2017 Pirelli World Challenge Rounds 10 & 11: Road America

[Mechanic Z]

"Thank God it’s back to Sprint racing." - Johnny O'Connell

While the racing world's focus this week is appropriately on the 24 Hours of Le Mans, next week Pirelli World Challenge will be back at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin's legendary Road America. Series competitors Alvaro Parente, Patrick Long and Mike Hedlund will all be coming into Road America mere days after competing at the famed Circuit de La Sarthe.

Some changes to the entry list this time around, with Alex Riberas' #61 R. Ferri Ferrari and Anthony Mantella's #8 Mantella XBow both notably absent.

On the positive side, MCC Motorsport is bringing a Mercedes to GT, R. Ferri's GTA 458 is back, and so is Mike McCann's GTA Audi.

GTS has some additional entries as well, with no less than four Ginettas on the list, two for PMG's Chase and Gottsacker, two for G3 Racing with Drew Staveley and Frank Gannett.

The Ford Mustang GT4 returns as well, looks like Ernie Francis Jr and James Pesek will be splitting time in the car.

Schedule

Entry List

Live Stream (World Challenge site)

Live Stream (motortrendondemand.com)

Live Timing and Scoring

Track Maps

Weather (racecastweather.com)

Weather (National Weather Service)

Series Twitter Account

Reminder for those attending that Road America is again holding a campsite contest this year.

[TRspitfirefan]

Now that Lemans 2017 is over, I'm ready to get on the road to Road America!
Maybe Porsche can carry some of their 24hr momentum into the Sprint series.

[Mechanic Z]

Adderly Fong was pretty quick in both races last year, I'm guessing the Bentley will be strong again.

[nasportscar]

Originally Posted by Mechanic Z

"

Some changes to the entry list this time around, with Alex Riberas' #61 R. Ferri Ferrari and Anthony Mantella's #8 Mantella XBow both notably absent.

Might be awhile before we see this car back, if at all

[jjvincent]

What do you mean by "this car" as two are listed.

[nasportscar]

Originally Posted by jjvincent

What do you mean by "this car" as two are listed.

sorry, I was referring to the #61

[fergus_r]

No live stream for GT race 2?

[jjvincent]

Originally Posted by fergus_r

No live stream for GT race 2?

It's no big deal. Just look at this thread, little if any postings about the event. If there are any postings its from the same three to four people anyway.

PWC seems to be like when you get a new phone. You are excited about it for about two months and then after that, it's just meh.

[TRspitfirefan]

Made it home from Road America today. Another great weekend camping at one of the worlds greatest racing circuits. It's always fun to visit with friends and campground neighbors we've met over the years. If you've never camped at a racetrack your really missing out. It's miserable, windy, usually rainy, noisy and somehow still awesomely fantastic all at the same time. Even though Sundays races were both marred by red flags, Saturdays sprints were quite good. But as always when your at the track, the races themselves are only a small part of the overall event. Just hanging out around the paddock, seeing the cars up close, watching the teams prepare for the sessions, the sights, the sounds, the smell of racing fuel....It's all just a really great experience. One of the highlights of this year was the garage tour hosted by the Flying Lizard Porsche team. It was really incredible to get to walk through one of the original Lizard team haulers. We even got to meet Terry Borcheller who was working with the Lizards over the weekend. It doesn't get much more awesome than that! Also both Nate Stacy and Rodrigo Baptista have really embraced the "For the Fans" mentality. It will be fun to watch their careers progress farther over the next few years. Shoutout to the rest of the PWC paddock as well for being super accessible and fan friendly.
Already looking forward to next year.

[TRspitfirefan]

Originally Posted by fergus_r

No live stream for GT race 2?

The lack of some events being livestreamed has been a major frustration this year. Several of the races are set to be aired same day tape delay on CBSsports network this season, which I guess is a big step forward for the series. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of the livestreams for those events, which really sucks.
I was glad to hear that GT race 1 was streamed live, I had thought that neither race would be streamed on these same-day Sunday broadcast weekends.
Happily, the livestreams are still available for all of the GTS races.

[TRspitfirefan]

Originally Posted by jjvincent

It's no big deal. Just look at this thread, little if any postings about the event. If there are any postings its from the same three to four people anyway.

PWC seems to be like when you get a new phone. You are excited about it for about two months and then after that, it's just meh.

