CHANGING LANES
Crazy Woman Driver By Kay Bell
Sports car combo coming
The two American sports car racing leagues have agreed to merge. That's good news for fans – if the union is done properly.
When the American Le Mans Series and the NASCAR-owned-and- operated Rolex Grand-Am Series announced a few weeks ago that they were merging, the news got so little media attention that I didn't even hear about it until a couple days after it happened. But make no mistake, this is a huge deal.
So let's take it from the top. The ALMS is America's pre-eminent sports car league, while the Grand-Am Series
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and marketing prowess. By getting together and operating as a single entity, starting with the 2014 season, they could potentially elevate sports car racing to a level of popularity not seen since the 1960s and '70s.
So many details regarding the merger
remain unclear, though – the new series doesn't even have a name yet – that it's impossible to tell whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. My biggest fear is that it will end up as a NASCAR buyout disguised as a merger.
NOVEMBER 2012 // WWW.CHANGINGLANESDIGITAL.COM
