The growing popularity of GT3-based machinery and the unsettled state of global GTE regulations has led to some interesting developments in recent weeks. Although GT convergence talks fell through between manufacturers, the ACO, and the FIA on a long-term solution to establish a more concentrated path forward for the multitude of GT platforms used throughout the world, a need still to sort out where GTE and GT3 regulations are headed continues to exist.

Series like IMSA’s TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, with its ACO/FIA-based GT Le Mans class, has a need to solidify the GTE regulations that will govern its cars over the next few years, and the same is true for the GT3-based entries in its GT Daytona class.

The TUDOR Championship will continue to adhere to whatever comes from the ACO/FIA, but without a common, converged GT platform on the horizon, the series is taking a more proactive role in determining what’s best in the short term for North American GTLM competitors.

Ongoing talks about GTE/GTLM continue to take place, and as IMSA competition and technical rules VP Scot Elkins shares, the series is also looking at which direction to take with the influx of GT3 cars in GTD.

“I think while everybody in the world thinks it’s easy, it’s still pretty tricky because of the fact that we are racing on track with the GTLM cars,” he told RACER, referring to setting rules for existing cars instead of crafting new rules as the convergence meetings were meant to produce. “Even though we’re still having jokingly what I call GT non-convergence meetings, we’re still having those and working on regulations for the GTLM for 2016.

“And there is also a GT3 technical working group that happens [this week] at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. And so we’ll be attending that to see where GT3 is going to go, in terms of the regulations since the convergence didn’t happen. That is the first meeting that the GT3 technical working group has had since all this has gone down. We’ll see where that goes and that will help give us a determination as to what we really want to do for next year and for ’16 and ’17 as those regulations are coming together.”

Through the former American Le Mans Series, IMSA worked directly with the ACO, and later the ACO/FIA, to finalize the rules that covered most of its classes. With those rules in hand, the ALMS made certain tweaks that fit its cars and classes, and the same practice continues in the TUDOR Championship where the P2 cars in Prototype and GTLM run under IMSA-attuned ACO/FIA regulations.

“We are part of all these meetings that happen and we have a seat at the table and we sit right there with the FIA and the ACO, which makes it good so it gives us an opportunity to see what everybody else is doing so it doesn’t leave us hanging out making decisions in the dark,” Elkins added. “Until those meetings occur, I don’t really think we really know what direction we’re going to go in.”

Under the Grand-Am banner, GT3 cars were forced to execute a number of changes – many of them quite significant and rather expensive – to comply with the series’ unique requirements. Different roll cages, the deletion of traction control, ABS, and revised aerodynamics that reduced downforce by a considerable sum made it impossible for owners to do something as simple as buy a GT3-spec car, take it to a Grand-Am event and go racing.

The Pirelli World Challenge series, rivals to Grand-Am/TUDOR Championship, took another approach, welcoming GT3 cars to run as they were delivered. PWC entrants responded immediately, filling the GT field with GT3 cars from Audi, Ferrari, Mercedes, Nissan, Porsche, and most recently, Bentley (ABOVE), BMW and McLaren.

Taking the concept even further, the SCCA, parent company to the PWC, recently announced it will embrace unmodified GT3 cars for use in its nationwide base of amateur racing. In terms of accounting, two organizations – a giant among amateurs and a 26-year-old pro series – have given GT3 owners an easy entry to come and play, while IMSA, through its GTD class, continues to require different aerodynamics and for both TC and ABS to be disengaged.

Asked if IMSA would perform its own version of North American GT3 convergence by aligning with itself with the SCCA and PWC on purebred GT3 rules, Elkins says the TUDOR Championship’s multi-class racing adds an element of complexity the other series do not have to manage.

“I think to give you a generic answer–we’re always looking at everything,” Elkins explained. “With the movement that is going on in the GT world, I think everything is under consideration but there’s definitely no decision that has been made at all. We have a really unique situation where we have two different classes of GT cars. And the straight up FIA GT3 car is just as fast if not faster sometimes than what the GTLM car is. So we have to be cognizant of that in what decisions we make. It makes it difficult because of the very closeness of the performance level of a GT3 car and a GTLM car.”

It’s more than likely IMSA will stick with its unique approach to GT3 cars for 2015, rather than drop the GTD-specific changes, although Elkins says nothing is set in stone: “We need to see where these meetings come out and see where everybody lines up before we really make any kind of decision whatsoever.”​