No more sports prototype championship racing at Castle Combe

[Simon T]

Castle Combe have announced there will be no class in the 2013 GT championship for sports prototypes. There will be a separate race series, there will only be 7 races and it will not have championship status.

Simon

[PaulV]

Simon, Is there a link for this?


Thanks, Paul

[Simon T]

No sorry, it's in a letter to all competitors, will try and post it ASAP

S

[PaulV]

Cheers,

The GTs have always been my favourite race. Hopefully having them as separate events will entice some people who don't like the issues of the current format.

[majordad]

Does this exclude Radicals , Atoms and Mallock type cars then , or what is excluded?

[andylaurence]

Is this because of the performance gap between the fastest and slowest cars? I see there was a gap of 19 seconds per lap in qualifying at the last race. Aside from the slowest car, it was only 13 seconds and the slowest prototype was 9 seconds off the pace. Is it really that much different? It'll be Norris from Prebble and then the rest next year...

[MattSmit]

The idea is to split the Sports and GTs into seperate championships. Next year the GT's will continue the championship status and the sports prototypes will have a 7 race series with championship status the year after.

I'm not a fan of how Castle Combe is currently run but it would be unfair to suggest they are dropping sports prototypes altogether.

[Graham]

Yeah looks like they are trying to make things better than worse. Looks like they are aiming towards splitting the proto's into their own dedicated championship..

that takes time to get champ status as you have to be able to prove an maintain an average of more than 16/18 cars..


G

[Simon T]

My concern is that there are only about 7-10 SPs on the grid for any race. With no Championship and only 7 rounds will this number increase? If not there will be no championship in 2015 either .

On the face of it, it looks like a good move for the GTs but a retrograde step for the SPs

Simon

[PaulV]

I hope that there will be proper thought to the class structure.

There are a number of chassis types that could be catered for such as Sports 2000, CN, Clubmans etc that are likely to have been perceived as uncompetitive within the existing classes.

[Josh Smith]

Got the email today.

Can't see them getting championship status, we only averaged about 6/7 SPs all year.

OSS for us next year.


Josh

[DarcySmith]

It's a shame.
I can't see the series attracting big grids,and wonder why the club has gone down this route.
Who do they think are going to turn up extra to this year?
I intend to do the double headers that don't clash with OSS

Darcy

[DarcySmith]

PaulV said:

I hope that there will be proper thought to the class structure.

There are a number of chassis types that could be catered for such as Sports 2000, CN, Clubmans etc that are likely to have been perceived as uncompetitive within the existing classes.

A good point,but the cars are so different,you could end up with too many classes to suit.

I wonder if you could use power to weight ratio as a class structure?

Darcy

[micron750]

I had a feeling this would happen its a shame and yes Simon we the Hardcore miss the banzii entry into quarry,whether there will be enough interest in the Combe Gt remains to be seen maybe this is the final nail in the coffin for the 1st of the combe 3!!

[thunderbelmont]

Consider the position that being up against a Riley or a Radical V8 is keeping some people away, then paring off the Sports Prototypes into their own standalone series which could pay dividends to both camps. The old traditional GT runners in their "has it got four wheels?" category cars from roadsports spec to special saloons can come back and have a chance at the win, and the uber-fast protos can race without the worry of tripping over a bog standard MX5 getting "in their way".

I'm still considering whether to make the trip to Combe next season with one or both of my V8 beasties, subject to calendar and budget, and I will say that a split doesn't make any difference to me.

At the end of the day, if the split works in it's favour - Castle Combe's great 3 can become a great 4 with a thriving GT series, and a thriving SP series, both offering crowd pleasing "diving".