First, let me be clear – this isn’t a manifesto or a sales pitch. I’m not here to rant about how screwed up the current driver categorization system is or isn’t (although I might get worked up at a few points, humor me). Maybe it’s an open-letter to nobody in particular? I don’t know, I’m just a driver and a computer programmer. But, there’s a lot that needs to be said in regards to driver categorizations and how it can and will effect sports car racing now and in the future. 140 characters at a time on twitter just isn’t enough!

My intention isn’t to convince anyone of anything particular, only to thoroughly explore the subject as I see it and hopefully encourage others to participate in the discussion. Not only in terms of what the very specific rules are for 2015, but also the intentions and spirit of those rules. I’ll mention “spirit of the rules” many times and the reasoning is simple: if we’re to explore the topic we can’t be held back by what’s currently in the regulations, we must be open to improvement! Once we get over that, it’ll be up to the reader to make up their own mind on the current situation and how best to move forward. While exploring the subject I will touch on grid sizes, growth, team economics/budget, and depth of talent. This is mostly written from a North American point of view, but I’m actively looking to participate in the WEC and racing in Europe in general, so I follow the major sports cars series and drivers closely. The markets in North America and Europe are slightly different and I’ll try to touch on that later.

Most of you who won’t know who I am so let me give you a 10 second BIO, just so you know where this is coming from — I’m your basic gentleman driver. I grew up racing BMX and motorcycles, reached a certain age (16!) and realized I was never going to have a career doing either of them and started working hard at a “normal” career. After much sacrifice, luck and hard work (similar to what young professional drivers go through I suppose!) I was lucky enough to get back into racing through self funding and in particular, sports cars at a later age (in my 30’s). Since then it’s consumed the bulk of my life, hopefully my investors and coworkers aren’t reading this! I’ve been a gentleman driver (e.g.: self funded ride buyer) in the IMSA Tudor, ALMS GTC, Grand-Am Rolex GT and DP, Pirelli World Challenge GT, IMSA GT3 Challenge and Porsche Supercup (where I got my ass kicked, but it was still amazing!). In no way is that meant to prove I know much about anything, but I do have a pretty good depth of knowledge when it comes to what it takes to compete in each series as a gentleman driver. My background outside of racing also gives me a chance to look at things a bit differently than those who are lucky enough to make their living under the motorsport umbrella as drivers, team owners, engineers, etc. Sometimes a fresh perspective can help point out things that would otherwise be overlooked!

Before we get started, here’s a link to a short post I made last year with a quick history lesson on driver rankings and why they’re seen as important to modern day sports car racing:

http://maximumattack.tumblr.com/post/56821916023/driver-rankings-in-thefuture

And so we’re all on the same page, here’s the current FIA Driver Categorization Regulations (I’ll quote them later, this is only for completeness):

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/basicpage/file/20141113/DRIVER%20CATEGORISATIONS%20REGULATIONS%20-%20v2-GS.pdf

Why does the FIA have Driver Categorizations?

When I started on this, I thought this would be one of the easier questions. But I haven’t been able to find an exact answer from anything the FIA or IMSA has published or stated in public. On the surface it may seem like a trivial question to answer, but I have a feeling a lot of the confusion and angst with the current categorizations is that the intended goal of the system might be different than what the rest of us are expecting from them. If anyone runs across an answer by the FIA or IMSA to this, please forward it my way and I’ll link it here.

For now, let’s just assume that the consensus in the paddock is correct and goal of the driver categorizations is to increase the incentive for the Amateurs/Gentlemen drivers to participate in (e.g.: fund) the sport at the highest level. With current budgets the Amateur/Gentleman driver is absolutely critical for strong and healthy grids. We can all wish, pray and reminisce about when that wasn’t the case and that every manufacturer had half a dozen works teams and huge privateer teams in each class of every series, but that’s simply not the world we live in.

How exactly do the rules define each driver category?

