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"      Le Mans will mark its centenary in just 13 more years. Care to speculate about the appearance and substance of European-style endurance racing then?   We predict that the looks of future P-cars won&amp;#039;t be a lot different, but under the capot it will be another story.   Much more than other racing organizations, Le Mans&amp;#039; ACO (Automobile Club de l&amp;#039;Ouest)and its U.S. ally ALMS (American Le Mans Series) are deeply committed to going green. That stems partly from crowded Europe&amp;#039;s socialist ethos, and partly from coldly commercial forecasts of what it will take to keep auto racing socially acceptable in a world basically hostile to it.   So while less Euro-centric sanctioning bodies \u2014 think NASCAR or its sports car arm, Grand-Am \u2014 bank on a future as &amp;quot;racertainers,&amp;quot; pure and simple, ACO/ALMS in particular believe they must maintain relevance to the seismic changes reshaping the wider auto industry.   Yet they also have to keep offering race cars and racing that we enthusiasts want to watch for hours and hours on end.   Fostering new technologies has long been a goal at Le Mans. That&amp;#039;s why diesel engines were given such a huge performance advantage, 5.5 liters vs. 4.0 for gasoline burners, to induce both Audi and Peugeot to bring their breakthrough P1s. Now that advantage is being scaled back, as the ACO looks both to keep speeds in check and to encourage other power systems.   Biggest example this year is that fuel-electric hybrids with energy recovery systems are full-fledged competitors, whereas they were not eligible for points in 2009. Tellingly, by rule the boost from the batteries \u2014 flywheel systems are not allowed \u2014 is not &amp;quot;push to pass.&amp;quot; It can go only toward increasing fuel mileage, not speed. Next year combustion engine sizes will shrink, with P1s adopting the former P2 maximum displacement of 3.4 liters normally aspirated/2.0 turbocharged. (P2s will use production-based engines, like Grand-Am does.) One rumor has , which started with a twin-turbo V-8 and then built a V-12 diesel, is now preparing a V6 for the new era. It&amp;#039;s not hard to foresee that trend continuing in years to come. Maybe the endgame vision of the French is a field of flat-twins, like their beloved old Citroen 2CVs and Dyna-Panhards...   Some fans \u2014 yes, you see our hands \u2014 mourn the progressive loss in endurance racing of what we thought of as &amp;quot;real race engines.&amp;quot; The big, hairy, wide open ones unchoked by inlet restrictors and dB limits. There was nothing like perching in the night with your ears cupped, listening for the swelling scream of a V-12 Ferrari or Matra or a V-10 Judd or, in the distant past, the throaty Edith Piaf song of a or six.   We do admit the more clinical cars of today and no doubt tomorrow are technically interesting and aesthetically pleasing in an aerospace sort of way. And let&amp;#039;s cheer the fact they have the durability to race hard, flat out, all the time.   But gosh, they&amp;#039;re quiet. Especially the diesels. They don&amp;#039;t shriek, they whoosh. So tomorrow&amp;#039;s Le Mans prototypes will continue to evolve toward ever smaller, more efficient, more socially responsible powerplants and drive systems. The cars themselves might shrink accordingly, but we can&amp;#039;t imagine their overall appearance changing dramatically. The ACO has worked very hard to develop rules, that all cars must meet, for a relatively stable, reasonably tunable aerodynamic configuration.   Gone are the days when Ford, say, or Chaparral were free to challenge or with a radical new nose profile or rear aerodynamic appendage.   So we expect Le Mans cars of 2013 will look fairly familiar to us of today.   Of course, they&amp;#039;ll continue to offer all the hidden, internal scope for advancements in such vital technologies as fuels, lubricants, materials, control systems and so on. The oil you put in your street car years from now will not look much different, but it is sure to be better in many ways, many of them directly because of racing.   Will the green movement spread throughout racing? Last year and this, an interesting seminar was presented over the Long Beach ALMS/Indycar weekend. This year&amp;#039;s was called &amp;quot;SELLING GREEN \u2013 MAKING MONEY! THE FUTURE OF RACING AND HIGH-PERFORMANCE.&amp;quot;   Among the speakers were driver David Brabham, ALMS CEO Scott Atherton, senior Indycar technical director Les McTaggart and Lord Drayson, race driver and UK Minister of Science. The topics they and others covered included &amp;quot;How racing will play an important role in the growing demand for energy efficient vehicles and products,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The global energy, science and economic policies that will shape the future of green motorsports and its commercialization,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;The intersection of green consumers and auto enthusiasts.&amp;quot;   Don&amp;#039;t despair, green is good for you, seemed to be the message. Go green or die, seemed to be the implication.   How will that resonate in Grand-Am, the other major kind of endurance racing? It&amp;#039;ll be interesting to watch. The people running that show must be fully aware of world forces and trends, but as the sports car branch of stock car racing their vision is NASCAR&amp;#039;s. Cost containment and close competition are two of their key considerations, and it&amp;#039;s hard to argue it&amp;#039;s not working for them.   By rigidly controlling the Daytona Prototype cars in design and allowable components, including a short list of approved production-based engines, Grand-Am has built huge packs of affordable, equally matched cars that fight with incredible ferocity. It&amp;#039;s terrifically entertaining racing.   We don&amp;#039;t see Grand-Am breaking that mold to embrace 4-cylinder turbodiesels with KERS any time before NASCAR does.   Prototypes are keen machines, but sports car racing is based on real sports cars, aka GTs these days, and both ACO/ALMS and Grand-Am feature crowds of GTs of just about every shape, size and specification seen in the market at large.   What strikes our eye especially is that, while P-cars of both sanctioning bodies are so painstakingly regulated to promote close competition that they tend to look alike, GTs are all so very different \u2014 yet they climb all over each other on the track. The recent Sebring enduro was amazing. By what magic is a BMW E92 M3 coupe exactly as fast as a Porsche 911 RSR, a Ferrari 430 GT, a Corvette C6.R and, probably one day, a Jaguar XKRS?   As intensely as these cars race on track, their manufacturers and others are working feverishly behind the scenes to bring us new sports and GT cars that will keep us excited while not unduly exciting our puritanical critics. Porsche has already shown a hybrid 911 racer and radical hybrid concept featured on the March R&amp;amp;amp;T cover gives heart for the future of enthusiast cars. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a22910/future-thinking-sports-car-racing/>