GR8 News for the Grand-AM
Posted: September 7, 2011 Filed under: American Le Mans, Grand Am | Tags: Audi, R8, Rolex Grand-Am Road Racing Series Leave a comment »
Audi's Grand-Am challenger (Photo: autoweek.com)
According to Autoweek, Audi will prepare its R8 supercar for competition in the Grand-AM series. This is the kind of announcement that makes Scott Atherton of the ALMS sweat. Audi has labored in the ALMS for several years, gradually decreasing its participation from factory (Joest) and customer (Champion) teams to limited appearances (Petit LM and Sebring, mostly).
We’ve been documenting the new sports car wars for an entire summer. As the ALMS has seen its prototype ranks dwindle and sputter, the Grand-Am has announced a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and a new Ferrari model adapted to the series. The ALMS has no live television broadcasts and has struggled to control fan and team frustration over the media package. The Grand-Am series – with its tight cost controls – is slowly growing its beachhead at the expense of the ALMS. We broached this topic in 2009 when Hans Jochim Stuck of VW attended a NASCAR race at Homestead. What, we wondered, was he doing here? Now we know.
We don’t want to read too much into Audi’s thinking, but someone in Ingolstadt is hedging their bets.