With INDYCAR sharing the weekend, it's hard to tell how much of the massive crowd are PWC fans. There did seem to be a large number of fans wearing sportscar racing swag. Lots of PWC gear and also a bunch of older ALMS merchandise. I can tell you that if you want to go through the PWC Autograph session you'd better get there early. the line was forming well before the start time and stretched a good ways back. The PWC Autograph session is wild. Unlike other series where each team sets up their own table in the paddock, PWC lines up all the drivers at a long row of tables and funnels the line of fans through the entire group! It's actually a ton of fun. Everybody joking and having a good time.

[jjvincent]

Tracks like Road America have built in fans that show up no matter what. Lime Rock would probably draw 10K to watch lawn mowers race around the place. I do know when PWC did try to run at RA by themselves it was not the best decision and obviously they went back to a shared one. Whoever came up with the TC Open should be fired. That was a really bad idea and only there to pad the field because they probably had to show up with X amount of cars because of a promoter agreement.

A few things that PWC could do:
1. Drop the Sprint X
2. Drop GTCup
3. Drop TV coverage
4. Make all races 50 minutes for all classes
5. Add a live 70 minute streaming telecast. Spend 10 minutes covering up to the race with stories and interviews then finish it off with another 10 minute post. Run ads during the stream
6. Make all streams available 30 minutes after the live one (retain the ads). This way people will watch it and not already know everything that happened because the three news sources have covered the race and posted results anyway for the previous week.
7. If you want to keep MT, make it free for everyone.

The current way is confusing and they make it difficult for people to keep interested over the season. Sportscar racing in general has a hard enough time keeping people interested, making them jump through hoops or overly complex, is not going to make them want it more.

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by jjvincent

A few things that PWC could do:

Were you hiding out in the trailer when I was talking with Greg Gill this weekend? :-)

-mike

[nasportscar]

Originally Posted by jjvincent

Tracks like Road America have built in fans that show up no matter what. Lime Rock would probably draw 10K to watch lawn mowers race around the place. I do know when PWC did try to run at RA by themselves it was not the best decision and obviously they went back to a shared one. Whoever came up with the TC Open should be fired. That was a really bad idea and only there to pad the field because they probably had to show up with X amount of cars because of a promoter agreement.

A few things that PWC could do:
1. Drop the Sprint X
2. Drop GTCup
3. Drop TV coverage
4. Make all races 50 minutes for all classes
5. Add a live 70 minute streaming telecast. Spend 10 minutes covering up to the race with stories and interviews then finish it off with another 10 minute post. Run ads during the stream
6. Make all streams available 30 minutes after the live one (retain the ads). This way people will watch it and not already know everything that happened because the three news sources have covered the race and posted results anyway for the previous week.
7. If you want to keep MT, make it free for everyone.

The current way is confusing and they make it difficult for people to keep interested over the season. Sportscar racing in general has a hard enough time keeping people interested, making them jump through hoops or overly complex, is not going to make them want it more.

1) SprintX is not going away
2) Most likely will be dropped unless they get a huge influx of entries, but they are not expecting that
3) TV and streaming is being discussed, but there's still time left on the CBS contract and they do not want to break the contract
4) Longer SprintX races, but most likely not too long
5) Would be great
6) Agreed
7) This too would be cool

[Akrapovic]

PWC stream needs to be more reliable. I only watch a few races a year, but at least for me, it's the least reliable of all the major series - even worse than the disaster that is the FIA WEC stream. If I was PWC, I'd move the stream to YouTube like ELMS, VLN, etc.

[jjvincent]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

Were you hiding out in the trailer when I was talking with Greg Gill this weekend? :-)

-mike

Maybe I should apply for a job at PWC. This is not rocket science as to figuring out a simple system that is consistent. Plus utilize the communication technology that so many companies are spending billions on per year.

As for the streaming, PWC finally got with the program and is using the correct satellite for beaming from the track to all over the US and Europe for various internet servers. The reason why the Indycar races work well is because there is always an international feed that is run at an extremely high bitrate, thus it actually looks good on your computer. It's obvious, PWC and Indycar are splitting the bill on sat beam time.

For the TV program, just get over it and stop thinking this is 1990. Get with the program. People (including me) don't have cable or SAT. I think I haven't had cable since 2009 and won't ever be getting it again. My boys are 12 and 15. Them and their friends never watch TV, yet they watch tons of stuff on their phones. Even my wife and I. We watch the local news and reruns of Star Trek. If it ain't streamed, we don't watch it. I know I'm not the only one like this and for any younger people out there, you can forget them ever getting interested in it.