As quoted from the linked regulations above:

* Platinum: professional driver satisfying at least two of the following criteria:

has held a Super Licence (for Formula One);

has won the Le Mans 24 Hours in a professional category (LMP1 / LMGTE Pro);

has won the FIA World Endurance Championship in a professional category;

has been a Works Driver, paid by a car manufacturer, with results to match;

has finished in the top 5 in the general classification in the FIA International F3000, CART/Champcar, IRL, IndyCar or GP2; all FIA World Championships and Grand-Am Rolex series (DP only);

has finished in the top 3 in the general classification of an F3 international series* (FIA F3, British/EuroF3 until 2011) or major international single-seater championship* (Example: F2, Nissan World Series, Formula Renault 3.5, etc.);

has won the Porsche Supercup;

has won the American Le Mans Series (P1 or GT only);

is a driver whose performances and achievements, despite not being covered by one of the definitions above, may be considered as Platinum by the FIA.

* Gold: amateur or professional driver in FIA international and national series satisfying at least one of the following criteria:

satisfies one criterion from platinum;

has finished in the top 3 in the general classification of a secondary international singleseater series (A1 GP, GP3, Renault V6, Superleague, Eurocup FR2.0, Firestone Indy Lights);

has won the general classification of a regional or national single-seater series (F3, FR2.0, Atlantic Championship, Euro V8 Series);

has finished in the top 3 in the general classification of the Porsche Supercup / DTM / BTCC / Super GT series or won a major national Porsche Carrera Cup;

has won a major GT series* (FIA GT, Blancpain GT Series (Pro), FIA GT1 World Championship, FIA GT3 European Championship, ADAC GT Masters, British GT Championship) or GT category of a major Sportscar series* (ILMC, ELMS, ALMS) with driver(s) of a lower or the same categorisation;

is a driver whose performances and achievements, despite not being covered by one of the definitions above, may be considered as Gold by the FIA.

* Silver: amateur driver satisfying at least one of the following criteria:

driver aged under 30 and not satisfying the criteria of categories Platinum and Gold;

driver who has finished in 1st place in the general classification of regional or national championships or international series;

driver who has won a non-professional drivers’ series* (Ferrari Challenge, Maserati Trophy, Lamborghini Supertrophy, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge) or a regional, national or international single-make lower category series organised by a Manufacturer;

driver whose performances and achievements, despite not being covered by one of the definitions above, may be considered as Silver by the FIA.

* Bronze: amateur driver.

any driver who was over 30 years old when his/her first licence was issued, and who has little or no single-seater experience;

any driver over 30, previously categorised as Silver, but with no significant results (titles, pole positions or race wins);

any driver under 30 who has held an international racing licence for less than one year and who has competed in fewer than 5 races.

And also quoted from the regulations:

* “Drivers will be evaluated initially on their record of achievements (age + career record), then on their average time during the races.”

Something to note that is relatively new as far as I know, is the verbatim inclusion of lap times as an indicator of categorization.

For right or wrong, most of the drivers currently categorized correctly fall into the respective categories as defined by the letter of the current regulations. In my own opinion, the FIA Driver Categorization Committee has done an excellent job with the drivers outside of the US. They’ve tightened up the regulations and put procedures in place to track times and performances which is a big step forward from previous years. I’ve yet to find an answer for why it seems some of the drivers in the US get rated lower than they should. It could be politics on our side pushing for the mythical “Silver” rating at the behest of certain teams or drivers, or it could be the FIA Driver Categorization Committee doesn’t see the same talent/value in some of our North American series.

In full disclosure, I haven’t seen a complete description of how and who exactly decides the rankings for each driver or even if that’s supposed to be public knowledge. From my own digging and poking around it seems that Scot Elkins collects, reviews and submits the American drivers through IMSA to the FIA Driver Categorization Committee for approval. If anyone knows differently or can clarify it for me, feel free to let me know and I’ll update this section. Again, I’m not trying to throw Scot under the bus here, but this is what I’ve been able to find out so far on my own.

Let’s cut to the chase and look at a few examples!

