ALMS: Finally Regaining Their Form

All season long, I've had very little positive to say about the ALMS. The loss of Audi was only one detail that has contributed to a horrendous drop in car count—a drop so bad they had to make a new class to flesh out the field a bit. While I've come to enjoy the Challenge Class quite a bit, it's hard to push past this fact.

ALMS's loss of car count has resulted in a lackluster season where, in terms of on-track action, it's been consistently beaten out by the Rolex Sports Car Series—a concept many people once thought impossible. Grand-Am has been so much better this year that their TV ratings have been jumping dramatically, as well as o-track attendance. Clearly, most fans are more worried about good action than beautiful, high-tech race cars.

Of course, we already knew that since NASCAR wouldn't be the juggernaut that it has become if that was not the case.

But at Lime Rock, it would appear that things are finally starting to turn around. The LMP2 Acura has shown it can be beaten by something other than a Penske-run Porsche RS Spyder, and the series has shown again why having four classes on track at once is so exciting.

Although many aspects of Lime Rock were very follow-the-leader for most of the race, it still ended up being the most exciting race of the season, bar none. Better than Sebring, better than Le Mans, and yes, far better than ANY of the season's Grand-Am races. You have to go back to the rain race at VIR before a Grand-Am event gets anywhere close to stacking up to the Lime Rock ALMS race.

And now, things are set to get even better.

The entry list at Mid-Ohio gives us 28 cars as things stand right now. Five LMP1, five LMP2, 12 GT2, and six ALMS-C. It's all right on the money—I've always said each class needs a minimum of five cars. In addition to the much-anticipated debut of the new, lazily-renamed GT2 Corvette C6-R, we have the debut of the Cytosport Porsche RS Spyder. After his first test run of the car, team owner/driver Greg Pickett said of the experience, "This is the best race car I have ever driven."

Such a glowing review speaks volumes for the team's confidence. I'll go ahead and predict that Cytosport will make the podium at Mid-Ohio, and maybe even steal the LMP2 victory from right under the noses of the Fernandez and Dyson teams.

Lime Rock also showed us that all of the non-Acura LMP1 teams are capable of putting on a good fight for the third place spot, which give us a good fight for Best of the Rest, while the Acura domination itself has a different dynamic that makes it more intriguing than the Audi domination.

It's too bad that Rocketsports will not debut at Mid-Ohio, as they had indicated they hoped to manage. But with a little luck, we'll get to see them at Road America. At least by being a race or two later than the new Corvettes, they can size up their competition a bit.

It looks like things are finally coming together this year for the ALMS. They're definitely ready to knock Grand-Am to the side again and become the superior sports car series in EVERY way, rather than just one way.

The real excitement is about to begin, and it is GLORIOUS!