FINALLY! An IROC Road Race!

[JohnBM01]

As it seems, nascIROC will add a road race this year. June 29th, the series will race under the lights at the Daytona Road Course. Okay, may not real glamourous, but at least there's a road course to give road racing competitors a chance to be at home. The Daytona Road Course is home to America's biggest 24-Hour eendurance, the Rolex24 at Daytona. I've usually said that the magic Daytona had was lost as the Daytona Prototypes and such taken over the series (argue at me at will, I'm used to it), but it is nice to see IROC do some road racing so that it doesn't go all-ovals. Kind of sad to say you call the series the "International Race of Champions," and the only way to make a name for yourself is to race American ovals. With that being said, it brings me to this argument. How do you feel about IROC's decision to add a road course race? Like the idea? Hate the idea? What should IROC have done?

You know what's sort of dumb? Why not race Long Beach? Think about it. Great drivers, classic race track, classic race weekend... street course racing in SoCal. Does it get much better than that? I'd likely say that you can keep Daytona's road course if you want to race it, but I think if you want a challenge or a nice venue to race, make it Long Beach. Saying with Southern California, why not Laguna Seca, or go to Willow Springs? Away from California, there are PLENTY of good racing options- Portland (the permanent road course, not the "short" track), that new Salt Lake City area track to be raced by the American Le Mans series, maybe hit up Houston, Mid-Ohio... hello? So many different choices. I mean, Daytona's okay, but if you want to stay on the East Coast, Road Atlanta or Sebring are great picks.

I personally still think today's IROC is a joke, but it's nice to see some road racing for IROC. Like I say, you want to be a champion? You have to prove yourself against all sorts of competition in all sorts of varied tracks. So, what do you think of this move by IROC?

 

[RACECAR]

As it seems, nascIROC will add a road race this year. June 29th, the series will race under the lights at the Daytona Road Course. Okay, may not real glamourous, but at least there's a road course to give road racing competitors a chance to be at home. The Daytona Road Course is home to America's biggest 24-Hour eendurance, the Rolex24 at Daytona. I've usually said that the magic Daytona had was lost as the Daytona Prototypes and such taken over the series (argue at me at will, I'm used to it), but it is nice to see IROC do some road racing so that it doesn't go all-ovals. Kind of sad to say you call the series the "International Race of Champions," and the only way to make a name for yourself is to race American ovals. With that being said, it brings me to this argument. How do you feel about IROC's decision to add a road course race? Like the idea? Hate the idea? What should IROC have done?

You know what's sort of dumb? Why not race Long Beach? Think about it. Great drivers, classic race track, classic race weekend... street course racing in SoCal. Does it get much better than that? I'd likely say that you can keep Daytona's road course if you want to race it, but I think if you want a challenge or a nice venue to race, make it Long Beach. Saying with Southern California, why not Laguna Seca, or go to Willow Springs? Away from California, there are PLENTY of good racing options- Portland (the permanent road course, not the "short" track), that new Salt Lake City area track to be raced by the American Le Mans series, maybe hit up Houston, Mid-Ohio... hello? So many different choices. I mean, Daytona's okay, but if you want to stay on the East Coast, Road Atlanta or Sebring are great picks.

I personally still think today's IROC is a joke, but it's nice to see some road racing for IROC. Like I say, you want to be a champion? You have to prove yourself against all sorts of competition in all sorts of varied tracks. So, what do you think of this move by IROC?

I love the idea of a road course being added to IROC, and what better place then daytona? according to my knowledge though, houston is to only a temporary road course so might be a strong chance that it won't be raced on again. Miller Motorsports park(I think thats the salt lake city area track your talking about) does sound promising. overall, I like the road course idea.👍

 

[xXSilencerXx]

Awsome 👍 I always thought they should bring the road courses back.

 

[ND4SPD]

Are they still using Firebirds? I find it odd how they're using a car that ended production 3 years ago. They could atleast replace it with the current pontiac GTO. I also think it'd be cool to see IROC use porsche's like the old days!

 

[JohnBM01]

As I say, I know they race mostly ovals and the American way of racing seems like lights don't mean anything. Even though they plan on hitting the Daytona road course at night, I'd like to see maybe some lights on the cars so they remain functional. I can recall the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in 2002. A Trans-Am Jaguar XKR had some lights tacked on the front bumper to meet the requirement for having at least one functional light for the front and rear. Like I said, the racing may be mostly in America, but it doesn't mean that only Americans and American-style race courses make up the international contingent of "International Race of Champions."

If that's the case, why not hit up Mosport? Mexico City? Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant? (If they are really brave) Laguna Seca? As for cars, why not Trans-Am style cars? Maybe even strap them into Vipers. I do think IROC is a joke, so they'll need to do something to make more interesting races and stop sucking up to NASCAR. To me, International Race of Champions = International competition = better cars and tracks and challenges. But it's basically: known International racers competiting in American motorsports + "International" = IROC.

Anyhow, offer your ideas on this return to IROC road racing.

 

[xXSilencerXx]

As I say, I know they race mostly ovals and the American way of racing seems like lights don't mean anything. Even though they plan on hitting the Daytona road course at night, I'd like to see maybe some lights on the cars so they remain functional. I can recall the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in 2002. A Trans-Am Jaguar XKR had some lights tacked on the front bumper to meet the requirement for having at least one functional light for the front and rear. Like I said, the racing may be mostly in America, but it doesn't mean that only Americans and American-style race courses make up the international contingent of "International Race of Champions."

