This week, entries for the 2024 season of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship opened. Sounds unremarkable until you remember that it’s August, and they’re going to close two months from now in October. IMSA’s goal is to release the full-season entry list by Petit Le Mans in mid-October. When was the last time a racing series, with perhaps the exception of Formula 1, did something like that?
While that doesn’t mean there will be specifics such as driver lineups, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if some of the entries mention a class and a number but not a car, that’s a fairly significant development in a world where announcements from teams and manufacturers dribble in during December and we don’t get the full picture until about a week before the Roar Before the 24.
It’s also necessary, given the burgeoning interest in the WeatherTech Championship and sports car racing in general. With the rules for IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship running in parallel in the top GTP/Hypercar class and, next year, in the GT classes as well, the interest among manufacturers and teams is at an all-time high. Speculation is rampant as to which manufacturers will be shut out of WEC’s new LMGT3 class, and IMSA has to figure out how to arrange classes for circuits that have limited capacity in pit lane and paddock. IMSA also has to manage the desires of those that wish to campaign a full season, or a full season of Michelin Endurance Cup, so they can do so.
At Road America last weekend, IMSA president John Doonan made reference to the problems with being too popular — a problem sports car racing hasn’t always had. And that popularity isn’t just with manufacturers and teams, but crowds as well. Outside, during Doonan’s presentation at lunchtime on Friday, cars and RVs and trucks with campers were rolling in. Camping was sold out. The grid walk on Sunday was was packed, it has been before every race this season. Sports car racing is at a level of popularity not seen in decades.
Despite that, sports car racing can’t live in a vacuum. The NTT IndyCar Series and F1 can afford to craft their schedules without concern for other racing series (although both typically leave the 24 Hours of Le Mans date open). With convergence of rules, the goal should be no conflicts, and that’s not where we are with the schedule Doonan revealed for 2024. In fact, IMSA and WEC share three dates — that’s almost half of the WEC schedule. If there was any source of grumbling throughout the Road America paddock, those conflicts were it.
Conflicts create problems for manufacturers who have to divide resources, including factory drivers, across two continents. It creates a problem for drivers, who could be running for two championships but now can only run one, but also it takes money out of their pockets. It creates a problem for teams such as Proton Competition, Porsche Penske Motorsports and Cadillac Racing, who compete in both IMSA and WEC and sometimes others.
One could argue that there are good reasons for the conflicts, or they were simply unavoidable. Thankfully, most American tracks are quite busy between pro auto and motorcycle racing, track days and club racing groups like SCCA, NASA, PCA, BMWCCA, etc. That fact, however, makes scheduling a challenge.
Looking at the three WEC conflicts, Long Beach/Imola, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca/Spa and Canadian Tire Motorsports Park/Interlagos, there are some solid reasons for a couple of them, and for a third IMSA is leaving the GTP class at home. Long Beach’s dates are out of IMSA’s control, being an IndyCar event. IMSA has built a solid history there, and it’s the most iconic street race in the U.S. Given that the date has been pretty consistent outside of the COVID years, the onus perhaps falls more on the FIA to avoid a scheduling conflict.
For Laguna Seca, Doonan explained that the opportunity to have the race on live network TV was the driving factor for choosing the date that conflicts with the 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps in May. In the case of CTMP, after the date moved off the Canada Day weekend, there would seem to be more flexibility. But IMSA won’t have GTP at that event — for space considerations, and to keep the number of GT races at nine with the addition of Detroit.
Speaking of Detroit, the conflicts go beyond WEC, and two of the WeatherTech Championship’s dates conflict with the biggest GT endurance races on the planet. There is no way for IMSA to avoid conflicts with every other sports car race (and, it should be noted, there are no conflicts between IMSA and SRO Motorsports America), but you could argue that conflicts with the 24 Hours of Nurburgring and the 24 Hours of Spa should be avoided, given the huge number of factory drivers dedicated to each event.
Eight current GTP drivers participated in this year’s Nurburgring 24, and the number of IMSA regulars triples when you go down into the GT categories.
Granted, the date for next year’s Nurburgring race shifted fairly recently, so that may have played a part. But the conflict is downtown Detroit, a new race on the IMSA schedule where only GTP and GTD PRO will participate on a bumpy street circuit that drew early skepticism from the IndyCar field before delivering a relatively clean race.
While GM wants to see its Cadillacs and Corvettes competing on the streets surrounding its headquarters, and we’ll be treated to a battle of Detroit between Chevrolet and Ford in GTD PRO, which we haven’t seen since Trans-Am when Detroit was an F1 race, is that a compelling enough reason to clash with one of the world’s premier endurance races?
As for Watkins Glen and Spa, the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen date has been pretty consistent, so SRO perhaps should have taken that into consideration. Last year Spa was between the Glen and CTMP races — a schedule that led to a bit of jet lag and fatigue among some drivers, but was at least manageable.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not privy to all the behind-the-scenes machinations that go into crafting international sports car racing schedules, and nobody’s asking for my help. But plenty of people — representatives from manufacturers, teams, and drivers — in the Road America paddock were asking for thoughts after the fact, in tones that left their sometimes-unspoken frustrations clear.
Ultimately it will be up to manufacturers and teams and drivers to consider whether the reasons for the conflicts are compelling enough to endure them, or ask that the sanctioning bodies give more thought to avoiding them. Are factors such as live TV and racing with IndyCar sufficient reasons for a conflict? That will be up to others to decide. But despite its current wave of popularity — and IMSA has much going for it these days, as do the others — sports car racing remains the low man on the motorsports totem pole. Sanctioning bodies need to do everything they can to ensure the wave doesn’t crest prematurely.