Mid-Ohio - The Cars

This weekend at Mid-Ohio showcased three major racing series - the American LeMans Series, Speed World Challenge, and Indy Racing League. One of the great things about road racing is that the paddock is open to just about anybody, so you can get up close and personal with the cars (and, to some extent, the drivers).

The highest-profile series this weekend, in my mind anyway, was the ALMS, which had a 2 hour 45 minute race on Saturday. ALMS has four classes that run simultaneously, which means in addition to racing for position in your class, there's lots of traffic to dodge, weave, and generally avoid. Two classes, P1 and P2, are prototypes - ground up purpose-built race cars made with lots of high tech parts and materials (in fact, ALMS dubs their cars "the real cars of tomorrow"). They are remarkable machines, descendants of my beloved GTP and Group C cars from the 1980s and 1990s. The look and sound terrific. They are what a lot of people think of when they picture a "race car."

P1 cars are generally bigger and more powerful than P2 cars, but on tight US tracks they are remarkably equal in terms of lap times. In fact, a P2 car won overall at Mid-Ohio. The leaders in P1, for years, have been Audi, first with the all-conquering R8 and now with the turbo diesel powered R10. Sadly, I didn't get any paddock pics of the R10s. I did, however, get some of their competition in P1. First up, the Judd-powered Creation of Intersport:


They've struggled for pace this year, but the car has potential (it outran the Audis at Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca last year, IIRC). And it looks cool as hell. The other P1 car I spotted was the Cytosport AER-Lola:


This car belonged to the Dyson team last year and was scary fast, but fragile. That trend continues in the hands of its new owner. As you can see from this shot of the inside endplate of the rear wing, not everybody has warm fuzzies for Audi:


Note the Audi R8 road car there in the background. That's art, kids.

Speaking of Dyson, they've moved to the P2 category this year with a pair of Porsche RS Spyders:


The same model, in the hands of the Penske team, won the race, both overall and in P2. Sadly, I didn't score any pics of the Acura-powered cars, the Lowes-sponsored Lola that was my nephew's favorite or either of the two Courage-based cars that are simply stunning.

The other two classes in ALMS are GT1 and GT2, for production based race cars with varying levels of modifications. GT1 was once overrun with Ferrari 550 Maranellos, Aston Martin DBR9s, and Saleen SR7s doing battle with the factory Corvettes. Unfortunately, the financial requirements of running a successful GT1 program have driven everyone but the Vettes from the field. No pics of the Vettes, therefore.

GT2, on the other hand, is a very diverse field. The cars in GT2 are closer to stock, but still significantly modified for racing. For years, the dominant car, in both numbers and results, was a variant of the Porsche 911. Porsche sells turn-key racecars and provides top-flight support at the track, which leads to success and a lot of customers. In recent years, the 911 has been joined in GT2 by Ferrari, first with the 360 and now the 430, and Panoz, each enjoying a bit of success. Here are a pair of Ferrari 430s (red, naturally) from the Risi Competizione stable:


Sunday saw races in both of the Speed World Challenge categories, Touring and GT. Touring cars are generally small sedans and hatchbacks, with the World Challenge featuring cars from Mazda, BWM, Acura, and Audi. Here is the race-winning BWM 328 of Joey Hand:


Hand had a massive wreck at Mid-Ohio last year in a GrandAm GT BWM, so it was nice to see him bounce back with a win. He made a last lap pass at The Keyhole past Chip Herr and his Audi A4:


Not everybody finished the Touring race near the front. Randy Pobst, an ex-autocrosser who has won in both World Challenge classes this year, disappeared about midway through the race. We happened to be watching it in The Keyhole behind an older gentleman who, it turned out, was Randy's dad! This is how Randy made it back to the paddock:


The final race of the weekend was the GT race, which features a bevy of big-bore sports cars, including Porsche 911s, Corvettes, Dodge Vipers, and a pair of seriously depraved Cadillac CTS-Vs. Here's the Corvette of Sonny Whelen:


His team mate, Eric Curran, won the race.

Why no IRL pics? Well, two reasons. First, it was hard to get close enough to the IRL cars (they got the covered garage spaces) without getting all the mechanics, too. Second, IRL cars are straight-up fugly. I mean absolutely heinous. They look better from a distance!

So, that was my weekend. The crowd, as I mentioned in the other post, was huge. Easily the largest we'd ever seen there. One of the vendors said it was the largest crowd they'd seen in 10 years. The IRL race on Sunday was delayed partly due to the line of folks still trying to get in! I hope that's a good sign for the future of American road racing.