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Just curious what the different perspectives out there are on this. How important is the 'German' in German Touring Series? My understanding from the NASA marketing material is that GTS is supposed to be the gentlemen racer series with higher dollar cars and lower tolerance for contact (13/13 rule, etc.). Obviously there are plenty of high dollar cars in other series as well, but the point remains, this is where the BMWs, Porsches, and Audis race.

So a good friend of mine has a Maserati Trofeo race car that he has been campaigning in SCCA. I've been working hard to try to convince him of the virtues of NASA and the place he would be most interested in racing is of course GTS. His car is not perfectly optimized, but fits pretty nicely into GTS4. He ran one weekend with Midwest at Autobahn last summer and they stuck him in GTSU, claiming that there was a heated season championship battle brewing in GTS4 and they didn't want to toss him into that. Fair enough. Now for this upcoming season he tried to get the car classed appropriately and the answer was ST2. The car is not German so you're not welcome in GTS. I'm sure ST2 has plenty of nice people and can be fun and competitive, but what he's interested in is racing Porsches and BMWs, just like all of us!

So when I think about 'German Touring Series' I wonder what exactly makes a car relevant for us? Obviously the big three were the original intent, and VW qualifies too I suppose. But what about Mini? Sure they're owned by BMW, but are they really any more 'German' than a Lotus? So Mini is OK, but no Lotus... To me those are both British sports cars. How about Lamborgini? They are owned by VW Group, so they qualify? But not Maserati or Ferrari? At the end of the day, it seems pretty artibrary to me. Personally, if someone wants to invest in a Lotus, Lamborgini, Maserati, or Ferrari race car and run it in NASA, I'd like to have them swelling the ranks of GTS!

But then again, I can see the other side of the argument as well - you have to draw the line somewhere. So what do you guys think:

'Keep it pure, GTS means German'

Or

'I'm not intimidated by the other Europeans, bring 'em on!'

CRH

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Chris Hughes
NASA Midwest GTS3
Winefool Racing #31 BMW E36 M3

This comes up every winter and every winter it gets shot down. He can run one of the ST/SU classes. We had a guy in a Mas running last year at ACC.

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Kyle Burkhardt
Midwest Spec E30 Series Director
MW Spec E30 #12
PajamaPants Racing

Same guy, yeah?

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Julian Cates
#73 Spec E30

I personally think that they are hurting series growth by keeping it GTS. I would love it if they opened it up to all European cars. There are a ton of 'Production' cars racing in SCCA that could then run in NASA if they opened it up to all Euro cars. That would really boost the GTS1 and GTS2 entry list. You could also have Lotus's (Loti?) racing. That would be cool because they would be ultra lightweight with lower hp, but probably race in GTS3 or GTS4 with higher hp cars. It would be interesting to see how that would play out. Fiat is coming back to the USA and I can assure you that they are coming out with some cars that would perfectly fit in the lower GTS ranks.

The Mini is an interesting loop hole. The new one is clearly German, but the old one is clearly British. I honestly haven't even considered how the rules are written for that case.

What is everyone afraid of by letting more cars into the series? Right now, we are lucky to have 5 cars per class in the midwest/greatlakes. It's not to difficult a lot of weekends to get a trophy. Is that what everyone is afraid of...not getting the trophy. I would love it if we were racing against 20 cars per class. The podium finish would feel a lot better if you got it racing against 20 cars instead of 5!

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Paul Milligan
#319 GTS1
1997 BMW 318TI

That's part of it, but the German marque's and the simple rule set are the heart and soul. It is not the money or the 13/13 those kinds of thing

There is always talk about making it European. ...but here's the rub. Damn near every car ever made has been made in Europe at some point.... Fords, Chevy's, you name it. So if it's ETS, we allow all cars, and then what distinguishes ETS from ST/SU?

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Chris Streit
NASA Midwest GTS Director
GTS4 Porsche #15
Alcon Brakes Contingency

Chris, don't take my directness here as insults, just want to be clear:

GERMAN Touring Series. That's the important part along with the simple ruleset.



He didn't have a dyno form and certification handed to the series director. How could we send him into GTS4? Are you willing to risk all your points and hard work on someones say-so? If he's interested in racing Porsche's and BMW's then he should buy one and we'd LOVE to have him race in GTS. Isn't that car maintained by Fall-Line? I'm sure they could find him a great competitive car




German = German owned and produced cars.
Touring = Must be product based.
Series = (well it's a series!)

Ownership does not define manufacture. Yes the mini is an anomoly and IMO should not have been allowed. I voted against it.

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Chris Streit
NASA Midwest GTS Director
GTS4 Porsche #15
Alcon Brakes Contingency

If I could afford to pull up to a race in my street Maserati, then jump into a Maserati race car that's fully maintained and trailered to the track by Fall Line, then I could probably afford to have a second race car that abides by the rules. (Yes, I'm jealous and envious, but not hatin'!)

IMO, there are too many classes in NASA to ever get 20+ car counts in a single class. In fact, it seems that Spec Miata is the only class that can realistically get there.

- 944 Spec
- 986 Boxster Spec
- American Iron
- Camaro/Mustang Challenge
- Factory Five Challenge
- German Touring Series
- Honda Challenge
- Performance Touring
- Spec E30
- Spec Miata
- Super Touring
- Super Unlimited
- Spec3

If all of the 944 Spec racers converted to GTS1, the GTS1 class in the Midwest would be sizeable.

If all of the Spec E30 racers converted to GTS1, then there would be even bigger GTS1 car counts. (Not in the Midwest/Great Lakes, per se, but there are very large car counts in other regions.)

If all of the Spec3 racers converted to GTS2, then there would be a nice car count there as well. (Once again this is non-Midwest/Great Lakes but Mid-Atlantic has a growing Spec3 population.)

As far as all of the cars racing in Prod in SCCA go, pretty much all of them are National class racers and their goal is to win the triple crown and place on the podium in Nationals. Sure, you will get the occasional converts but I don't think that changing GTS into something that it was never intended to be is going to suddenly make it more attractive to SCCA club racers.

Just my 20 cents.

Nobu

Every year this comes up, and once again I say NO. The whole reason I am running in GTS, is because it is GTS: GERMAN Touring Series.
And I agree with Chris; the new Mini should not have been allowed to run in GTS.

But then, I'm a German snob, and proud of it.

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Mark Siggelkow
'90 Audi CQ-R
Midwest GTS4 #34
034Motorsport

Midwest/Great Lakes Race Director

I'm not gonna get into this discussion again. I'll just say I agree with Mark and Chris S.(another shocker ) and say once again its the German Touring Series, so yes German marques only !! NASA has a place/class for all cars to race, so there's no reason for non German marques to race in GTS.


-Scott B.

More like WAY TOO MANY classes. If it's not a spec class, it should not be restricted to a certain manufacturer or place of origin. There is simply not enough cars to fill all these classes and that's not going to change.

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Mazda RX-7 FC3S
Former PT_, Now EP