When Worlds Collide - The Early Merger Era of USCR
I remember when I was in high school I would always try and get my school's "Car Club" up and going. I'd post flyers, give announcements over the PA and ask the teacher lending us the room for help with ideas. Unfortunately it was only ever me and one other classmate who would occupy the classroom at lunch, never really finding a single person to share my rather obsessive interest with. There was this one other kid, a senior at the time, that would be at one of the computers in the class room looking at spotters guides of some sorts. At the time I was solely a NASCAR fan, not really paying much attention to other forms of motorsport. I knew Super GT existed thanks to Gran Turismo 5, and of course there was Formula 1 but I never feigned too much interest in it. So when I peeked at his screen I noticed that it was what known as the Tudor United Sports Car Championship at the time. Of course, I didn't know what it actually was at that time. My small little NASCAR infested brain had never heard of this series before -- and that's because it was a completely new idea, birthed from years of two separate American sports car series competing for the same audience throughout the 00s and early 10s. The American Le Mans Series was much like the rest of the ACO sanctioned championships across the globe, using state of the art prototypes and factory GT efforts to fill their grids. However, by the end of the ALMS era there was a clear struggle to fill the prototype grids, with only a literal couple of P1 entrants running in any given race weekend.
The Grand-Am Road Racing Series was the complete opposite of the sleek and sexy cars ready to travel to France every June. Their top class were these tube frame "prototurtles", which in their first year looked more Florida man rather than Florida endurance classic. However, what they did have in their pocket was the iconic Daytona 24, which throughout its years would play host to multiple big time NASCAR superstars hopping in to turn right for the first time in a few good months. Their GT cars were also a bit non-orthodox for that matter too -- whereas you had Porsches and Corvettes battling it out for top honors literally shoulder checking each other Grand Am boasted Pontiac GXPs and Mazda6s... though, admittedly they were also tube frame based machines.
So when the merger news came about, obviously it was a pretty big shock to everyone's system. I mean, how the heck would these two completely different types of series fit in with one another given that Daytona Prototypes were literally pieces of metal put together to look somewhat like a race car in comparison to the prohibitively expensive prototypes that literally no one could afford to run these days... but maybe that's what sports car racing needed. After years of having to recover from the sudden decline of the sport (thanks Bernie) everyone was kinda doing whatever the hell in their own corner, with the BPR scurrying off into their own corner trying to make their own flavor of sports car racing before getting blown up by some guys from Stuttgart that would create so much baggage for Stephane Ratel that he garnered a hate boner for factory teams, the ACO still hanging onto the Le Mans 24 with its ever changing prototype category that once literally got gamed by those same German assholes from Stuttgart a few years earlier, the guys in Japan having to make a completely new regulation after their prototype series just kinda died off which even led one team fielding a 962C against some Skylines... America just kind of had to go their own way. And we all know the trope of the USA saving the world.
I mean, the mere sight of seeing these brute beasts with their loud and brash V8 motors running alongside these sleek and sexy prototypes is enough to get anyone the least bit interested just for the weird factor. The racing it gave wasn't too bad either.
The premise of these awkward Daytona Prototypes bumbling through the bumps of Sebring just like their European brethren is worth the price of admission itself. And we haven't even gotten to the rest of the field! You had the infamous Prototype Challenge category that would provide the race with its full course yellow quotas and almost down right dangerous levels of idiocy, but they're just honestly trying their best. Of course, there was also the ever iconic GTLM field with multiple factory GT teams duking it out going all touring car on each other battling for 2nd to last, while the GTD class derived from the Grand-AM GT category had its own oddities that would be simply wrong to look over. The 911 GT America is a car that seems to come out of someone's fever dream that I wouldn't be surprised if it came up in a /r/ThomasThePlankEngine post. There was also the R8 LMS with the teeny ass wing. I don't know why I remember that, but it's always so funny to see that specific car show up in Forza games when there's literally newer R8s to feature.
Even the calendar itself was a "greatest hits" of both series, with both sides having to play on each other's grounds with the Daytona 24 and the 12 hours of Sebring being the big crown jewel events. Of course, you also had the rest of the endurance races that both series managed to carry over, the 6 Hours of the Glen from the Grand-Am side and the Petit Le Mans over on ALMS' side. Long Beach and Belle Isle were two street courses that both series brought along that would prove to be marquee events, and something of an interesting tidbit that I would be remiss to mention would be the Prototype Challenge only race at Kansas Speedway. Yeah. That layout. You know the one.
The Daytona Prototype mix of cars lasted up until the end of 2016, which would bring the beginning of the new era of sports car racing. While I don't have great opinions on the DPi platform, it nevertheless influenced the current resurgence of the prototype category, whilst the growth of the global GT3 regulation made up by our good friend Stephane Ratel would occupy the GTD category and would go on to encompass the entire field, becoming one of the many influences that would make it replace the declining GTE class as the top global grand touring class in the world. Indeed, the United part of the United Sports Car Championship really did become reality -- though it probably had a far bigger outreach than they initially expected. Or maybe it was their intention from the get-go. Who knows. Anyways, take a look at this Daytona Prototype.
