Split beginning to affect Grand-Am too

UPDATE #2 Verified, the GTO Grand-Am program with Kevin Bucklers TRG is history. It's also interesting to see what Porsche thinks about the Grand-Am after Brumos Racing made a fuss about all the Porsche involvement in their racing program and the big names from Porsche jumping into their Grand -Am program. A check of the "official Porsche website" shows nothing at all about the Grand-Am, but lots of stuff on the ALMS.

While the Rolex 24 draws a lot of big name drivers who have nothing better to do in January, the remainder of the Rolex Series still suffers from a lack of serious fan interest both at the track and in front of the TV. Yet sponsors continue to put their names on the sides of the cars and drivers continue to collect reasonable paychecks. Ever wonder where all the prize money comes from? Is the France family paying the purse for all the races as rumored? Can the sponsors be paying much for near zero fans at the track and on TV? It's one of the great mysteries of American motorsport. What is most likely going on is the Grand-Am is a major tax write-off for the France family who hates to pay too much to Uncle Sam from the huge profits they make off of NASCAR. If true, they should be able to keep the Grand-Am going for as long as the ALMS is around.

01/07/07 The decline of NASCAR in 2006 (look for more and in some case "massive" reductions in corporate sponsorship in NASCAR) combined with the open wheel and sports car splits will put millions of dollars of team funding in play. The key driver for sponsors will be fan/consumer demographics. NASCAR clearly can't deliver upscale consumers and has failed to capture the imagination of Gen X-Y-Z, other than in the south. This bodes well for open wheel and sports cars.

01/07/07 It seems that the split in open wheel racing isn't the only facet of racing being negatively impacted by a "split." Sports car racing, and the split between Grand-Am and ALMS isn't doing anyone any good in that form of racing either. The ALMS has been suffering from low car count, especially considering they run 4 classes yet only get fields in the low 20s. And the Grand-Am series, if not propped up by the Lexus money would not be looking so healthy either. The Fernandez team is gone (to ALMS), so is Derhaag (driver Randy Ruhlman has joined Southard Motorsports for 2007 Grand Am Daytona Prototype season), and don't look for Gentilozzi’s' team back any time soon (Paul Gentilozzi will be part of the RVO Motorsports DP lineup for the 24 hr race – his company is building the Pontiac "stock blocks" that the team will use) and several others have scaled back their Grand-Am operations…..also the GTO program with Kevin Bucklers TRG is said to be history, but we're not so sure about that.