German DTM racing coming to USA

[David Fazzino]

German DTM Racing Coming to U.S.

 

Published Oct 18, 2010

 

 

* DTM, the German touring car racing series, plans an American presence in 2013.

* Details are sketchy, and there has been no confirmation of Friday's DTM announcement.

* A dozen races will be held in conjunction with the NASCAR and Grand-Am series.

 

 

HOCKENHEIM, Germany — The German DTM touring-car series has announced plans to stage races in the United States in 2013, with its high-performance four-door sedans competing on the same program with NASCAR and Grand American Road Racing events.

 

DTM, the abbreviation for the series' official title, Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, competes on road courses at many European tracks such as the Hockenheimring, site of Formula 1 and other events.

 

Autosport magazine reported Friday the comments of Hans Werner Aufrecht, director of DTM's management group. "Beginning in 2013, we hope to have a championship with 12 races in the United States," Aufrecht said. He added that six races are to be staged with Grand-Am and six with NASCAR events.

 

NASCAR's premier Sprint Cup Series presently competes on only two road-course venues, Infineon Raceway in California and Watkins Glen International in New York. The Grand-Am series is closely affiliated with Daytona Beach, Florida-based NASCAR. The series has one race at each track each year.

 

American-style stock car racing is popular in other parts of the world, particularly in Mexico and England, but the touring cars are a bigger draw, with Britain and Germany hosting national championship series. The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) sanctions European and world championships. And Australia's V8 Supercars series produced present NASCAR driver Marcos Ambrose.

 

There are significant differences in the equipment compared to NASCAR machines. DTM and other series use production automobiles (Audis, BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes) which have been modified for racing, similar to the GT sports coupes which compete in various forms of sports car racing.

 

Inside Line says: More than a year out, there are many unanswered questions about the details of this venture, but the chief question is how American fans will respond to the series. — David Green, Correspondent

[David Fazzino]

Analysis: DTM series to join Grand-Am in the United States?

By GARY WATKINS on 10/19/2010

 

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DTM-spec cars sanctioned by Grand-Am could run in 2013 in the United States. LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

DTM-spec cars sanctioned by Grand-Am could run in 2013 in the United States.

 

Motorsports-sanctioning body Grand-Am plans a U.S.-based series for cars built to Germany's DTM series--and DTM's new regulations--in 2013.

 

That's the first line of what should be a massive story that could have wide-reaching implications for motorsports in North America and the rest of the world. But the thing is, there's not a lot else to say at the moment.

 

Grand-Am is playing its cards close to its chest for now. The announcement regarding the U.S. series came over the weekend by Internationale Tourenwagen-Rennen (ITR), the sanctioning body of the DTM's touring-car series. Apart from a perfunctory quote from Grand-Am president Tom Bledsoe, not much is known of the American organization's plans for the 2013 season.

 

The races will be “DTM-style sprints,” said Bledsoe in ITR's statement, and they will be an “addition” to the Grand-Am bill. That suggests that there are no plans for DTM cars to replace or join Grand-Am's Daytona Prototypes in the Rolex Sports Car Series.

 

Bledsoe's statement included a clue as to why Grand-Am chose to buy into the new DTM regulations that will come into force in Europe in 2012: It's not what the rulebook says--V8-powered silhouette racers built around a standard off-the-shelf monocoque chassis--but the fact that actual car manufacturers are going to produce the race cars.

 

“We are proud to forge these new relationships with the many manufacturers choosing to embrace the DTM vision,” read the statement, “and we look forward to welcoming these exciting cars to the U.S.A.”

 

Grand-Am vice president Dave Spitzer put some meat on the bones when contacted by AutoWeek, though he expressed “a reluctance to go much further than [what] the press release [said].”

 

According to Spitzer, “The new DTM regulations are being looked at to be adopted in multiple locations around the world. That presents a real opportunity to attract new cars [to Grand-Am], especially from Europe.”

 

The attraction of the new DTM is obvious. ITR has sought, in its own words, to “internationalize” itself at the behest of BMW, which set this as a condition for its return to the series in 2012. And it appears to have succeeded.

 

In addition to the agreement with Grand-Am, ITR boss Hans-Werner Aufrecht, cofounder of Mercedes-Benz's AMG department, claims that the Japanese-based Super GT series will also adopt his new rules in 2013. If that is the case, and there has been no confirmation so far, then DTM-style touring-car racing will automatically get three new manufacturers in the form of Nissan, Toyota and Honda to add to Audi, Mercedes and BMW.

 

Grand-Am can legitimately expect to attract the majority of those makes, if not all of them. BMW, already racing with the M3 in the American Le Mans Series, must be at the head of queue to race in the U.S. series, while Audi North America has a long history in U.S. racing, from its forays in Trans-Am in the 1990s to its nine-year stint in the ALMS in the 2000s. There was even a budget for next season, though not enough to bring over the existing R15 turbodiesel LMP1 prototypes for the full ALMS season.

 

And what of the Japanese-based manufacturers, all of which have car plants in the United States? Nissan has talked about the importance of being able to race one design in multiple markets and, like the other two, is no stranger to the U.S. motorsports scene.

 

Manufacturer participation is the holy grail for so many sanctioning bodies, and it is something that's lacking in Grand-Am's Daytona Prototype division right now. So much so that Grand-Am has talked about changing the bodywork regulations to try to make the category more attractive to car makers.

 

Spitzer explained that it would be incorrect of him "to speculate on the plans of the major manufacturers," but he suggested that if Grand-Am provides a "fertile ground," there will be a "real chance" that manufacturers will come to race in the States.

 

How a DTM-style series will fit in with the Rolex Series hasn't been explained, though; as Spitzer pointed out, "there is quite an extended time line on this one." As to what it will be called and how many races there will be, Aufrecht almost certainly plucked a figure out of the air when he suggested 12. We will have to wait and see.

 

But there is one question that perhaps requires an immediate answer: Is there room for a another series in an already crowded marketplace? The new championship wouldn't be yet another sports-car series--DTM cars would be described correctly as sedans--in direct competition with the ALMS and Grand-Am, but the cake can only be sliced so many ways. Where would the teams come from and, perhaps more importantly, the money?

 

Tellingly, Spitzer wouldn't answer those questions.

 

Longtime U.S. sports-car entrant Wayne Taylor, whose eponymous team is a Daytona Prototype front-runner, said, "Are we all going to be asked to buy new cars?"

 

Taylor admitted to be taken back by the weekend's announcements and revealed that he was given no forewarning.

 

"I'm not sure what it all means, so I don't know what to think," he said, "but it would expose our team to more manufacturers, which can only be a good thing. It would also be good for young American drivers, because the DTM is manufacturer-based."

 

Taylor is waiting for more information and so is the rest of the U.S. motorsports fraternity outside a few in the know in Grand-Am's Daytona Beach offices. However, suspicion remains that Grand-Am and the France family that controls it aren't really sure what's going to happen in 2013.

 

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