Inside IMSA's Legendary GTP Race Cars: The Prototype Experience

Inside IMSA's Legendary GTP Race Cars: The Prototype Experience | J. A. Martin, Michael J. Fuller | Long overdue

books:

Inside IMSA's Lege...

	Inside IMSA's Legendary GTP Race Cars: The Prototype Experience J. A. Martin, Michael J. Fuller Motorbooks, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Professional automobile racing has always been dominated by sanctioning bodies whose main goal was to ensure competition. That has meant seeing that cars are well matched--in body shape or chassis/engine combinations or engine size. But what about an all-out competition, in which one team's idea of the fastest race car could be pitted against another's, regardless of mechanical "parity"? This was what the International Motor Sports Association's (IMSA) Grand Touring Prototypes (GTP) race series was about. The Series ran from 1981 to 1993, and it was one of the most exhilarating racing experiences of all time.

This book is the first to profile the amazing machines that resulted from the GTP's flat-out competition among different--and passionate--ideas about what might be the fastest way around a track: the V-12 with its better ground-effect tunnels but higher center of gravity (CG); the flat six with its low CG but severely-restricted ground-effect tunnels; and others that employed elaborate wings and air dams.

Here are the people behind this engineering free-for-all, the culmination of almost a century of automobile racing experience. And here are eighteen of the most competitive vehicles they designed. Using photography, diagrams, drawings and first-person accounts from the men who built them, Inside IMSA's Legendary GTP Race Cars offers a detailed look at the technology that drove some of the world's most exciting race cars, the likes of which may never be seen again.

for more information click here

A Must Have for IMSA race fans

A great reference for fans of mid-80's IMSA prototype racers. The most informative book I've ever seen on these cars. Great pictures and reference for model builders.

Long overdue

After all these years, somebody has written an extensive history of the IMSA GTP car. Highly readable and very informative. Even for those who don't understand the technology or the engineering involved, it's still a good read; the illustrations help at least somewhat.

My only complaint is that there is no history of the cars in competition, no won-loss record, no roster of teams and drivers who campaigned each car.

Other than that it's great value for the money

for more information click here

Lots of good information, enjoyable reading.

An excellent book with details about the cars and the teams that developed and raced them during the GTP era. I really enjoyed the insights from mechanics about which cars were hard to work on, or which one has a wide setup window to work with. I appreciate the time taken to put downforce & drag numbers to some of these designs, and to "normalize" them to common units allow easy comparison.

products you might be interested in

recommendations

Concept cars:the factory built ideas.
Suicide Bombers and Race Car Drivers