I’m going to name a few drivers who’ve received the mythical Silver Unicorn rating for 2015 who I believe either by the spirit of the rules or the current regulations are miss-categorized. I don’t do this to call them out, and while I know some better than others, I consider them all friends, great competitors and a huge value to our sport. We’re all racers and should take advantage of anything we can in order to compete and win, I merely do it so that the reader can conduct their own research and make up their own opinion on how they should be categorized and if they not only fit within the current regulations but also within the spirit of the rules.

A couple Unicorn Silvers: Ben Collins, Andrew Davis, Mike Skeen, Marco Seefried, Alex Riberas, * Boris Said, * Oswaldo Negri.

Because I have it easily at my disposal let’s take a look at the pace of a few of these guys who were at the 2014 Petit Le Mans event and how they compared to their co-drivers using my public driver / lap database:

Andrew Davis:

Best lap 1:23.2

Others in same Make/Model (* I think Andrew’s #27 Porsche GT America had mechanical issues and didn’t run the entire race, couldn’t compare co-driver times):

Mike Skeen 1:23.2

Andy Lally 1:23.1

Leh Keen 1:23.0

Marco Seefried 1:22.9

Jan Heylan 1:22.9

Alex Riberas 1:22.3

Mike Skeen:

Best lap 1:23.2

His Professional co-drivers:

Norbert Siedler: 1:23.2

Kevin Estre: 1:22.8

Marco Seefried:

Best lap 1:22.9

His Professional co-drivers:

Andy Lally 1:23.1

Alex Riberas:

Best lap 1:22.3

His (Pro status depending who and when you ask!) co-drivers:

Ian James 1:23.6

Mario Farnbacher 1:22.5

Based on this data that was gathered in 10 minutes on a single web page and ignoring any acts of god and as a legitimate gentleman driver paying to compete, I have to ask, WTF?

Before anyone tries to say “oh you don’t know the conditions” or “who knows how the cars were for each stint”, I’ll ask you to kindly STFU. All of us drivers study this data like hawks, if you’re fast as the fastest guys it’s no fluke. There might be some days were gentleman drivers can get close, but to be this close is not an outlier. Especially in cars as hard to drive as the current GTD specification. Go look at other events and you’ll see the same thing. It’s called speed and talent and it’s, in theory, what should be separating the Ams and the Pros at the end of the day. There’s a reason these drivers are supported by manufacturers and aren’t at a desk Monday morning to fund their racing. Again, I’m not calling out the drivers themselves but the people who are deciding their categorization. Hell, if you looked at my data you could call me a “Unicorn Bronze” — but luckily for me, nobody cares about Bronze drivers… ;)

I’d encourage the reader to do their own quick google research on the drivers listed above and see what sort of results and opportunities have cropped up over the years. If you want to get even crazy, feel free to use my lap time database to research the individual performances relative to their more traditionally ranked (either Pro or Am) teammates: http://boom.net/~mike/lapfu.php

* Note, I believe both Boris and Oswaldo are silver by the letter of the regulations since they’ve both turned 50 years old. Just something to note for the reader as to what the spirit of the rules should be.

“Real World” categories:

Most of us in the paddock simply view drivers as “Pro” or “Am”. The basic idea is if you have a profession outside of motorsport and you bring funding to the team in order to drive, you’re easily (and without any dispute from anyone else) recognized as an “Am”. If someone else is paying your portion of the seat to race or if you’re actually lucky enough for someone to write you a check to drive with them, you’re considered a “Pro”. Now, of course there’s grey areas and overlap but the system is very simple these days because the budgets are so high and the outside sponsorship, *especially* for Pro-Am classes (unless you have a TV show and are as handsome as Mr. Dempsey!) is nonexistent. Anyone who tells you otherwise is playing games, which is pretty standard in motorsports. 99% of what you’ll hear from team owners, professional drivers, and most gentleman drivers at any given time in a public forum either in person or online is politicking to get some sort of advantage from the officials or to sway their fan base to help their cause. Depending how and when you hear it, take it with a grain of salt… including from yours truly, but all I can say in that regard is I want the sport to be better and I’ve always called it as I see it.

