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Martin Haven is having a go at everything at the moment

Lol Mr grumpy in his mini moaning about everything, yup, sounds about right hehe

Can't blame him though, the idiots causing problems and the fucking long caution periods.

The caution periods are farcical. 35 minutes to retrieve the Whelen car which was easily movable under waved yellows then those baffling laps of wave arounds and "field re-organisation" - it's insane.

Traffic helped Marino there

#01 Ganassi wins

So what was on fire in the infield.

There was some racing going on in there, but I kept losing interest during the endless cautions. Finish was a little underwhelming too.

This is really all the evidence I need for my previous comment of the USCC incompetence and general ruining of sports car racing.

^ I only watched a little bit of the race, on the IMSA.com stream. A car was just losing its brake rotor, wheel, and pads. That resulted a ridiculous 20-minute FCY. A group of corner workers were shown standing looking bored, holding flags and the commentator gave them (in general) a shout-out, thanked them for their dedication, time commitment and willingness to work for 0-pay, then explained that the reason the FCY was so long was because they're not allowed out on the track to clear up debris any more (even under FCY).

Truth is, dedicated safety crews are great for some situations and corner workers are great for others, like clearing debris off the track under FCY and even under green or local yellow when assisted by spotters. Instead of interrupting the flow of the race every time something happens, Race Control could easily assess the situation, the location and the type of action needed, and make a judgement call.

Unfortunately series insurance policies and fear of something stupid happening is the explanation behind "dedicated safety only on track", and that's just something we have to accept, unless of course the safety crews are poorly trained, are slow to react, and do stupid unsafe things like park on the track, get out and stand where there is no protection between them and a car and no escape route, etc.

It's sad that the top level of sports car racing in America has become IndyCar, with different cars.
In other words a joke of a series with stupid rules and poor safety standards.

Nothing will change until drivers start boycotting the series.

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Someone posted up a FCY summary for this race.

All the FCY, bar the Viper fire and the final one(flat towing the 31 around the whole track basically), were 4-6 laps.

Which just so happens to be the same amount of laps per yellow as the 2013 edition of the 12hr.

A lap under yellow at Sebring is ~4min, doesn't take long to see where the time is.

Right, 4-6 laps but it wasn't really just that. There were 11 FCY, compared to 4 before. So almost 3 times it. There was almost 5 hours of FCY in a 12 hour race, that is pretty crap.

The officiating was as bad as the PC drivers. AJR were handed a penalty for making contact with a car that they were on the other side of the race track from. The works Porsches both hit the same car, and AJR were penalised for it, because they mistook who was who. AJR were told they weren't allowed to object, had to take the penalty or not be scored, and then only got a small apology after the race. How very NASCAR of it. That's 2 races out of 2 that they've made completely bullshit calls. 100% record so far!





These 2 comments were posted before the race, and at the time I disagreed. I was looking forward to it because there would be competition. But by a few hours in, I didn't care anymore. I don't want to watch DPs at Sebring - I want t watch P1s. The PC class was a farce. The amount of accidents was stupid. And then the whole thing was rounded off by some very Grand-Am/NASCAR Decisions. I was excited for Sebring, but the race itself killed that interest.

I also felt they only cared about the prototype class. GTLM had barely any coverage, only when there where problems in that class. I felt asleep, but given that the result is way different than I thought it would be I think that is also quite a shame. They really need to lay the focus on quality instead of quantity, some of the drivers in the field totally didn't belonged there.

Anyway I thought you would be happy with an (Marino) Franchitti win .

Oh I think it's awesome Marino won, but a DP won at Sebring. Feels kinda wrong. Especially when you think we won't see Audi or Porsche there now.

Yeah they should focus more on the quality of classes next year, this year GTD and LMPC were an absolute farce. And given how much the crashes of those amateurs have influenced the race that should really be reconsidered for next year. They should focus on "prototypes" and GTLM. Maybe for next year leave the option open for P1 teams to enter? I'm pretty sure teams like Audi and Porsche would love to compete at Sebring, and with those classes gone maybe some WEC GTLM teams might enter too. It still has a prestiges name, but if NASCAR continues like this it will slowly fade away as just another endurance race...

Run Sebring and Petit Lemans as non-champinonship rounds allowing the P1 cars to compete. It won't take much if anything away from the actual championship since realistically those two races were never in the championship before (seeing as this is Grand-Am with some ALMS thrown in to make it look like a merger.) USCC would still have Daytona as it's flagship, and two of the best races on the calender would have the top flight world class competition they deserve.

P1, P2, DP and GTLM. Leave the GTD and PC cars at home.

I dunno, given the cost of running a GTLM car there wouldn't be much more than 12 or 13 of them. I'd hate to lose most of the GT field just to get one or two P1 cars to "maybe" come.

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You conveniently forget that the 2012 edition of the 12hr also had 11 FCY.

Some interesting reads on just how farcical the organization of the series seems to be:

http://motorsportsmusings.wordpress.com ... ew-series/

http://www.roadandtrack.com/voices/colu ... at-sebring