class of competition," he
said. "To answer this, we have created a simple, clear way that fans may see
what is happening at any time and place on the circuit. This initiative is
solely for the fans."
The system will work directly from the official timing and scoring
system, operating on telemetry sent from timing and scoring computers to
assure accurate and timely updates. If passes are made on the track for one
of the top three positions, the lights will change when the cars cross the
start-finish line.
Atherton said that development of the system is still in progress,
and that decisions about full implementation in the future will be made at a
later date. As the system spreads to all four classes within the ALMS, the
classes will be identified by lights of different color, with the colors
matching the colors of the identifying car number panels which are already
in place to identify car classes.


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MEDIA CONTACT: Andy Hall, American Le Mans Series Director of Media &
Communications (317) 295-3500, ext. 31.

[KC]

Sounds like a gimmick, then after some thought it starts to make some sense. It will definitely help the TV viewer as the team cars are nearly identical in color scheme.

[Emfa]

This is one of those things where you're inclined to ask "This is so simple, why didn't someone think of it before?" Visibility of the lights will be key, though.

ALMS really do seem to be thinking of the fans - good on them!

[Liz]

The idea needs work. In the daylight you can't see these lights; at night you can't see which car they are attached to. In order to make this concept work they need to make the car numbers much more distinctive, perhaps standardize the way they are displayed.

And why not have one light for first place and 3 lights for 3rd place? The other way round doesn't make much sense to me.

[Heeltoe6]

I agree on the lights deal, they need to rehtink the system. who's gonna remember what lights stand for what and whether its vertical or horizontal for each class, etc. liz is right, they need luminous numbers, same for the class stickers, and then and only then will the lights be usseful, 1 for p1, 2 for p2, 3 for p3. you won't have to worry about them being vertical or horizontal for whatever class cause now you'll have the class sticker and car number lit up to identify that.