In my experience racing, there’s a few general categories for every single driver in top level sports car racing. Let’s see how they line up with the standard Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum categories:

a) Professional driver who has had a stable race seat and has been paid to drive for multiple years. This guy isn’t losing sleep, he’s at the top of his game and has a stable job (by race car driver standards!).

b) Professional driver but has been in and out of different series without a stable race seat (there’s only so many to go around!). Normally paid to drive but occasionally drives for free just to stay on the motorsport radar. Coaches a lot on the side to stay sharp and increase contact with Gentlemen drivers who may in turn hire them to drive.

c) Professional driver ending his/her career and possibly lost a “big” ride in the last few years. Doesn’t have the same long term potential as young up-and-comers but as fast as anyone if given the chance.

Now before I continue, let me state that in my opinion all the drivers in the groups listed above are the same speed. There’s a lot of things that decide who gets what seat on what team in what series, but these guys are all about the same speed. Fans think some Pros are “slow” and some are “faster” — that’s mostly bullshit. These guys are all stupid fast and within a few tenths at most at any given time given equal equipment and conditions.

d) Young driver moving up the ladder and trying to become a full-time Professional. Generally as fast or nearly as fast as the Pros but much less experience and not necessarily able to bring any or much funding to a team. Either supported by manfacturers or personal sponsors but not writing a huge check of their own or their families. In all cases better and faster than gentlemen drivers. And in the cases of most young European and some American drivers, vastly experienced from years of karting and jr. formula racing!

e) A driver that was once in the “d” group, but wasn’t able to make it due to chance, luck, or lack of funding. They’re still fast, but tend to coach full-time while still hunting for that illusive race seat and trying to keep their foot in the door. It’s a hard knock life!

And by the webster’s first definition of “amateur” (“a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons.”) we arrive at the last 2 “real world” driver categories:

f) A fast gentleman driver. One who is funding the racing and is there to improve and continually training and practicing to increase their ability and speed. This includes some younger drivers who are lucky enough to have the resources on their own or their family to go racing, but generally aren’t planning to do it for a career.

g) A gentleman driver. One who is funding the racing and participating as a “life style” for fun, the challenge and the experience. Not necessarily aiming to race the Pros, but wants to compete and loves sport and the camaraderie of the team and paddock.

Now, I’m not advocating an official category for each of these 7 types of drivers. In fact, I mention them because it underscores how hard it is to categorize drivers when we aren’t all 100% sure what exact problem the categories are trying to solve! Are we trying to keep more professionals in the series and employed? Are we trying to give the future Pros and up-and-coming young drivers a place on the grid to build for the future? Are we trying to keep the life-style gentlemen drivers happy and in the series and thus employing other professionals and large amounts of crew? All the above? None of the above?

With a simple “Pro” or “Am” designation I could be cold and ruthless and easily put every driver I know into either category based on the 7 groups I’ve described above (a-e “Pro” by english definition, f-g “Am” - done). And let’s be honest, the bulk of the drivers *easily* fit into one of the existing categories. It’s the outliers that can be a problem, but we can and should aim to improve the situation — not simply shrug our shoulders and say “well it’ll never be perfect, so who cares”. As I’ve come to learn, causing change in motorsport is ridiculously hard. It’s full of deeply entrenched and highly experienced people who really want to keep doing things the same way because that’s what they’re comfortable with and it’s the way things have always been done. Maybe one day that’ll change, but it won’t happen quickly. Let’s not even get started on the third-rail of motorsport… Safety. Talk about circling the wagons!

From a fan or outsider perspective it may seem impossible to accurately place a driver in either of those 6 groups. However, in the paddock it’s painfully obvious. Being a gentleman driver myself, I know exactly who I compete with to “buy” a ride, which manufacturer supported “Am” might replace me in a seat I want to “buy”, exactly who is “pro fast” but I could get to drive with me for nothing if I gave them the chance, and who I can get to drive with me if I write a check big enough. None of this is secret, it’s how the business works but it’s not very attractive to talk about in public.

