i dont think they should call it the r10 lmp1.it's definately not a limp one.good article in racer mag. #167. maybe on www.racer.com as well

 

yea, that you have to watch the shiftlight way more because one, its silent at high speeds cuz of wind noise, and second becasue the powerband is alot smaller than the normal ignition engines

i watched the video of them building it here at the bottom

what a sweet, car, i'm so glad im majoring in mechanical engineering... maby i'll get into aerospace so i can work on the bodies of these cars

 

I think I read somewhere that, for the ALMS series, winners have ballast added for each next race. By that I mean (cuz I know I 'splained it badly) if you win a race you have to add ballast for your next race. Win againm add more ballest for the next race after that, and so on, and so on... But, you can put it where YOU want, which isn't something many race series allow. So, it's a small trade-off.

 

That's interesting. I wonder if you win 3 races, add a $hitload of ballast, then lose a race if you get to take it all back out or just the latest load. Imagine how those rich guys in the Saleen S7s must feel when they never have anyone come around trying to put ballast in their cars. I can just see a 20,000lb R10 at the end of the season plowing into a turn doing 15mph and still not being able to make it.

The real problem in ALMS(post IMSA) has always been that factory rides can seriously dominate privateers in most cases. At Sebring we saw a rich guy with nominal sponsorship beat the whole Penske/Porsche team, but that is going to be a rare occurrence. The other competitors(there are not many due to sponsorship problems in the series) in that class don't have a shot. If other factories were competing in that class, then we'd really have something.

Audi has dominated the top class for so long that no one can remember anything other than a factory or privateer Audi winning the top class. Definitely need some more factory participation in the top class. There have been some in the past, but they didn't win and had no leadership to keep hitting the factory up for cash that would give them staying power.

When you get down to GT2 class, then we've got some interesting privateer racing. If you are a multimillionaire(and don't mind spending a lot of your money on racing) and maybe have a little sponsorship, you can go race a competitive BMW, 911, Ferrari, or Panoz(ok, Panoz may need factory support).

The long and short of it is that it takes a ton of cash to compete in the ALMS and there is not enough sponsorship there to really make it a large and highly competitive series. When the cars start to be painted up like those NASCAR tanks and the drivers have to thank the "Pepsi, Goodyear, Coors, Tide, Nicorette racing team" every time a mic gets close to them, then we will know that the future has arrive.

 

maybe the quattro people that are adding insults to non quattro audi owners like "audi without quattro is like beer without alchohol" will see this r10 and realize no matter how superior they feel their car is,there is always one better.it's not quattro.

 

Which is why the have the "success" ballast rule that they do (which, I'm not 100% sure I have it right, but, that's how I remember it, so thats the story I'm stickin to[8D])