HONEYMOON IS DONE

DAYTONA BEACH – On the way to Daytona International Speedway and walking through his front door Saturday morning, Ol’ DC took an early daylight peek at the sun poking into the horizon's distant sky. Having for his life's length been in and very near to water's largest bodies, Ol' DC couldn't help but mutter, "Red skies morning; sailors take warning."

An early learned, ingrained longstanding saying that has proved as wildly incorrect as some overpaid TV weather announcers, consequently learned and ingrained is the wisdom of reviewing weather prognostications from one or more credible sources.

No need for such secondary check today, though, because even had God or Mom Nature or Barack Obama ordered-up perfectly blue skies they still wouldn't have chased away the dark cloud that formed over DIS and the across-the-street International Motorsports Center in the wake of the high-noon news conference by ALMS' chief operating officer, Scott Elkins, and Grand-Am managing director of competition, Richard Buck.

Indeed, so intense is the cloud that not only did it continue to "hang" overnight but it still was quite evident Saturday morning.

Furthermore, given the mood of more than a few haphazardly encountered racing-type souls in Saturday morning's sportscar garage, er, paddock, one couldn't help but walk away with the impression that the evermore darkening cloud wasn't about to dissipate anytime soon.

For sure, surprising was the sheer volume (as in "high number count," Menendez) of unsolicited comments encountered upon a first stroll through the garage.

Ol' DC has at times over the years wondered about those who seem perfectly at ease in carrying personal-sized dark clouds.

A draconian subset of the Dark Cloud Society at times leaves one wondering how another could possibly live a life filled with such levels of negativity and that drowned in it are any who come within range of their personal vortexes.

Indeed, in the want of avoiding the aforementioned, some motorsports journalists have expressed a preference of running across hot tracks in the hope of escaping a pursuing Dark Cloud devotee.

Given the number of the usually inclined "rose-colored-glass" folks this writer encountered Saturday, one can only imagine what any of the Dark Cloud types might've said about Friday's "Grand-Am, American Le Mans Series Announce Class Structure for Unified Series" in which bared was "Organizations Taking Inclusionary, 'Best Of Both Worlds' Multi-Class Approach."

"Funny, we (the Grand-Am side) correctly went from multiple classes of cars, and thoroughly confused consumers, to two classes," said one among Saturday's sea of the unusually disinclined.

"In a year's time we'll have doubled the classes, while losing one Grand-Am class in the process.

"I 'get it' that there are some things they feel they have to do. What I don't 'get' is why they evidently think I'm so stupid that I can't possibly get what they think they have to do because no matter how many times I've asked 'em, the only thing they say when I ask any of 'em is, 'Well, it's what we've got to do!'"

"Grand-Am had a 'work in progress' going before this," he continued, "it was the one where we went from four or five classes of race cars down to two. And it was a good move, too. Or so I thought. Evidently I was wrong, because next year we're going back to, what is it, four or five classes? Even that reporter (The Daytona Beach News-Journal's Godwin Kelly) had to ask them (Elkins and Buck) how many classes would be at Daytona because he was confused about how many classes there would be next year. When people are confused about what you're talking about, what do you think they'll be thinking when it's actually done?"

Other comments:

"Tell me the one reason for the Daytona Prototype. It was the roof. The whole DP thing, from first-thought to on-the-track, was something like 8, 9 months after Jeff Clinton was killed in Miami" (DC Note: driving an open-top SRP2). "What'll we do next? Drop the HANS because no one's died from a neck injury?"

"I'm, like, thoroughly and totally confused. I've felt like a salmon swimming upstream since September's buyout because I've been telling people 'It isn't a merger because Grand-Am bought out those guys.' Man, I was way off the mark. I'll tell you that. Way off the mark. I was totally wrong as to who did what. But I'll tell ya, I coulda swore it was the other way around."

"I'm confused."

"Jim France cuts a check to buy the (ALMS) series lock, stock and barrel, and now we're changing rules to accommodate the guys who were bought out? I thought 'we' won!? When the IRL bought ChampCar, did they take cars from each series and consolidate them into one class. Hell no, they didn't! And now we're gonna do it? What's the deal with that?"

"Elkins and Buck said they were going to try to maximize the money people have in their racing equipment. How about the money I have in my class? And next year they're going to stick me in with the GTC cars. So much for the value of my property."

As Jedd Clampett often said, "Wee doggie!"

Four months ago when the Grand-Am/ALMS-IMSA deal was announced there were an insufficient number of backs to slap.

Ol' DC thinks the honeymoon looks cooked at this point. Yet, one shouldn't have thought it wouldn't end. They always do.

Later,

DC