This is one of the reasons I believe a more open and public system to discuss and decide rankings/categorizations would be beneficial for everyone. If a driver really wants to claim to be an “Am” or “gentleman” I want it to come out in public and have them lie about how and what they do to deserve that classification. I want to see it with my own eyes and I want to be able to walk up to them, call them a liar to their face, have a laugh about it and remind them that I’ll see them on the podium after I kick their ass on track! People underestimate peer pressure and community policing, but the smallest communities (which the top tier sports car industry surely is) are the best suited for it! As a fellow competitor, why shouldn’t they have to sell me on it like they have to sell it to the officials?

We’ve got the official categories and the “real world” driver categories, what can we do with them?

Let’s explore this for a minute. If the intent of the driver categorizations is to put the “Ams/Gentlemen” in a fair fight (relatively, for racing terms of course!) with each other, are the current regulations which allow drivers that’ve made their career as drivers and professional coaches to compete as “Ams” accomplishing this goal? Keep in mind, these guys aren’t just coaching random track days in street cars… they’re being paid to coach the same pretty damn good gentleman drivers they’re competing against!

One of the most common things I hear from people (mostly outside of the paddock, fans, etc) is, “who cares if there’s a few Pros masquerading as Ams? You still can pay your money and go out and race them like they used to in the old days before any of this driver categorization nonsense.” While I agree with this in theory and it’s easy to say when it’s not your own money. In fact I put my money where my mouth is by racing straight up against the “Pros” in Pirelli World Challenge, but I do believe that the economics of racing these days has changed enough to warrant properly classified Pros and Ams. The fact of the matter is, to go racing now costs more than it did 10 years ago and it will probably keep increasing. The more expensive it gets the smaller your pool of available people to fund these programs, seats, and entries. The smaller your pool of people gets, the bigger the differential in talent you’ll have from the top to the bottom.

Of course racing will always be expensive and we all know not everyone can do it, but you can see the problem in the Tudor GTD class for example:

* In 2013 when it was the ALMS GTC (budget $1.0-1.2M/season) and the Rolex GT (budget $1.2-1.5M) classes you had a pool of lets say 25-30 Ams/Gentlemen drivers that could be pitched to participate in the series. Even in this case you really needed 1 person to fund the program to be competitive. And this pool was already artificially limited because of the crappy cars from a gentleman driver point of view (compared to what else was available, i.e.: full GT3 spec).

* In 2015 with a Tudor GTD (basically Rolex GT class) season budget of $2.5M+ your pool of interested Am/Gentleman drivers has shrunk to lets say 10. Because to be competitive, one person needs to fund the entire program. And keep in mind, just because the pool is 10 people doesn’t mean you’ll get all 10 to fund an entry. (more on that later)

Now there’s still some very good drivers in that pool of 10, but it won’t nearly be as deep as the previous pool. And I’d like to think we could all agree that in a perfect world, we want the best drivers possible on the grid! And I know what some of you are already thinking — if that’s the case, then we should only have full “Pro" entries! Ya, that’d be an entertaining race with 15 cars making up the entire grid, if we were lucky. How long do you think any series is going to stick around with that size grid?

Let’s explore these numbers a little more:

In 2013 at what I’d call a normal Rolex GT race at COTA (non-Daytona, etc) there were 16 Rolex GT entries, 12 of which were fully funded by a gentleman driver. And in the 2013 ALMS GTC class at COTA there were 7 entries, all of which were funded directly by a gentleman driver (I was a participant in both). Both of these races were short for endurance standards and only utilized a 2-driver lineup. Of those 19 gentleman funded entries, only 1 entry was funded by multiple gentlemen drivers.. the rest employed a Professional co-driver for the race. That’s 18 professional drivers hired and each car needs a crew of 6-8 people minimum at the race to compete— that’s 108-144 people working at the track to support the gentlemen GT/GTC entries.

Now really quickly, let me point out that for the 2013 Grand-Am Rolex GT season there were no “ProAm” driver lineup requirements. A lot of people point at this as a reason to completely do away with the categorizations as it shows that not only will ProAm lineups continue to enter the races but that they’ll be competitive with the full Pro lineups. However, I don’t agree.

Here are the rules which made this Grand-Am Rolex system work for ProAm lineups:

* Judicious use of full course cautions to keep cars going a lap down and a good chance to be relatively close to their class leaders at the end.

