Blancpain Leaving SRO - What's next for ACC

1. Nothing
2. Was announced 3 months ago
3. See announcement 3 months ago.


Thanks for the video.
Much too long for me to watch w/o skipping much and did not see the announcement.
But makes me curious, how all of this works.
Sounds like a big promotion roadmap, but nothing what I am looking for, real motorsport.
It is more about finding the right location for the best event, the best presentation, ...
 
SRO is the worst promoted/organized thing I've ever seen. While I love their push for "different" racing, like more TCR and GT4 in the US, plus pro/am series, it's been frustrating to watch them fail to grow. Just look at the GT America finale at las vegas: a straight fight between two teams for the title at a new exciting track with a huge field. It should have been one of the biggest GT events. Instead it was held at night in a track that was practically locked down. ZERO promotion anywhere (and that goes for other races, I saw nothing here in Portland when it came to town). I have no idea why any sponsor would want to stay onboard when they get no exposure at all. It's a shame, the racing has been great. The fact that they're kicking out pro teams AND platinum rated drivers is bewildering. I understand the desire to keep it close, but WHY oh WHY would you want to drive international stars like Vilander out of your series. When things fall apart they have no one to blame but themselves.

I doubt the European series will be hurt too badly by this, they can find a new sponsor easily. But the US side is already in free-fall and definitely didn't need this.
 
SRO is the worst promoted/organized thing I've ever seen. While I love their push for "different" racing, like more TCR and GT4 in the US, plus pro/am series, it's been frustrating to watch them fail to grow. Just look at the GT America finale at las vegas: a straight fight between two teams for the title at a new exciting track with a huge field. It should have been one of the biggest GT events. Instead it was held at night in a track that was practically locked down. ZERO promotion anywhere (and that goes for other races, I saw nothing here in Portland when it came to town). I have no idea why any sponsor would want to stay onboard when they get no exposure at all. It's a shame, the racing has been great. The fact that they're kicking out pro teams AND platinum rated drivers is bewildering. I understand the desire to keep it close, but WHY oh WHY would you want to drive international stars like Vilander out of your series. When things fall apart they have no one to blame but themselves.

I doubt the European series will be hurt too badly by this, they can find a new sponsor easily. But the US side is already in free-fall and definitely didn't need this.
As for somebody who been to a few FIA GT and Blancpain Endurance events (and used to marshalled in one too); for you all to know, SRO has always been a club for rich weekenders who can afford to race in these series rather than something to draw crowds by the masses like Formula E. GT3 was created to fulfil a request for a cost controlled privateer friendly series and this comes as no surprise.

I read once somewhere that SRO pick tracks on where the drivers would prefer to go and dump those they do not want to go to, therefore the tracks are dictated on where the drivers want to race at rather than to please crowds.

As IMSA proved in the 1970s and SRO's past mistakes, anybody should know that the rich gentleman nobody drivers will stay as they please as long as they are being kept happy and the works teams and the pros will vanish faster than Amelia Earhart once they got their goals. Okay, some will stay for job security but pro motorsport has always been about going up the "career ladder".

I could show 10 motorsport "fans" Blancpain GT and most of them DGAF because they rather watch F1. Plus, barring the endurance races (such as Spa), have I seen a FIA GT/Blancpain round packing out tracks like the Group C cars did back in the days

Therefore you can understand why they put gentleman drivers before fans and I can't blame SRO for - this is why you don't see much promotion for SRO events.
 

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