Bill Oursler looks at The Job Market It’s Ruby Tuesday, or least it’s Ruby Tuesday for Floridian Alex Job, who announced a two-year sponsorship agreement with the restaurant chain on Monday, April 17th, tax day for most Americans, but a bright afternoon for Job. The twists and turns in the fortunes of the longtime Porsche stalwart in his bid to find funding for his Porsche powered Crawford Daytona Prototype – perhaps the fastest, and certainly, one of the most competitive cars on the Grand Am’s Rolex Sports Car tour, has embraced all the elements of a good soap opera, such as CBS’, “ The Guiding Light.” So why all the drama in the life of this otherwise very practical man and his wife Holly, who have made, and continue to make their reputation usually trouncing the opposition in the GT2 production category of the American Le Mans Series? As Job put it earlier, “I made the decision to purchase the car last fall from Max Crawford, even though I had no sponsorship commitments, because I wanted a chance at winning overall.” New York, New York, it’s a hell of a town… Five days before Job’s official tie up with Ruby Tuesday, at the New York Auto Show the Acura division of the Honda Motor Company announced its intention to throw its corporate hat into the LMP2 division wars of the American Le Mans Series. Starting in 2007, Honda will join Porsche in that class, and adding to the ALMS’ list of participating major manufacturers, a roster that also includes General Motors’ GT1 Corvette effort, along with Audi’s massively superior R10 turbo diesel LMP1 Sebring winner, and the factory supported but privateer Zuffenhausen 911 GT3RSR brigade in GT2, where BMW has re-entered the fray with the M3s of Tom Milner’s Prototype Technology Group. Moreover, the somewhat less official, but nevertheless still potent Prodrive GT1 Aston Martin DB9Rs and the Mazda LMP2 Courage, with the new Lexus GT2 entries yet to appear. Hardware Wars The management of the ALMS is rightly proud of its car maker roster, noting that this involvement is proof of the fact that the Don Panoz owned title chase provides a suitable stage for these well known, high end automotive companies to get their message across to an audience they consider to be their customer base. Indeed, in a recent interview Scott Atherton, the head of not only the ALMS, but the boss of the entire multi-faceted Panoz Automotive Group, made it clear to this columnist that the ALMS is intended to appeal to an audience that looks at their vehicles as something more than transportation appliances. To that end, the ALMS has followed the historical path in sports car competition of accepting and encouraging the use of advanced and different technological approaches to the challenges laid by those drafting the rules. And, while anyone who believes that motor sport is the primary forum for developing new road going technology is mistaken, the immediate needs of the sport do tend to provide a universe in which ideas can be tested in a harsh reality that will help bring them to market far sooner than otherwise might have been expected. From disc brakes to motronic injection systems (and let’s not forget rearview mirrors), there is a multitude of drawing board ideas that were, at least in part, perfected through racing. Yet, the investment needed for this is huge – far beyond the individual ability most can afford. Take for example the R10, a product of the ACO’s brave new attempt to explore alternative answers to today’s energy woes by pushing the sport’s envelope. As laudable as the intentions of the Le Mans organizers might be, there is virtually no-one, other than a factory, who can finance the effort to put the R10 on track. That effort included no less than 12 engineers alone to look after the diesel V-12s of the two cars at Sebring. Further, so sophisticated are Porsche’s LMP2 Penske-run RS Spyders, the prototypes for what the German claims will be a privateer program next season, that the Weissach engineers and Porsche’s management have been debating how many of the open topped racers they can actually produce for sale, given the fact that each and every one will require a substantial amount of factory support. And, while the Acura LMP2 project will begin using proprietary Courage and Lola chassis, ultimately the division is reported to want to build their own cars to go along with their new 3.4-liter double overhead cam V-8 which will be installed in the British and French-built two seaters. Chance the Gardener So what is an individual to do? In that answer could well lay the future of not just the ALMS and the Grand Am, but professional sports car road racing in North America itself. Put simply, there are only so many persons who are willing to invest, either as drivers or owners, in the sport. At the moment this seriously finite pool is effectively being offered to two choices. The first is to play in the large upscale pond as something less than a star performer, while the second is to bask in the center stage spotlight of a much less visible theater. So far this limited gene pool has chosen the latter, rather than the former, with the chances being slim that they will switch back anytime soon. So if the entry lists of the Rolex tour are filling up with those needed by the ALMS to bolster its grid sizes, and if those putting their money where they feel their hearts are, what is the ALMS going to do for entrants in the long term? While the grid for the Rolex 24 was the largest in many years, the opposite was true for Sebring. The ALMS is, in fact offering an unmatched stage, yet in order to produce a hit play, in must have the actors to do so. In this case, it seems that most of those have disappeared to summer stock. From an overall viewpoint, there are no ships here sinking, or about to sink because of this trend. However, the matter of where Alex Job and Ruby Tuesday decide to take their business is one of fundamental importance that goes far beyond a simple tax day announcement. |
Bill Oursler |