* 30 minute minimum drive time for every event, regardless of length.

* Lap down wave-by during full course cautions.

With these regulations you could have a single gentlemen driver start the 24 Hours of Daytona, drive 30 minutes, come in and sit out the rest of the race as factory drivers lap around for 23 Hours and 30 Minutes. During the shorter races you could have your gentleman driver start the race and even after going down a lap due to lack of pace or mistakes, the Pro would get in the car and have favorable odds to get a lap back under FCY and then fight the other pros towards the end of the race. That’s all well and good, but if that’s what it takes to be competitive it’s not how I want to spend my money and there was clear room for improvement. I write this as someone who spent a lot of money to run in Rolex GT races under these specific rules. While I always tried to put myself in a position to drive as much as possible, it was sometimes a detriment to our overall result because I’d be in the car longer than 30 minutes. In the case of the 2013 24 Hours of Daytona, I basically did the same number of laps as my Professional co-drivers Scott Sharp and Johannes van Overbeek. We had no mechanical issues, no contact, no penalties and a pretty fast car, but in a straight up race against a full professional lineup we were simply out-gunned (we finished 9th). I hate to say it, but if I drove the first 30 minutes and had hired a 3rd “Pro” to drive the rest of my stints we would have had a shot at the podium. But that’s not why I race…

Differences between North American and European talent pools?

Before we get to far, one thing we should consider is the diverse talent pools for up and coming drivers in North America and in Europe. Now before anyone gets butt-hurt, I’m not advocating that drivers coming up through the ranks in North America are inherently inferior to those coming up in Europe. But one thing I think most people in the paddock and in the sport will agree on is that the ladder system and depth of the young/up-and-coming driver pool in Europe is much deeper that here in North America. Let’s call it the area under the curve.

We’ve made great strides with the ladder system in America, but there’s a reason why most young kids who want a real future as a professional race car driver and show talent early end up in Europe. It’s much more common for kids to grow up in karts and go through the feeder system in Europe than it is in America. Again, I’m not trying to drive a bus over my young American racer friends, but the facts are facts. And these facts dictate that the “mid level” Jr. formula drivers are simply better on average than the kids getting a later start in fields not as deep here in North America. If we can agree on that, then we must conclude that what might make a legitimate “Silver” rated amateur here in North America might not be at the same level as a legitimate “Silver” amateur as defined by the FIA Regulations in Europe.

I personally don’t find this a huge deal as long as the legitimate “Professionals”, both in Europe and America are being categorized correctly. If I have to compete against someone who came up through the Jr. formula ranks in Europe but failed to progress through, went out and got a real job and now is returning to sports car racing, that’s seems perfectly fair. But, I don’t think it’s necessarily a fair fight to compete against someone who may not have won championships in the Jr formulas, but was competitive and still parlayed that through hard work, practice and connections into an marginally/unfunded or manufacturer supported sports car career.

Gentleman driver and young-up-and-coming driver overlap?

This is another delicate subject and it all depends on the intentions of the regulations. I don’t have solution but it’s something that should be discussed. At the end of the day having one categorization for both might make balancing P2’s and DP’s seem trivial!

If the manufacturers supported their young drivers into “Professional” programs as much as they politic and hustle to shoe horn them into “Am” categories and seats, maybe the problem would fix itself? Shouldn’t they just be “professionals” anyway as that’s their career path? Shouldn’t they be measured against those Professionals and not against the gentleman drivers anyway? (or more aptly described by a term I learned from some Pros early in my driving, “clubbing baby seals”).

Again, I only mention this because it should be considered when addressing driver categorizations as a means to improve the health and depth of sports car racing. The young guys and girls of the future need a chance to shine, but is it being done at the expense of the gents good for the long term? I could probably go either way on it, but with shrinking grids the short to medium term answer seems pretty clear to me.

But legitimate Pro drivers are losing seats because the rankings mandate a “Am” driver?

