ALMS: Sebring

  The season opner for the ALMS was this past weeknd. The 12 Hours of Sebring is th first race of the season. This year was promised to have better racing with new regulations. The reason is to keep the cars closer together in the resective classes. This year did not disapoint. In the previous year the desiels of Audi and Puegot have dominated when racing in the ALMS. They usually run in the ILMS series in Europe and come to America for a couple of races. This year saw a surprise overall winner and winner in the LMP1 category as the OrecaP Puegot took the win. Oreca has long supplied chasis in Sportscar racing and this was a big win for the company. It was also a widely celebrated victory in the paddock area. The second place car overall and in LMP1 was the Highcroft HPD car. Highcroft has been of the most dominate teams in the ALMS, winning the last two overall championships. This was a huge step for the beating both the factory Audi and Puegot teams. This was also a huge step for Honda as they were able to run with the desiels.

  Honda also saw sucess in winning the LMP2 category. One of the stories I was most intersted in was the return of Nissan to sportscar racing. Nissan is suppling motors this year. THis is the first timein a couple of decades since Nissan raced in sportscar prototype racing. In the late 80's early 90's if you wanted to win in the IMSA series you had to beat Nissan and the prototype. A strong run in this years 12 Hours of Sebring hopefully will see more involment of Nissan in both the ALMS and the ILMS.

  The GT class saw the BMWs of Rahal Letterman racing sweep the top two spots of the podium. Followed by the Corvettes in third and fourth. Porsche and Ferrari both had off days with mecahnical problems and accidents. The GT class always has the closet racing and with strong teams from BMW, Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari and Jaguar this should be a very exciting season for GT racing. 

  I am looking forward to the rest of the ALMS season. I think this year will be a close action packed season. Can Highcroft win a third straight championship or will Muscle Milk or other teams step up and take the title? Plus the excitment that is the GT class. This could go down as one of the best seasons of the ALMS.