American Le Mans Series
ALMS announces 2010 race schedule
© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat
The 2010 American Le Mans Schedule has been confirmed at Road Atlanta this afternoon. During the American Le Mans Series’ annual State of the Series address Friday ALMS CEO Scott Atherton announced a nine race schedule for 2010, one race less than this year. The major changes in the calendar are a date change for Laguna Seca and the exit of the St. Pete Grand Prix.
Atherton also reconfirmed the new class structure of the American Le Mans Series with one LMP class, an LMP Challenge class for the Formula Le Mans cars, GT for the GT2 cars and GT Challenge for the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup cars.
The season will start with its traditional season opener at the Sebring International Raceway, the 58th annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida. Unlike the majority of the races in 2010 the season opening event will have the ACO class structure, rather than the IMSA one, meaning the two LMP categories will run in separate classes and the LMP Challenge and GT Challenge cars will not race in the 12 Hours.
From Florida the series will cross the country to go to the streets of Long Beach, California for the Long Beach Grand Prix on Saturday, April 17th. Like this year the ALMS will share America’s oldest street circuit with the Indy Racing League. The race will again last for 1 hour and 40 minutes.
The next stop on the calendar is on May 22nd, again in California. For round 3 of the 2010 calendar the American Le Mans Series will go to Laguna Seca. After closing the 2009 season the classic event in Monterey has been brought forward on the 2010 calendar. Besides the date change for this round the length of the race will also be increased from four to six hours!
After Laguna Seca there will be a summer break – with the Le Mans 24 Hours taking place in June – and the American Le Mans Series will be back on track at the Miller Motorsports Park on July 10th. Two weeks later round five is scheduled at Lime Rock Park.
August will be the busiest month for the American Le Mans Series with three events taking place in just a month’s time. On August 7 the teams will go to Ohio for round six at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, where the sportscars will again share the track with the Indy Racing League. Two weeks later round 7 will take place at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsion. From Wisconsin the America Le Mans Series teams will cross the border into Canada where they will race at Mosport on August 29 for round eight of the championship.
The 13th annual Petit Le Mans, the season finale of American Le Mans Series, will take place on October 2nd.
March 20 (SAT) Sebring 12 Hours
April 17 (SAT) Long Beach 1 Hour, 40 Minutes
May 22 (SAT) Laguna Seca 6 Hours
July 10 (SAT) Miller Motorsports Park 2 Hours, 45 Minutes
July 24 (SAT) Lime Rock Park 2 Hours, 45 Minutes
August 7 (SAT) Mid-Ohio 2 Hours, 45 Minutes
August 22 (SUN) Road America 2 Hours, 45 Minutes
August 29 (SUN) Mosport 2 Hours, 45 Minutes
October 2 (SAT) Petit Le Mans 10 Hours/1000 miles
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Disappointing that the RoadAmerica race is again only 2h45m for 2010 – loved it when it was 4h and finished in the dark. Apparently the change was for tv broadcast?
This schedule is getting shorter. This year we lost detroit, next year we’re loosing st petersburg.
Seriously if anything needs to go, it should be Lime Rock.
A 12h and 6h race right before LeMans…good preparation for LeMans. That might entice Audi.
Sideways is the new upwards…If the series can hold its ground for a couple of years I’m sure it will come back even stronger, adding venues and dates to the calendar. Thanks to Scott Atheron for all the hard work keeping the series alive and bringing some amazing racing to die hard and new fans…
Small tracks like Lime Rock are the roots of American sports car racing, we need to keep these venues more than any other. A place were new fans can experience being at an event, meeting the drivers, seeing the cars.
Keep up the good work,
See you at Lime Rock next July,
Gin
Some of the street course’s is not that good. Im not a huge fan of street course racing. The best I seen, was in 2002 Washington D.C.
Lime Rock, it’s ok… What happen to Miller Motorsports Park? I forgot about that track this year.
Let me think, Circuits in North America….
1: Circuit Mont-Tremblant. I like it when ChampCar was there. Seems like alot of people forgets about that circit.
2: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
3: Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, in Mexico City
4: Infineon Raceway
I Say they should replace Long Beach with St. Pete and then add NJ Motorsports Park and Montreal and then add VIR!!!
ALMS is highly dependent on a backsliding IRL, and the relationship between the two doesn’t make for good ENDURANCE racing at all.
Why would you get rid of Lime Rock, the fan base grows every year. To bad Watkins Glen is not on the schedule.
its sad that Sports Car racing (real Racing) in the USA is so dependent on NASCAR for Grandam and Indy for ALMS.
9 rounds isn’t quite enough – 10 would be a sensible number. Why on earth have they got rid of the brilliant Miller Motorsports Park? If a circuit had to be dropped then it should have been Lime Rock, which has been totally emasculated by the layout alterations.
