IMSA Continental Tires Sportscar Challenge 2018

[WolfsburgRS]

Originally Posted by fergus_r

Excellent race today, despite a bit of damage being done to some cars...

Seriously, there was hardly a car in the garages after the race that didn't have some kind of damage, or at least some tire marks from side to side contact. can't wait to watch the replay on you tube.

[jjvincent]

Originally Posted by Rcz

The TCR wont be as diverse, its just touring cars.

In TCR, the 800lb Gorilla is VAG. With the VW, Audi and Seat, they make up the bulk of the field for Europe. Plus with their Clubsport versions than can be switched from DSG to SEQ easily, you see guys in Europe doing one offs in the non TCR DSG series. For the US, track support comes from one place that does both VW and Audi. Mostly because they are the same car with a different body. Having that, just makes everyone gravitate toward those brands. Honda will show up and I feel that there will be a number of them. Other than that, I don't see much more. Maybe Ford.

You have to remember, when you drop $150K for just the car and another $50K for extras along with a $500K bill to run 10 races (which was GS money just 4 years ago) you will want to be in the most developed and supported car as opposed to some oddball car.

One thing IMSA has pretty much done done is told all of the BMW and Porsche people in ST that they either need to move to GS or go away. Porsche and BMW guys are not big fans of FWD and find it hard to spend that kind of coin to race an econobox. Before you all think that if by chance a Mini comes out for TCR that BMW guys will fall in love with it, you got another thing coming. As for the Mazda Miata guys, they are pretty much left out too. They mostly don't like FWD either.

In the end, if PWC had half a brain, they would really go after all of those old ST cars that are now parked or running in AER. They are TCA cars. I suspect they won't go that route as they have TCR and spec M235iR for TC. TCA will become Global MX-5 Cup with a roof class.

[fergus_r]

Originally Posted by WolfsburgRS

Seriously, there was hardly a car in the garages after the race that didn't have some kind of damage, or at least some tire marks from side to side contact. can't wait to watch the replay on you tube.

Same here, I didn't move from Turn 1 for the whole race and already waiting impatiently for the coverage on YouTube

[jjvincent]

Originally Posted by WolfsburgRS

Seriously, there was hardly a car in the garages after the race that didn't have some kind of damage, or at least some tire marks from side to side contact. can't wait to watch the replay on you tube.

It didn't seem like there was much contact at all. I can see why with only 41 cars because they had lots of room (as opposed to the 60+ fields). The only thing I figured is Audi just made a boatload of money on parts with two of them getting trashed. That $10K deductible is burned up right away with GT4 and TCR cars when you touch anything. In the end, it's global and we need lots of carbon as opposed to stamped sheetmetal parts that cost 90% less.

[WolfsburgRS]

Originally Posted by jjvincent

It didn't seem like there was much contact at all. I can see why with only 41 cars because they had lots of room (as opposed to the 60+ fields). The only thing I figured is Audi just made a boatload of money on parts with two of them getting trashed. That $10K deductible is burned up right away with GT4 and TCR cars when you touch anything. In the end, it's global and we need lots of carbon as opposed to stamped sheetmetal parts that cost 90% less.

Yeah Tristan for sure will be making some money on spares. I felt pretty bad for the RS Werkes guys; tensions were running pretty high there after the race, and from what I heard Audi didn't have any spares on hand for the suspension. (the RS Werkes car had a broken right rear camber arm and broken right front strut, among other things)

All three GMG R8s got tagged in one way, shape or form. The 50 I think fared the best with a damaged diffuser and bent right rear.

The TCR GTi had a broken front splitter, bent core support and some other stuff slightly re-arranged up front. Lots of other cars had paint marks, tire rubs and other contact marks.

It was great to see Justin and the RS1 guys get a win straight out of the gate. I've been acquainted with him for quite a long time and it's good to see him do well.

[jjvincent]

Where teams in TCR will learn is that they need to carry their own spares and there's one place in the US to get them. In the past (when the majority of your parts were OEM) you still carried a bunch of spares but if you were short something like a control arm, the chance of a dealer or just getting it overnighted from the warehouse was easy. Plus if it's a German car, you could get lots of parts from places like SSF and they were much cheaper than the dealer.

What teams will learn is that they will have to load up on $50K in spares because they can't rely on the parts supplier to be at the track or even have the part in stock. Plus there's no discount, so everyone pays the same. TCR is just like GT4 where the manufacturers sell you the idea that they are there at the track for service and you don't need to stockpile spares. Porsche set the bar 30 years ago for a support truck and I have never seen any other manufacturer meet that level.

I'm not surprised they didn't have things like suspension parts because they are expensive to stock. Even though anyone that has raced TCR over the last few years knows that suspension damage is on the level of an open wheel car (it's not uncommon to see complete corners ripped off a car) due to no protection for a tire sticking out 6" from the actual unibody. It was like when we had the BMW in Rolex GT. Carbon fenders with the wheels sticking out 6" and thus I can't remember the amount of times we had lost the complete corner and had to retrieve it because it still had expensive good parts on it (i.e. brake caliper). Yet a GS M3, you had to hit it really hard and the chance of the corner ripping off, was pretty much non existent.

The running costs of a TCR car will be much higher than what most expect. In the end, global platform wins and the competitor pays.

[WolfsburgRS]

T&H Tech, who is the official parts supplier of spares for the RS3 and GTI TCR cars in North America, had their truck there I think they were just low on spares. Hopefully as the season ramps up they keep more on hand, although ideally they would have before the season started. Even if it's a factory MQB platform piece (rear upper camber arm, whatever) it would at least be something to get the wrecked car back onto the transporter. The right front strut, perhaps not as cheap or easy....

The APR / C360R RS3 had the right rear wheel cleaved off just like you said.

[WolfsburgRS]

Speaking of the RS Werkes front strut...

[jjvincent]

Best part is that they use a strut housing that is really thin, thus it breaks easily. Too bad they didn't pick a company like Moton where there's an adapter that just screws in the bottom of the strut. When you get hit or hit someone, you replace a $150 part as opposed to a $2K strut. They could have done like Koni and made a steel strut housing. It is much more durable and if you do bend it somehow, a $250 part as opposed to a $2K complete unit.

In the end, running a 2.05 around Daytona costs much less than the 2.00 that TCR needs to be running. More go fast parts from a single supplier just to BoP them back down to the same speed. Hopefully the Michelins next year will make them run 1.57's and cost 20% more.

[dwh43scale]

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmdvQM2m

A rather large gallery of photos from the Conti race at Daytona. Hope you enjoy.

[WolfsburgRS]

Some nice shots in there, thanks for sharing.

[Coach Ep]

For those interested in the tv broadcast:

BMW ENDURANCE CHALLENGE
Saturday, February 10, 2018 – 8:00 AM to 10:30 AM EDT