IMSA - Jim Glickenhaus: " We think that we're being treated very unfairly "

To be allowed to enter the IMSA GTP class, a manufacturer must produce more than 2,500 vehicles annually for worldwide sale. A figure that Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus is obviously unable to meet, unlike the big manufacturers such as Acura, BMW, Porsche or Cadillac.

A peculiarity of the IMSA regulations that Jim Glickenhaus does not digest. In parallel to his commitment to the World Endurance Championship, Jim would have liked to see LMH 007s at the start of the great American races such as the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring or Petit Le Mans.

Although this is not new, Jim did not fail to scotch the North American endurance championship once again this week. 

You nearly won in Monza last year for the last 2022 race of the 007 LMH. Do you feel even more motivation to get a victory in 2023 ?

We love racing. We kind of feel like the idiom saying : Men and women plan and God's laugh. Racing is quite a complicated thing. We always try to do as well as we can, we're very grateful that there is a formula that enables us to race in the top class at Le Mans against giants. But we are extremely disappointed that we are not allowed to race in IMSA. It's had a huge financial impact on our ability to race and we don't understand it as an American team why we are not allowed to race in IMSA. And we we're told we would be so that's very disappointing. We're very excited that last Friday we finished all of the physical crash tests successfully on our road cars and we are now the only company in history who can sell a road legal car in the United States that does not have airbags. And this was a huge complex engineering thing. We look forward to the season we're going to do as best as we can, we have a lot of fans who like us and we put their names on the cars. That's what we do.

Could you just explain a bit more what the impact is ?

To begin with, we think it's illlegal. We don't think that IMSA has the right to discriminate based on the size of a company. We think that's absolute violation of U.S antitrust law and European anti-competitive law. In addition, we had a press conference call with IMSA and with the WEC where we were told we would be allowed to race. I mean : we think that we're being treated very unfairly and it has a huge financial detriment regarding our sponsors. US sponsors cannot be serviced. By racing in IMSA, we could raise money from US sponsors. And we had US sponsors who wanted us to race. We have been damaged by this and we reserve all our rights in it. But beyond that, it's idiotic. I mean why wouldn't IMSA want a small American Privateer to race in some of its great races ? It's a mystery to me.

When were you told that you would be able to race in IMSA ?

Well over a year before the the first Hypercar season began. We were the first company to commit to building a Hypercar. There are hundreds of millions of people who like what we do. We are a small company, so we were told it was a condition of us entering. Frankly, if we knew we could not race in IMSA we would not have gone forward. We have suffered huge financial damages. And you know I'm a big boy so what ? I race because I love to race, I can afford to race. I do it personally. It's not a business thing and, at some point, my shareholders are going to say : ''Jim enough'', and they're going to not let me keep racing. And when that day happens it'll happen.... But if I could race in IMSA I would have a much better chance of being able to continue in the WEC. And I was absolutely told it and there are some very high level people from the WEC and the ACO who were on that call and know what I'm saying is completely true and are very disappointed in it by the way.

But you can race in WEC...

Convergence is a one-way Street, meaning there are LMDh that will be racing in WEC and Le Mans but - so far as I know - there are no LMH that will be racing in any IMSA races. I do think these growing pains have to be addressed and it has to be made fair to everybody. The fans will believe that there is convergence when an LMH will win the 24 Hours of Daytona and LMDh will win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. I think until that happens convergence is a word uh but it doesn't really exist. Doonan agreed completely and Pierre agreed completely but then Doonan turned around and said we can't race in IMSA.