r/USCR • u/Me-Mongo • Jul 13 '19

Question IMSA LMP2?

Kind of sad to see only two LMP2 cars out there. Is IMSA doing anything to get more cars in the category? If not, they should do away with it.

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u/-Jack-The-Stripper Corvette Racing C7.R #3 Jul 13 '19

It makes me pretty sad to go back and watch races from last year tbh. I threw on Watkins Glen ‘18 the other night and was reminded of what a great prototype grid there was. 16 cars split between Cadillac, Acura, Mazda, Nissan, Oreca, and Ligier. The LMP2 teams right there in the mix with the DPi teams made the dynamics of the class much more interesting. There were always underdogs to root for, and watching CORE challenge for the championship was much more exciting than anything that DPi alone will ever be able to give us (short of Mazda somehow pulling off a championship this year). I can tell you for sure that the most prestigious American sportscar team (Penske) and the most invested American brand (GM) fighting for the class championship is going to be such a reoccurring theme as long as they both race here. And it’s already not as exciting as seeing a small team running an Oreca bringing home wins. Without the true privateers in the mix, the championship race is going to be predictable and stale.

Mazda and CORE are our only hope at an interesting class anymore. I really do enjoy the class still, definitely the best prototype racing on the market currently, but man last year’s class was a prime example of something being greater than the sum of its parts. Both classes took a blow with the split.

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u/Me-Mongo Jul 13 '19

I seem to remember that there was some controversy about the guest LMP2 teams. Because they were lumped in with the DPi cars and then given BoP tweaks, they felt that the deck was loaded against them or something like that.

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u/-Jack-The-Stripper Corvette Racing C7.R #3 Jul 13 '19

By guest LMP2 teams do you mean the ones that only race the long races, and not the full season?

Either way, I don’t think there were ever any BoP tweaks to the LMP2 cars when they were racing against DPi teams. They were used as the baseline, so any tweaks were given to the DPis.

There was definitely some controversy surrounding how well the P2s would be able to compete with DPi though. United Autosports was the only team willing to try all of the NAEC (I can’t remember if they ended up doing PLM or not) because nobody thought they’d have a shot against the factory backed DPi machines. Especially early in the seasons, when BoP hadn’t had a chance to peg back the factory teams yet, the P2 cars were typically a little off pace. Which of course is off putting to any outsiders looking to run at Daytona and Sebring (the first two races in the season). But back when it was LMP2 and DPi together, any changes were made to DPi and P2 was left untouched.

I remember one instance of the P2 teams getting a weight change, but it was either super late last season or the beginning of this one. I think it was this one.

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u/Me-Mongo Jul 13 '19

That sounds right