The 2012 ALMS P2 champion Level 5 Motorsports said today they will NOT defend their championship. Reason given is the lack of competition. The two time defending champion ran unopposed in 2011 as the only P2 car in the field. Last year there was 1 other full season competitor and one car that ran the majority of the races. Has been known for some time that there would be no competitors for Level 5 this year due to one team losing a sponsor and the other having their cars returned to the manufacturer. A quick look at the full season P2 car count for the past two seasons and this coming years looks like this 2011 1 P2 car, 2012 2 P2 cars, and 2013 ZERO P2 cars.
This doesn't only seem to be an US problem. Before the Holidays there was talk of 20+ P2 cars running in the World Endurance Championship. This past week it was announced that the series will be lucky if they reach P2 cars for 2013. Still waiting on official word on the Asian Lemans and European Lemans Series but most believe that the ELMS will have lower car counts than last year when they had to cancel races due to not having enough cars. Plus the Asian Lemans Series is allow GT3 and Japan GT300 cars to run this season in order to have enough cars to run. The series folded a few years back due to low car counts.
Since there aren't many motorsports fans here, I'll just stick this in this thread.
2013 Chili Bowl......
250+ Entries
Results:
1. Kevin Swindell
2. Sammy Swindell
The Chili Bowl took 25 years before Kevin was it's first back to back winner and he's now won 4 in a row.
(01-15-2013 01:30 AM)oldtiger Wrote: [ -> ]Since there aren't many motorsports fans here, I'll just stick this in this thread.
2013 Chili Bowl......
250+ Entries
Results:
1. Kevin Swindell
2. Sammy Swindell
The Chili Bowl took 25 years before Kevin was it's first back to back winner and he's now won 4 in a row.
Next year they are putting in a new rule which states anyone named Swindell can only have three tires on their cars. Four straight wins(a record) for the Bulldog. One short of his dad's record of five overall wins.
(01-15-2013 02:17 AM)ncrdbl1 Wrote: [ -> ] (01-15-2013 01:30 AM)oldtiger Wrote: [ -> ]Since there aren't many motorsports fans here, I'll just stick this in this thread.
2013 Chili Bowl......
250+ Entries
Results:
1. Kevin Swindell
2. Sammy Swindell
The Chili Bowl took 25 years before Kevin was it's first back to back winner and he's now won 4 in a row.
Next year they are putting in a new rule which states anyone named Swindell can only have three tires on their cars. Four straight wins(a record) for the Bulldog. One short of his dad's record of five overall wins.
Amazingly, they have now won 1/3 of the biggest midget race of the year. Just to put that into perspective, Rich Vogler won the first Chili Bowl.
Tony Stewart made the A Main and finished mid-pack. The man can drive anything with wheels.
Funny that you should mention 3 tires.....
Kevin came close to having only 3 tires at the end of the race. Check out the pic of his right rear in post #82 on page 3 of this thread.
http://www.trackforum.com/forums/showthr...oing/page3
(01-15-2013 08:39 AM)oldtiger Wrote: [ -> ] (01-15-2013 02:17 AM)ncrdbl1 Wrote: [ -> ] (01-15-2013 01:30 AM)oldtiger Wrote: [ -> ]Since there aren't many motorsports fans here, I'll just stick this in this thread.
2013 Chili Bowl......
250+ Entries
Results:
1. Kevin Swindell
2. Sammy Swindell
The Chili Bowl took 25 years before Kevin was it's first back to back winner and he's now won 4 in a row.
Next year they are putting in a new rule which states anyone named Swindell can only have three tires on their cars. Four straight wins(a record) for the Bulldog. One short of his dad's record of five overall wins.
Amazingly, they have now won 1/3 of the biggest midget race of the year. Just to put that into perspective, Rich Vogler won the first Chili Bowl.
Tony Stewart made the A Main and finished mid-pack. The man can drive anything with wheels.
Funny that you should mention 3 tires.....
Kevin came close to having only 3 tires at the end of the race. Check out the pic of his right rear in post #82 on page 3 of this thread.
http://www.trackforum.com/forums/showthr...oing/page3
Pic reminds me of the year that Jason won the King's Royal. Every time someone got the lead they ended up having a flat tire. Then Jason's tire goes flat right after taking the checkered.
Even more bad news on the P2 side of things. In his weekly chatr session Dagys mention he was making a list of teams for each series while he was at the Dubai 24 hours. He has already stated that there will most likely be ZERO full season P2 for the ALMS, he mentioned that the WEC will be lucky to have 10 P2 cars in their series. Now he reports that he only see 5-6 P2 in the European Lemans(ELMS) for 2013. Bringing the total full time cars in all three series combined to around the same numbers of DP running in Rolex. Major mistake of adding P2 to the new series created after Grand-Am bought out the ALMS. It is dying on the vine everywhere in the world.
Level 5 may return with the news that Dempsey racing has a new partner in Italian futbal player Del Piero and will field at least 1 P2 this season in ALMS. Heard at least one source say that the money may not actually be Del Piero but others behind the scene.