If that's the case, why not hit up Mosport? Mexico City? Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant? (If they are really brave) Laguna Seca? As for cars, why not Trans-Am style cars? Maybe even strap them into Vipers. I do think IROC is a joke, so they'll need to do something to make more interesting races and stop sucking up to NASCAR. To me, International Race of Champions = International competition = better cars and tracks and challenges. But it's basically: known International racers competiting in American motorsports + "International" = IROC.

Anyhow, offer your ideas on this return to IROC road racing.

I agree about the cars. They seem too big for that type of racing. If they want to keep it American cars why not use the C6 but leave the lights on it.

About the tracks it'd be cool if they tried that rack in Mexico that the Busch series raced at last year.

 

[JohnBM01]

True enough, the IROC race cars were told to be racing on Daytona's road course. Sure enough, the Firebird/Trans-Am race cars have fog lights installed for the road course race. So, I'm sure they'll use them on the road course at night because if let's face it. They can't come up with a better car or much better type of race car than these machines. To me, I've always disliked pop-up headlights, so I would have put big lights where the original headlights were supposed to be. Still though, you'll see them with lights on around Daytona's road course at night. My only other question is, will there be rain tires in case of rain? You know- the stuff that falls from the sky which makes racing on ovals dangerous in a 3400lb "stock" car.

Anyhow, there will be lights on the cars to make them see in the dark.

 

[RACECAR]

True enough, the IROC race cars were told to be racing on Daytona's road course. Sure enough, the Firebird/Trans-Am race cars have fog lights installed for the road course race. So, I'm sure they'll use them on the road course at night because if let's face it. They can't come up with a better car or much better type of race car than these machines. To me, I've always disliked pop-up headlights, so I would have put big lights where the original headlights were supposed to be. Still though, you'll see them with lights on around Daytona's road course at night. My only other question is, will there be rain tires in case of rain? You know- the stuff that falls from the sky which makes racing on ovals dangerous in a 3400lb "stock" car.

Anyhow, there will be lights on the cars to make them see in the dark.

that would be awesome to see rain tires on these cars. we almost rain tires on stock cars in the busch race in mexico. I'm very curious as to how they'll drive those cars(which I believe are heavier then Daytona Prototypes) around the course. as y'all know, the brakes on a stock car aren't as good as sports cars so that will be a challenge to learn.

 

[mwoodski]

True enough, the IROC race cars were told to be racing on Daytona's road course. Sure enough, the Firebird/Trans-Am race cars have fog lights installed for the road course race. So, I'm sure they'll use them on the road course at night because if let's face it. They can't come up with a better car or much better type of race car than these machines. To me, I've always disliked pop-up headlights, so I would have put big lights where the original headlights were supposed to be. Still though, you'll see them with lights on around Daytona's road course at night. My only other question is, will there be rain tires in case of rain? You know- the stuff that falls from the sky which makes racing on ovals dangerous in a 3400lb "stock" car.

Anyhow, there will be lights on the cars to make them see in the dark.

Do you have photo's that confirm this? I would like to see them.

 

[JohnBM01]

I'll try to find pictures or maybe a link, but here's a fact for you. According to ( http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=207708&FS= ), this will be IROC's return to road racing since 1991. I'll keep looking for pictures to prove this, but I do have a valid source of seeing these IROC machines with fog lights for the night races- Speed Channel's "Speed News Sunday."

If I find any, I'll update immediately. If you find any, good for you.

 

[JohnBM01]

Overslept again... I completely missed the Rolex Sportscar event at Daytona's Road Course (Race 2 of 3 on Daytona). However, I was able to catch half of the last few laps of IROC's return to road racing at Daytona. Let me tell you. I applaud IROC for giving these cars adornments to actually suggest a real saloon race car- functional front lights (fog lights for these machines), functional brake lights, and windshield wipers. I probably thought a better idea would be to put in functional headlights on where the lights would USUALLY be at. These Firebirds/Trans-Ams could have had the lights positioned where the lights would normally show up, like where the retractable headlights would be. Some of you know that I hate retractable lights. It probably also would have been better if there were functional brake lights either where the regular brake lights would be, or if they were around the middle braces of the car instead of where they were initially. No need for the windshield wipers for this event since it was pretty dry for what I've seen.

Some of you are probably asking how come they probably couldn't do this for the NASCAR stock cars. The logical reason is that you don't need the adornments these cars were fitted for the cars. The reason why these IROC cars had these adornments is because they are road racing at night. So you don't have the luxury of the big flood lights or such in nighttime oval racing. I don't know if the course actually had brighter lights around the course to actually see around the course. It just seemed light there was more lighting around the course than when you normally see Grand-Am and Rolex racing around the Daytona Road Course. One thing I like about certain stock cars is how they sound. I think they sound better in road racing. And that's what I'm used to and accustomed to- road racing. I have respect for Daytona for oval racing, but I'm a road racing guy. It's nice to see IROC get some of its oval racing followers to see their favorite oval racers (the ones that are there anyways) try on a new challenge of road racing. Congratulations to "Smoke" (Tony Stewart) for winning the road course race.

By the way, it was also Smoke who wanted a dirt track race for IROC. I'd be better off with road racing than a hypothetical dirt track event. More people would probably pay to see an IROC road race event than an IROC dirt track event. That's even if the dirt event was at Eldora or Knoxville. Seeing IROC at a dirt track is like seeing F1 at Martinsville. Just make it two ovals and two road courses. Or make it one oval and three roads. Maybe mix in a street course for good measure.