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Thanks for the compliments, particularly from you two - Alex and James. I try my best to stay as well informed, technically, historically and politically, as possible in the motorsports world.
Hopefully I'll be able to parlay all of that into bringing sanctioned, co-ordinated professional drifting to Ohio.
Now, more on topic, I have to admit I've never cared much for the JGTC. The cars on their own are impressive, but I feel that it's a complete misnomer to call the cars Grand Touring cars.
By definition, Grand Touring as a racing class has always been competition versions of road-going cars using a fair to high percentage of road-going parts. The racing, however, is built around rare high-end sports and coupe models with performance in mind (to separate the cars from saloon car - or just plain Touring - racing).
Also, in pure GT racing, the cars are not artificially limited to maintain close racing, but are instead given a set number of rules guidelines to keep speeds managably safe and to maintain closeness to the original street-going product.
In its best form, Grand Touring racing has been displayed in the FIA GT or the GTS class of ALMS racing. Cars such as the Prodrive Ferrari 550 Maranello or Konrad Motorsports Saleen S7R start out as production line sports cars and are then stripped and modified. However, the package you start the race with is by-and-large the package you hit the street with, as are the dimensions and shape of the car (excepting for details allowed changed in the rulebook and safety features).
The JGTC is not a GT series, however. It's a wholly different beast known as a "Silohouette" class. In a Silohouette class (these classes first started showing up in the mid 70's at Le Mans and in IMSA) cars bear a superficial resemblance to road-going cars, but are in fact pure racing chassis beneath the skin with non-factory powerplants. The shape of the car is radically altered to the point of near unrecognizability, leaving in some cases only a few key design elements from the original car in place.
Silohouette classes became popular in the 70's as they offered an inexpensive alternative to building hyper fast one-off prototypes and were also safer than the then dominant open-cockpit cars. At its top level, ACO's Group 5, the cars became irreverently brash superstars, filled with uncontrollable bravado and speed.
Such luminaries of the Group 5 period were the Porsche 935
and the Lancia Beta MonteCarlo
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In about 1981. The ACO, the FIA, and IMSA all agreed that the factory silohouette cars had gone too far beyond the original idea for the class and moved onto Group C/GTP cars, which proved to be faster, safer, and even more competitive. Silohouette racing lived on in Trans Am, the DTM, IMSA's GTO (later GTS) and GTU classes, and found many homes around the world.
Silohouette classes became popular in lower level racing as they made cars cheap and equal for non-factory teams (buy an off the shelf chassis, an off the shelf driveline, and an off the shelf body and you're in business). Through heavy regulation, the cars would become more or less equal and the racing would be close and competitive. This is the essence of good silohouette class racing.
Unfortunately, JGTC has a rather perverse view of proper Silohouette formula. JGTC has a "factory friendly" atmosphere that adopts a Grand Touring approach to the rules on a Silohouette style chassis/engine/body ideal, and then moves to artificially create competition afterwards by "equalizing" the cars NASCAR style (hamper the successful makes, give bonuses to the losing makes).
With JGTC, you neither get the innovation and promenance you gain from GT racing nor the competitive nature and renegade spirit of Silohouette racing.
If the JGTC truly wanted to be a Grand Touring class, it'd adopt an FIA/ACO approved rulebook (which, by the way, would also gain Japanese teams invitations to Le Mans) and drop the tube chassis, sectioned-chopped-flared body racing special with completely non-stock engine masquerade and force the manufacturers to race what they build.
And if the JGTC wanted to embrace their national Silohouette formula ideal (the way Trans-Am, AGTC, Australian V8 Supercars, and the DTM have) they'd scrap the horsepower limits, scrap the penalty weight, and allow the teams to run roughshod over their fairly limitless rulebook.
Hopefully I'll be able to parlay all of that into bringing sanctioned, co-ordinated professional drifting to Ohio.
Now, more on topic, I have to admit I've never cared much for the JGTC. The cars on their own are impressive, but I feel that it's a complete misnomer to call the cars Grand Touring cars.
By definition, Grand Touring as a racing class has always been competition versions of road-going cars using a fair to high percentage of road-going parts. The racing, however, is built around rare high-end sports and coupe models with performance in mind (to separate the cars from saloon car - or just plain Touring - racing).
Also, in pure GT racing, the cars are not artificially limited to maintain close racing, but are instead given a set number of rules guidelines to keep speeds managably safe and to maintain closeness to the original street-going product.
In its best form, Grand Touring racing has been displayed in the FIA GT or the GTS class of ALMS racing. Cars such as the Prodrive Ferrari 550 Maranello or Konrad Motorsports Saleen S7R start out as production line sports cars and are then stripped and modified. However, the package you start the race with is by-and-large the package you hit the street with, as are the dimensions and shape of the car (excepting for details allowed changed in the rulebook and safety features).
The JGTC is not a GT series, however. It's a wholly different beast known as a "Silohouette" class. In a Silohouette class (these classes first started showing up in the mid 70's at Le Mans and in IMSA) cars bear a superficial resemblance to road-going cars, but are in fact pure racing chassis beneath the skin with non-factory powerplants. The shape of the car is radically altered to the point of near unrecognizability, leaving in some cases only a few key design elements from the original car in place.
Silohouette classes became popular in the 70's as they offered an inexpensive alternative to building hyper fast one-off prototypes and were also safer than the then dominant open-cockpit cars. At its top level, ACO's Group 5, the cars became irreverently brash superstars, filled with uncontrollable bravado and speed.
Such luminaries of the Group 5 period were the Porsche 935
and the Lancia Beta MonteCarlo
In about 1981. The ACO, the FIA, and IMSA all agreed that the factory silohouette cars had gone too far beyond the original idea for the class and moved onto Group C/GTP cars, which proved to be faster, safer, and even more competitive. Silohouette racing lived on in Trans Am, the DTM, IMSA's GTO (later GTS) and GTU classes, and found many homes around the world.
Silohouette classes became popular in lower level racing as they made cars cheap and equal for non-factory teams (buy an off the shelf chassis, an off the shelf driveline, and an off the shelf body and you're in business). Through heavy regulation, the cars would become more or less equal and the racing would be close and competitive. This is the essence of good silohouette class racing.
Unfortunately, JGTC has a rather perverse view of proper Silohouette formula. JGTC has a "factory friendly" atmosphere that adopts a Grand Touring approach to the rules on a Silohouette style chassis/engine/body ideal, and then moves to artificially create competition afterwards by "equalizing" the cars NASCAR style (hamper the successful makes, give bonuses to the losing makes).
With JGTC, you neither get the innovation and promenance you gain from GT racing nor the competitive nature and renegade spirit of Silohouette racing.
If the JGTC truly wanted to be a Grand Touring class, it'd adopt an FIA/ACO approved rulebook (which, by the way, would also gain Japanese teams invitations to Le Mans) and drop the tube chassis, sectioned-chopped-flared body racing special with completely non-stock engine masquerade and force the manufacturers to race what they build.
And if the JGTC wanted to embrace their national Silohouette formula ideal (the way Trans-Am, AGTC, Australian V8 Supercars, and the DTM have) they'd scrap the horsepower limits, scrap the penalty weight, and allow the teams to run roughshod over their fairly limitless rulebook.
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