I think America needs to built another road course. A circuit where F1 and the ALMS will always race at. It would be nice, if you guys could built an America Spa.
Not a bad idea Christophe.fra. Since there will be USF1 next year a new track would be cool. There is the small issue of money. Who would finance a new track? And where? F1 use to race at Indy but I heard it’s not going to with the new US team in place. Maybe a Las Vegas street circuit? Or back to Long Beach? Maybe a F1 / ALMS triple header at Long Beach along with the IRL. Daytona could work since it has an road course infield in conjunction with part of the track. How about the 10 Hours of Daytona?
Sorry Chistophe, but here in the US race tracks (as well as other major entertainment venues) are built with private funds.
The by-product of having the world’s largest economy. Folks in the big US of A are that well off that the government doesn’t really meddle in the entertainment business.
Here’s a parallel: Every country with a formula 1 race uses government funds to attract the series. In the US it’s all private funds.
So that said the ones with the cash can sway a racing series however they please.
I still say Lime rock should go. Fans can meet drivers at any track. Lime rock is outdated for these high powered beasts. Besides its very bumpy. The asphalt needs to completely outstriped and repaved.
Need to build another road course? What are you stoned? They have built at least 3 in the last 5 years, all top notch. However only 1-2 have FIA approval. ALMS is an ACO/FIA governed series. You can’t just run anywhere…
Long Beach is great, I like the old circuit that went under the hotel, but they have changed it, so what, its still a good race and an important market for Audi, Porsche, Ferrari, Acura and all the others – They all sell more cars HERE than elsewhere in the country
Stop complaining, seems everybody wants to complain. At least the series didn’t get bought out by Grand Am (as the rumors went) and will be in a much stronger position come next year than Grand Am anyway which is loosing entries even if they tout reduced budgets, when in reality its no cheaper to run a DP than a LMP2 car.
We lost Detroit because the city didn’t want to spend the money on it, plus I’m sure GM didn’t want to look like it was directly supporting a race when they took Federal money as many Americans are not racing fans and would see that as a huge waste of the Governments investment.
Plus Penske currently isn’t in the series…
I like the idea of a 6 hour event at Laguna Seca. For one thing, it won’t be a taped delayed event like it is now and we’ll see if Speed has the NUTS to cover it flag to flag (no cutting away). Speed will be at the NASCAR All Star Race (Formerly the Winston) on the same date unless they loose it to ESPN/ABC, which is possible…
Other than that, there are no North American clashes that I can see that will impact coverage (all sprint races in the middle).
Lastly Lime Rock was repaved where have you been? Its as smooth as Northeastern winters will allow it. They aren’t going to repave every season…
Lime rock was “resurfaced” not repaved.
i agree the ALMS should run at least 10 races. does any one know what the hell is up with LMP1 and LMP2 runnning as one class will that work i dont understand wont the LMP2 cars just get beat all the races cuz they are slower but running the same class as the LMP1?
The P2 cars will get bigger restrictors and maybe less weight. They could even give them a 90 liter fuel tank.
Was wondering if combining the LMP classes would allow the P2s to again fight for overall victories. Would it entice Penske back? Will it interest others to purchase some of the RS Spyders Porsche built and didn’t sell? What about the Direct-Injection engines that Penske used but weren’t passed on to Dyson. We have to assume the Muscle Milk is using the original injection/aspiration. It was easy to see @ Petit the RS could still play with the big boys. Increase the restrictors and/or remove some weight, could be fun again.
There is an “American Spa”, its called Road America. I know the same owner owns both the series and Road Atlanta, but wouldn’t it make much more sense to have the Petit LeMans at Road America? The longer straights makes it much more similar to the French track and it can handle the bigger fields. I feel bad for the LMP1 cars trying to thread their way through constant traffic at Road Atlanta. And laps of 1:05 must make them dizzy.
I mentioned it before…the series is turning into another NASCAR…celebrity drivers and the big wreck.
We should enjoy the 2010 series while it last. ACO is killing the sport with more and more “equality” rules.
Don’t count on Speed…Dale Earnhardt JR is first, NASCAR it so overrated by TV.
I was hoping for ST Pete to finally establish it’s own track and say good bye to INDY, but it was the other way around…GREAT!
On the other hand, now everything is Asia, form jobs, market, economy and now this… you’ll see how the Asian series gain more popularity that the American one
exactly. USA has been so much “nascar” oriented and for some reason 90% or more of race fans in the USA dont want to watch road racing. i used to watch NASCAR more when i was little, but when my dad went Road Racing i was like “where have i been for the past 16 years?” Now i hardly ever watch NASCAR. why isnt everyone like that? I mean i understand the whole Junior thing, but he really isnt that good, i liked his dad and i respect his dad, but not him! His dad actually could road race too!!!