[Lensky1917]

Anyone into Grand-Am Road Racing?

The Rolex 24 is this weekend, who's watching?

http://www.grand-am.com/grand-am101/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Sports_Car_Series

[Lensky1917]

Should have known better. Nobody wants to watch racing of any kind.

Rolex 24 starts in one hour on the SPEED channel and goes until 11:00 PM.

[Lensky1917]

Well, NASCAR driver A.J. Allmendinger took the checkered flag for the #60 Michael Shank Racing Ford. The last time Ford won a Rolex 24 event was 13 years ago, and have only won 4 total.

Thanks for your interest everyone.

[Notorious B.i.G.]

Go FORD!

AJ was always going to be a good contendor. He has some good road racing experience from his CHAMP car days, so does well on those sorts of tracks.

[Lensky1917]

If his ride with Penske doesn't go well, I guess he has a fallback position.

Chevy was humiliated today. Not only did Ford win, the Corvette teams just did awful.

[Notorious B.i.G.]

I can't keep across all US Motorsport, but am I right in recalling that A.J. Allmendinger left open wheeler (CHAMP car) to go a race NASCAR with the new Toyota Red Bull team? Which was a complete failure on his behalf. IIRC he didn't qualify for his first half dozen races.

[Lensky1917]

A.J. did race for Red Bull(now defunct) for a couple of seasons but ended up racing for Petty Enterprises which became Richard Petty Motorsports(RPM - sounds better doesn't it), and signed on with Penske Racing when they fired Kurt Busch.

[Notorious B.i.G.]

Is he any good at tin top oval racing though?
My point was that last I saw him in NASCAR he was pretty shit. Like many of the open-wheelers who go to NASCAR, they're just not competative enough. i.e. Sam Hornish, AJ, JP Montoya and soon to be Dancia whats her name... Patrick?
Even the Aussie tin top great Marcos Ambroes hasn't gone that well in NASCAR. He's good on tracks (as you'd expect), but not ovals

[Lensky1917]

Is he any good at tin top oval racing though?

He's gotten better I suppose.

Finished 15th in points last season.

Career stats(2007-2011)

1 pole, 4 top 5s, 26 top 10s.

He only made 17 races in 2007(43rd in points), 27 in 2008 because he was released near the end of the season for Scott Speed and we all know how that went(36th in points), in 2009 running his first full season he finished 24th in points and 19th the year after.

Going by his average finish of 25th(rounding up from 24.7) in 2008 he would have gained another 792 points which would have placed him 26th. Which is still better than how Scott Speed did in the two years he was with the team(35th and 30th).



I will say that Allmendinger has not had much chance to succeed and has not been with the best teams or equipment. This is a crucial year for him being with arguably the 5th best team in NASCAR(After Hendrick, Roush, Gibbs, and Childress).

[Notorious B.i.G.]

This is a crucial year for him being with arguably the 5th best team in NASCAR

No doubt. But he'll get good money either way, running around mid-field

Career stats(2007-2011)

1 pole, 4 top 5s, 26 top 10s.

While you can't argue with facts, I reckon that NASCAR statistics are just a little bit misleading. I'd suggest that most of those top 5's (and probably the pole) come from road course circuits.
I certainly know that in the case of Ambrose many (nearly all!) of his tops stats are from road courses.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, many drivers make a career in being road course specialists in NASCAR. Boris Said come to mind.

Do you follow F1 at all?

[Lensky1917]

While you can't argue with facts, I reckon that NASCAR statistics are just a little bit misleading. I'd suggest that most of those top 5's (and probably the pole) come from road course circuits.

Interestingly enough, he got a non-points win in the 2008 Sprint Showdown at Charlotte Motor Speedway, his first top 10 in a points race came at Kansas Motor Speedway. And he actually finished 3rd in the 2009 Daytona 500 and had 2 top 10s in the final 3 races of the season. His first pole came in 2010 at Dover Motor Speedway(aka "The Monster Mile).

Do you follow F1 at all?

My interest was aroused when I heard my favorite driver, Kyle Busch was mentioned as a possible candidate for a U.S. Formula 1 team. Anyways, there's no American drivers, cars, team, etc. And their store is in fucking Euros. If I had to pick a driver, I'd probably go with Jenson Button.

[Notorious B.i.G.]

Interestingly enough, he got a non-points win in the 2008 Sprint Showdown at Charlotte Motor Speedway, his first top 10 in a points race came at Kansas Motor Speedway. And he actually finished 3rd in the 2009 Daytona 500 and had 2 top 10s in the final 3 races of the season. His first pole came in 2010 at Dover Motor Speedway(aka "The Monster Mile).

Fair enough! I'll stop rubbishing A.J. Allmendinger then!

I knew that Peter Windsor did want to start up a US F1 Team for the start of the 2010 F1 Season. But the thing was fucked from the beginning and never stood a chance. One of their big problems was to attract US sponsorship because of a lack of F1 eligible US drivers. I never heard Busch being linked to a seat there, but I would have doubted it at the time as NASCAR drivers wouldn't make very good F1 drivers. I do know that US F1 was looking at a US open wheeler, there was serious talk of them signing Marco Andretti or Danica Patrick, but again very different style of driving.

It’s interesting to note that it is considered that the last US driver to have F1 talent was one young J. Gordon, who tested with Williams. IIRC he was quite competitive.

Honestly, I’d love to see a competitive driver from the US in F1. My favourite driver / hero of all time is Mario Andretti.

[Lensky1917]

Fair enough! I'll stop rubbishing A.J. Allmendinger then!

Feh, I don't give a damn.

I never heard Busch being linked to a seat there, but I would have doubted it at the time as NASCAR drivers wouldn't make very good F1 drivers.

Go ahead and look it up if you want.

Kyle Busch is a racer and has excelled at everything he's driven in. The open-wheelers are just fortunate that he chose "stock car" racing. The racecars in the three series of NASCAR all handle differently, but Kyle can easily hop in all 3 one after the other during the day and adjust instantly.

Toyota offered him the opportunity to test a car in Motegi, but Kyle had scheduling conflicts at the time.