As everyone has seen, these stupid rules for the timed pit stops and that whole debacle just turns everyone off. So, just eliminate the whole thing. Leave PWC for a 50 minute sprint and IMSA for endurance. Don't make a sprint race and try to fool people into it's some super duper endurance strategy event when it's not. Trans-Am can goes longer than Sprint X and they are driving a blast furnace with a solid rear axle. Most of the drivers have been on Social Security for at least 5 years. If they can run a race by themselves, why can't PWC just do it?

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by jjvincent

Don't make a sprint race and try to fool people into it's some super duper endurance strategy event when it's not. Trans-Am can goes longer than Sprint X and they are driving a blast furnace with a solid rear axle. Most of the drivers have been on Social Security for at least 5 years. If they can run a race by themselves, why can't PWC just do it?

Ouch! But you have hit it on the head-it looks contrived. The fan group that got into racing a while ago, moved on to some other thing (what, I have no clue. I am an old dude), so artificial packaging is lost and not valued by the core groups that follow racing now.

[Mechanic Z]

A bit late getting on here, been pretty busy since getting back from RA. Super fun race weekend, large crowd with a good mix of PWC fans and Indycar fans. Flying Lizard's paddock tour was fantastic, it's awesome that they take the time and effort to allow fans so close to the sport we love.

Cool to watch Adderly Fong get his first PWC win in Race 1, and fun to watch some brilliant drives from Pat Long, Johnny O and Alvaro Parente.

Awesome to see Panoz return to the top step of the podium after 11 years, not once, but twice. Good strong showings from the Lizards, Blackdog and Jeff Courtney Racing, too.

Some of my photos:

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Mechanic Z

A bit late getting on here, been pretty busy since getting back from RA. Super fun race weekend, large crowd with a good mix of PWC fans and Indycar fans. Flying Lizard's paddock tour was fantastic, it's awesome that they take the time and effort to allow fans so close to the sport we love.

Cool to watch Adderly Fong get his first PWC win in Race 1, and fun to watch some brilliant drives from Pat Long, Johnny O and Alvaro Parente.

Awesome to see Panoz return to the top step of the podium after 11 years, not once, but twice. Good strong showings from the Lizards, Blackdog and Jeff Courtney Racing, too.

Some of my photos:

Nice shots! That lizards livery still seems a little off on a Cayman, but it is growing on me.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by skycafe

Ouch! But you have hit it on the head-it looks contrived. The fan group that got into racing a while ago, moved on to some other thing (what, I have no clue. I am an old dude), so artificial packaging is lost and not valued by the core groups that follow racing now.

Seems to be true of racing in general and other sports. I may be a millennial (who sports marketers are targeting), but I'm not in favor of almost any of the gimmicks that NASCAR and others have been trying to use to con people to become fans. I'd rather watch a 3 hour race rather than a 1 hour sprint. If I'm gonna waste my time watching a race, I better get my time's worth Granted, I know that the shorter races, especially for less mainstream series, helps with TV time, but in theory with streaming and what not, it shouldn't be a big issue.

F1 are looking at it, the ACO have gotten into the game (albeit with mixed results so far), and I think that NASCAR will have to consider it in the near future. Especially as more people across all age groups and generations (baby boomers, gen-x'ers and adult age millennials) are cutting back on cable and satellite TV in favor of internet steaming.

[JLGarcia]

My only beef with a streaming-only situation is that I frequently can't watch things live. Most of the IMSA races this year I've watched 3-4 hours after the fact on DVR*. I believe it was mentioned upthread to post the race streams shortly afterwards- do that, and I'm in.

*Yes, yes, I know that there are ways you can rig things to record online streams, but I shouldn't have to set up some electronic Rube Goldberg device to watch a 50-minute event. My biggest complaint about WC & IMSA alike is that they make it so damned hard to consume their products.

[Mechanic Z]

Originally Posted by joeb

Nice shots! That lizards livery still seems a little off on a Cayman, but it is growing on me.

Thanks!

[owrforever]

I wonder if Mr. Fogarty will ever try three wide at RA, again?

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by owrforever

I wonder if Mr. Fogarty will ever try three wide at RA, again?

There's plenty of room to be three-wide at RA.

-mike