By the definition of the rules they’re not losing out because the seat was never designed for the Pro driver. How about we look at the problem from a different point of view and figure out what it’d take to get more “Pro” seats available on the grid? Clearly this will take more entries. And as we found above, more entries has a big effect all the way down the pipeline — deeper fields, more crew employed, more Pro seats, more gentlemen exposed to how awesome racing is which all leads to more fan and media interest in the racing. I know it’s not a popular view point as it’s much easier for a few drivers to be vocal and get their fans worked up for a few seats instead of making the underlying classes healthier.

Let’s do a thought experiment: What would be better, a normal grid of 15 ProAm GTD cars at Petit Le Mans each with single funded gentleman driver and 30 hired professional drivers (2-per car) or a grid of 30 ProAm GTD cars with the same 30 Professional drivers split across 30 entries? Consider how many more crew would be employed by an additional 15 GTD cars (we’re talking 100+ additional people). More gentleman drivers also directly equates to B2B transactions which is what many of the motorsport sponsorships are at the moment. It would also increase the grid size at the smaller “sprint” style endurance races where the gentleman would feel like they have a better shot competing against other gentleman drivers and not fighting over the scraps the Unicorns have left over…

How would we get more entries and why does driver categorizations effect it?

Let’s get one thing clear — everyone who enters into this “professional” racing business, either as an engineer, mechanic, a promising professional driver or an enthusiastic gentlemen driver is supremely competitive! To varying degrees we all want a fair fight, but we all want to challenge ourselves and compete against our peers. The advent of the driver categorization system has greatly increased the pool of people who are willing to commit the considerable amount of time and money needed to compete at the top level of sports car racing. There were always a few of us that would willingly go toe-to-toe with the Pros (and normally get our asses kicked!) but as I’ve said before, the economics of racing have changed and there simply had to be more incentive for the gentleman racer to get out there and fund a program.

While the current system is better than nothing (i’d actually prefer to not have it at all if we can’t do better, but I don’t think that’s necessarily best for the sport), if we could tighten the system up even more I soundly believe it would have a large and noticeable impact on the endurance racing grids. As someone who has spent a lot of their own time and money in racing with no intention of making it a career, there are lots of folks on the fences or that could be pulled into the sport with more distinction between the real “Pros” and the real “Ams”. Even if we have “ok” grids with the current system, I don’t think anyone would disagree that more is always better! It creates more competition on the track, more competition between the various series, more competition between the teams, and makes the sport better overall.

How exactly does the driver categorizations effect budgets?

It costs a relatively fixed amount for a professional team to run a particular race car at a particular event. Let’s just take the 24 Hours of Daytona for example, in a GTD car as it’s a pretty big number, involves multiple drivers, has a ProAm requirement and is the Superbowl of sports car racing in North America (I cringe with that analogy, but you know what I mean).

In 2013 the budget to run a competitive car, regardless of who is driving, in the Rolex GT class at Daytona was around $250,000 (2014 GTD was a bit more as single piece wheels and windows were mandated). What this means is that a team, say Whoever Motorsports needs to come up with that much money in order to operate the car for the race. It could come from sponsors, renting multiple seats (maximum of 5 drivers per car), finding a single gentleman driver for the season, payday loans, or any combination there of. As I’ve said before, there is no sponsorship money for ProAm classes (in terms of having a moderate to large impact on budget), so 100% of it is coming from the paying drivers. Now due to the Rolex regulations I described above, the optimal lineup w/ a gentleman driver would be a single gentleman driver funding the entire thing and driving the minimum amount of time. Also as I’ve described above, we’re all ultra competitive… so it severely limits the amount of people who are interested in other lineups as they won’t be competitive. Not many people want to spend that much money to drive around in circles, run a perfect race and barely have a chance to finish in the top 10.

Note, in 2014 with the mandated “ProAm” status for GTD and the increased minimum drive time the Unicorns became even more important than they were in the Rolex GT days.

With a mandated requirement of a single “Am” in the car, we’re left with essentially the Rolex regulations. Meaning, to be competitive you need to have 1 gentleman driver fund 100% of the program and hire a Unicorn. As I’ve mentioned above, there just isn’t that many guys or girls around that are prepared to do this.

