The great Charm City with its celebrated and rich history in horse racing is unfortunately a bit unfamiliar to the automotive racing industry. Around the world auto racing is known to be exciting, thrilling, competitive, dangerous, and is growing in popularity each year! With many different types of racing venues here in the United States alone, there’s a series for everyone!
Baltimore Racing Development (BRD) has been working tightly for several years now with the city of Baltimore and the Indy Racing League (IRL) to establish a road course through the streets of Baltimore. Can you imagine 1600lb, 650hp race cars flying through the streets at speeds in excess of 165mph!!! As the prospect of auto racing in Baltimore has become closer and closer a reality, BRD has considered the possibility of attracting other racing leagues as well. One of which is the American Le Mans Series (ALMS).
The American Le Mans Series is a racing league comprised of nine scheduled endurance races for the 2010 season beginning with the infamous 12 hours of Sebring and concluding with the 13th annual Petit Le mans. One race will be held at Mosport International Raceway in Ontario, Canada. All other races are held at cities within the US. Characteristic of sports car endurance racing, there are four classes of cars all racing on the track at the same time; Le Mans Prototypes 1, Le Mans Prototype 2, Grand Touring 1 and Grand Touring 2. The Le Mans Prototype cars are purpose-built race cars utilizing the most innovative and advanced technology in closed-wheel auto racing today.
The Grand Touring (GT) cars are production-based sports cars which have been heavily modified in almost every aspect for the purpose of competitive racing. Except for the Petit Le Mans, races are won and points awarded to teams by completing the most laps, or distance, in a specified amount of time. The Petit Le Mans is currently the only race on the 2010 schedule won by completing either 10 hours or 1,000miles, whichever comes first.
Overall race wins are good – beating all four classes, but class victories award more points and these are just the basics. Teams including multiple drivers per race must abide by many rules, regulations, inspections and parameters in order to even qualify for a race much less take the checkered flag or be awarded points.
Only having been around for about 10 seasons, the American Le Mans series is fairly young. It’s also about as exciting and formidable as almost any league in the country.
As a Baltimore native and resident, I would love to see this series add a race in Baltimore to its schedule. Maybe ….2011?
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Jay, a Maryland corporate attorney, is a long-time resident of the Baltimore area. Prior to undertaking his present role with BRD, Jay was the Associate General Counsel for Field Operations for U.S. Foodservice, Inc., the nation's second largest foodservice company, with approximately $20 Billion in annual sales revenues. In that role, Jay managed lawyers and other staff and focused on meeting the business legal needs of approximately 20,000 employees at 70 divisions across the United States. Prior to that, Jay worked for national law firms and spent a year working for Sponsor Direct, a sports marketing firm based in New York. Jay received his JD with Honors from George Washington University and is undergraduate degree in History from Princeton University where he played varsity football.
Jay,
Hope your making some progress on the funding of the track construction and hopefully you will have some great ews to share with the Baltimore area race fans.
I know your talking to American Lemans about the possibility of supporting your IRL race weekend but I personally would like to see the Grand – Am Series instead of ALMS. Grand – Am is owned by NASCAR, they enjoy a great relationship with the IRL as we speak and the Grand AM series is the fastest growing series in North America. Due to the hard economic times, the car counts were down for the Rolex 24 Hour @ Daytona last week but they (GA) have larger starting fields than ALMS and the racing is very competitive.
I enjoy ALMS a great deal as well but they (ALMS)are struggling to put cars on the track in a worse way than the GA. Car counts for the upcoming 12 Hours @ Sebring horrifc at best.
Keep up the great work BRD and looking forward to some great news in the weeks ahead.
The Baltimore Grand Prix would be held in downtown Baltimore and yes the streets would be closed but it is a weekend event. Street races are not unprecedented and very successful streets races are held every year in Long Beach, CA and St. Petersburg, FL.
Check out our website for more information!
http://www.baltimoreracingdevelopment.com
I am a Course Marshal (safty worker) for many of the races mentioned. I would love to see a race in Baltimore. When might we get a date?
Not to correct or contradict anything posted above, but to elaborate just a little: While most people hear a term like “production-based sports cars which have been heavily modified in almost every aspect for the purpose of competitive racing”, the first thought many people get is “uhh, like NASCAR?”
No, not like NASCAR. NASCAR has spec-racer taxicabs running in circles, for 34 of its 36 points races.
ALMS GT class is Corvettes and Vipers and Porsches and Ferraris and Ford GTs and even the odd sedan every now and again. The important thing here is, they’re real cars. They’re not too far from being street-driveable. They have headlights and brake lights and wipers – and they USE them. When it’s dark, they race. When it rains, they race.
That’s part of what makes sports cars exciting – it’s different bodies and different engines and serious competition, throughout the entire race.
Any clue on where such an event would be held? The roads would have to be closed all day for such an event to occur, not to mention practice. Perhaps somewhere rural-ish?