PRUETT: A P2 and a prayer

IMSA needs one thing to happen, and now.

Down 6-0 to IMSA's new Daytona Prototype internationals, the sports car endurance racing series finds itself in the unenviable position of praying for one of its spec WEC LMP2 entrants to capture an overall win. For the sake of the series' health, IMSA simply cannot afford to have its DPis sweep the season with a 10-0 over WEC P2s.

Whether it's this weekend's WeatherTech Championship race in Canada, the following event at Road America, the penultimate round in Monterey or the finale at Petit Le Mans, IMSA, along with those who care about the series, is yearning for a WEC P2 to win on merit. And if IMSA's lucky, one of its WEC P2s will feature in at least half of the four Prototype races left on the calendar.

The reasons for this need are many. It's to show that a sound investment was made by its current WEC P2 customers. It's to help those owners stoke new interest from sponsors and paying Pro-Am drivers to continue in 2018. It's to show those who are currently outside the Prototype class – possibly in PC, which disappears at the end of the year, or LMP3, or wherever – that buying a WEC P2 doesn't mean you'll be boxed out by DPis at every round. It's to keep that pipeline of new Prototype entrants flowing by making a business case for buying into the class through WEC P2s. And it's to prove its Balance of Performance methods can deliver as promised by creating equal opportunity for every Prototype chassis.

Looking further down the road, the sustainability of the Prototype class also depends on the health and vitality of its non-factory WEC P2 entrants. At the moment, things are rosy with three DPi manufacturers in place and a fourth coming next season, but even with Cadillac (three), Honda (two), Mazda (two) and Nissan (two), IMSA is looking at nine DPis. To truly bolster the Prototype class, it needs to foster similar growth among its WEC P2 entrants. At present, only three full-time entries are on the grid.

Of those three, JDC-Miller Motorsports (ABOVE) has been the most consistent performer with its ORECA 07 chassis. The mighty little Minnesota team nearly handed IMSA its dream result after coming within nine minutes of winning last weekend's race at Watkins Glen before ultimately settling for second. California's PR1/ Mathiasen Motorsports team has dealt with a rollercoaster of a year as limited funding and spotty new-car reliability has reduced its potential. At Watkins Glen, however, and with pro ace Olivier Pla at the controls, its Ligier JS P217 was impressively fast.

The final member of the WEC P2 club, Visit Florida Racing, has lacked the luck and straight-line speed to make a steady impact with its Riley/Multimatic Mk 30. It has also recently joined PR1/Mathiasen in having to worry about funding.

There's a reason DPis have been so dominant, and it isn't all about the cars. From Pro-Am driver lineups to competing on budgets that barely suffice in PC, the extra challenges faced by the WEC P2 entries has made things easier on the DPis.

Valid excuses notwithstanding, in a numbers game where three rock-solid Cadillacs, two increasingly reliable Mazdas, and two unpredictable Nissans stand in the way, the two competitive WEC P2 models from Ligier and ORECA have a lot of stiff DPi opposition to knock down in order to reach Victory Lane.

Compounding the problem, DPis have not been made available for purchase. Manufacturers won't provide access to the cars readily capable of winning in Prototype, and with three modest WEC P2 teams left to wage war against the DPis, IMSA continues to cross its fingers for a Pro-Am triumph before we bid farewell to 2017.

On the positive side, the early competitiveness of PR1/Mathiasen's Ligier at Watkins Glen (BELOW) and the closing pace of JDC-Miller's ORECA has defused the pressure-packed situation by a considerable amount since Sunday. The mounting WEC P2 concerns, on the rise since the season opener at Daytona in January, feel less dire after the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen.

Now, IMSA needs more strong WEC P2 results to prove it wasn't a fluke.

To understand the worrisome state of WEC P2 prior to the Watkins Glen event, Performance Tech Motorsports' team owner Brent O'Neill gave an illuminating account of how the DPi vs WEC P2 divide was impacting his plans for life after PC.

"How do you go to your customers and ask for the budget to go run P2 next year?" O'Neill asked after the June 3 Detroit race where the Cadillac DPi-V.R won its fifth-straight. "PC is going away, so we have to do something, but my budget this year is $930,000 or so. I just had a meeting with ORECA, and how do you go to your customers and say 'Okay, we're going to move up to P2. It's going to be $2.5- $2.6 million to run the P2 program with the Gibson engine package, but by the way, we have no chance of being on the podium. We're going to go spend 70 percent more money, and you do not have a chance to be on the podium'. How do you present that to anybody?"

O'Neill's team has been on a tear, winning all five of the PC races held this year, and its success has translated into a chance to compete with a DPi.

"One of my customers, who is wealthy, said, 'If you can go get one of those Cadillacs, I'll buy it," he said. "I had to tell him, 'you can't, because they're not for sale,' and he couldn't believe it. If we want to do Prototype, it's a [WEC] P2, or nothing. So really, in my position, what do you do?"

And that takes us back to where we started. The answer to O'Neill's pre-Watkins question is waiting to be unlocked by a stellar run for WEC P2s over the last four Prototype races. The odds are long for JDC-Miller and PR1/Mathiasen, but as The Glen revealed, winning isn't impossible, unlike earlier in the season.

Bottom line, DPi is on the way to becoming a raging success, and to reach its full potential, IMSA needs a flourishing base of WEC P2s to safeguard against the inevitable manufacturer exits. Those DPi departures won't happen next year, or the year after, but when they do start to wind down, it will be imperative to have a thick safety net of WEC P2s to soften the blow. All eyes will be focused on the next few races to see if on-the-fence types like Brent O'Neill will sing a different tune on WEC P2s next year, or, worst-case, whether more DPi victories will kill any remaining interest they might have.

Staring at IMSA's big Prototype picture, I hope it gets its WEC P2 wish ASAP.