The United SportsCar Racing series

Finally the merged ALMS-GrandAm series has a name: United SportsCar Racing. It's not the most exciting or imaginative name perhaps, but it has accomplished a couple of important things: we now know what to call it, and probably of more importance, it is not divisive. If the new name had been a derivative of either of the old names, it would tend to alienate fans from the "other" old series. If the name had been to jingoistically "American", it might have turned-off some of the international fan base (but it still manages to get that "U.S." in there). While the new name doesn't excite me, I am relieved that undue partisanship was avoided. I hope this is an indication of the continued ecumenical tenor exhibited thus far by former ALMS and GrandAm principals.

Along with a new series name, the new competition class names were announced today as well. Again the names were unexciting but also uncontroversial:

No further information about the details of the classes were discussed. We still don't know driver regulations for the former LMP2 and LMPC classes. We know that the Prototype Challenge cars will be running spec Continental tires, but will there be any classes with an open tire formula? There were several questions about homologation (particularly with regard to DP/P2 performance balancing), but again no definitive answers were given.

The sole sanctioning body for the United Sportscar Racing series will be IMSA, which gets a new logo. IMSA will also get a "refresh", the details of which were not discussed.

At the announcement press conference, there was a question about series sponsors. Tequila Patron currently sponsors the ALMS and Rolex currently sponsors Grand-Am: who will be the new series sponsor? No definitive answer was given.

There are many things yet to be worked out within the new United Sportscar Racing series before 2014. My hope is that the USR principals mean what they say and continue to try to preserve the "best of the best" of endurance sports car racing in North America.

UPDATE:

The day after the press conference announcing the new series and class names, there was a licensing and partnership agreement between the new series and the ACO. This allows the retention of the name "Petit Le Mans" for the 10-hour Road Atlanta event, and formally retains a connection between the ACO and both the GTLM class and select LMP2-spec cars in the Prototype class.

There are two reasons this agreement that brightens my day a bit: it makes the stated intention to keep LMP2 cars close to the ACO spec (allowing them to be eligible for Le Mans) a bit more concrete, and there is some hope that in the future the USCRS Prototype class will evolve to be more compliant with the rest of the international sports car world. I think it is in the interests of both the ACO and USCRS to cooperate in formulating future regulations.