By most accounts, the debut of the American Endurance racing series was a success. Mixing racers and cars from the SCCA, BMWCCA, NASA, LeMons, and ChumpCar sounded like a tricky idea to start with, but yesterday’s podium contained representatives from several different series. The common thread is street tires: in AER, you can have whatever car you want, but you need to keep it on high-treadwear, low-grip rubber.

Most of the drivers weren’t used to the wear characteristics of those street tires, and as a result very few teams made it through the day yesterday without flat-spotting, rounding-off, or grinding the tread off their Dunlop Direzzas. So naturally today’s race started with standing water on the track and heavy rain in the forecast. By the end of the day, not all of us would be driving back onto the trailers.
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I think I promised TTAC’s readers that I would put a whipping on their former Editor-In-Chief. Well, that didn’t happen. Not quite. In fact, the old man came within sixteen seconds of winning the whole thing. He just wasn’t counting on Randy Pobst to betray him.
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This weekend will be the inaugural race for the new American Endurance Racing (AER) series. It’s a run-what-you-brung, take-no-prisoners approach to low-cost endurance competition that welcomes everything from prepped SCCA racers to the cheaty-est of LeMons Class A rides.

As you might expect, former Editor-In-Chief Jack Baruth will be there — but this time, he’s the enemy.

Or maybe not.
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