With a mandated requirement of at least 2 “Ams” in the car, in theory, you could have a competitive program with 2 funded gentleman drivers. And obviously, that cuts the funding requirement per driver by 50%! It still costs the same to operate the car, but now you’ve increased the pool of gentleman drivers who you can pitch the program to as well as hopefully increased the overall gentleman talent pool as it’s a little less about $$$ and more about who’s fastest. The series is always trying to cut costs by reducing practice time at the races, reducing tire budgets for the weekends, etc.. but all that has a tiny effect on the cost to actually race. Here we have a way to cut the budget by 50% overnight and it should be seriously explored.

Now for a little thought experiment, let’s get really crazy! For the Daytona example, let’s imagine the ProAm classes you could only have a single “Pro” per car. With a 4-5 driver lineup, that’s a stupendous amount of cost sharing and reduction per entry! Granted, we could do the math and probably figure out that the ProAm classes would easily be oversubscribed and many entries would have to be turned away, but I have to ask… is that such a bad thing? What if the series could select the *best* Am’s (taking into account driving AND team history/preparation/representation/etc) and have a grid of 15 of the best LMPC and 20 of the best GTD ProAm teams in the world.. instead of being limited to the number of entries that can be funded by a single person?

I know the first thought of most people would be, “That’s way to many slow, inexperienced, and lacking in situational awareness gentleman/Am drivers to be out there at one time! It’ll be 2014 Sebring all over again!!!”.

While on one hand I get it, on the other we’d have to keep in mind that by lowing the financial burden per-seat we’d also be increasing the depth of the talent pool these drivers would be coming from. The ones who can write any check to race are still going to be there (that’s another discussion), but there’s a bunch of very high quality Amateur/Gentleman drivers that can justify or find a $25-50k Daytona entry budget but won’t or can’t do $250k!

To play devils advocate, the thought experiment probably isn’t necessarily best for the health of the series in terms of on track entertainment. But honestly, from the sidelines not many people can tell the difference between a good gentleman and a Pro. Most of the fans I’ve talked to just assume the “ProAm” cars always have the “Am” driving anyway. And the overall number of Professional seats in those classes might be a little too low, it would all depend how many ProAm class entries the series could support. However, it is an interesting idea to explore…

Of course, we must address the elephant in the room if these theories are to be seriously considered: accurate and precise “Professional” and “Amateur/Gentleman” driver status. Once you have a couple clear professionals masquerading as “amateurs” it completely and immediately ruins any intent of the ProAm classes. You end up back at square one, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Every team owner that can find a single funded gentleman will immediately go hire the Unicorn, which in turn drastically reduces the appeal of the class to everyone else.

What if all this “Am” talk is bringing down sports car racing in general?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I was a professional driver, a team owner, or even a major participating sponsor of the series I wouldn’t want anyone outside of the paddock to ever hear or have to know about “Amateur” drivers in my series. In terms of IMSA Tudor, WEC, and Pirelli World Challenge, no matter how the drivers are categorized they’re getting paid winnings if they finish well enough (not much mind you! but a check for cold hard dollars does come your way!). By definition from the outset, should we all just be Professional drivers in a Professional Sports Car series as far as anyone external to the sport or a normal fan would be concerned? Who cares if you’re a lawyer, a dentist, a computer nerd, coach race car drivers, train, or work for Porsche during the week. Why should anyone have to educate fans on the difference in driver categorizations to fully enjoy a sports car race? Shouldn’t the emphasis be placed on the differences between the classes and the various types of machinery and big names in the race and who’s just going fastest and fighting in each class at any given time? I can’t be the only one that wonders if having to talk about Ams at all brings us all down a notch. If a rising tide lifts all ships.. what happens when it recedes?

In conclusion:

I’d love to hear what other drivers, team owners, officials and fans think of any of the points I’ve made or brought up here. Maybe I’m crazy, or maybe it all makes perfect sense? Perhaps we’re approaching this all wrong or perhaps we’re all being a little too hard on the current system. Maybe all it needs is a couple clicks of rebound and a little ride height adjustment…

Screw it, let’s go race! See you guys at Daytona!