This morning, the officials from the GRAND-AM Road Racing and American Le Mans Series have announced a historical merger that will combine the two great American sports car racing series under one championship starting 2014.
News of the merger broke earlier this week but a Wednesday morning conference was the first opportunity for executives to discuss the details in depth. GRAND-AM founder Jim France, ALMS founder Don Panoz, and respective series President and CEO Ed Bennet and Scott Atherton were present at the conference.
According to Jim France, the function of the merger is clear: "Our vision is that we'll see a combination of those cars and our teams, both series, competing together for the championship. It will be a very compelling championship and I believe it will truly have some global recognition."
Assets from the Panoz Motor Sports Group (ALMS/IMSA, Road Atlanta, Sebring International Raceway) will combine with Grand-Am to form into an entity with a larger presence.
Limited details have yet to confirm whether the new combined series will be given a new name nor if the unification will cause any major modifications to the racing class structure. That said, a number of ALMS and GRAND-AM racing cars were present at the announcement to provide support for the deal, including a Corvette Daytona Prototype, the SRT Viper GTS-R and Corvette C6.R ALMS cars, and a Dempsey Racing P2 Lola B12/80 Judd prototype.
When optimized, the assortment of classes is promising and Jim France confirmed that a new class structure will offer competition between ALMS and GRAND-AM cars. Although the two classes will continue competing in separate championships for 2013, the officials announced that the 52nd annual Rolex 24 at Daytona on January 2014 will mark the very first unified race.
Jim France will serve as Chairman and Panoz will be acting Vice Chairman for the new series. NASCAR Vice Chair/Executive Ed Bennet, Vice President Lesa France Kennedy, and NASCAR Vice President/Deputy General Counsel Karen Leetzow will all serve on the board of directors.
Looking ahead, Jim France also commented, "I think sports car racing has distinct possibilities and I definitely feel like we are going to improve present conditions. There's no doubt in my mind that the answer lies with the two groups who are combining forces starting today. This is a great day professionally and personally for me. I've been a sports car racing fan my entire life."
Naturally, an official racing schedule is far from being established but Panoz has suggested a potential 12-race calendar. That said, teams that participate in the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans are permitted to dropping one race from the regular season without penalty.
The inclusion of the elite French venue is important to the series. Scott Atherton said, "We both have examples of some of the most historic and important business market venue events that any series could ask for. If you take the best of those and boil it down to the best of the best.
"You open up here with the 24 Hours of Daytona, followed by the 12 Hours of Sebring and then you visualize the true four-star examples on our collective schedules, it's a very powerful combination."
Both Atherton and Don Panoz believe one of the main priorities of the merger is to retain its link with the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the French governing body of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Atherton continued, "From our very first meeting, from when Jim [France] and I sat down in February, he made the comment that he thought it was an important priority to retain the relationship with the ACO and to retain the link to Le Mans. I think we'll all admit that it's easier said that done, but our vision and plan is to retain that relationship. Don had that idea many, many years ago. There are 15 years of equity established in that relationship. We're up to the task."
Finally, Panoz emphasized, "These are early discussions. Nothing yet is etched in solid, but that's why we have 14 months to go through all of this and make sure we get it right before Daytona in 2014."
No question, the coming months will be dynamic and full of surprises. Stay tuned as the ALMS and GRAND-AM merger continues to develop.
