RACE OF THE YEAR; With Acura, Audi and Peugeot, the 12 Hours of Sebring should be a classicBY GARY WATKINS.(NEWS)

* "This year's Sebring 12 Hours has all of the ingredients to be one of the greatest motor races ever run.

So says the man who designed the new Acura LMP1-class prototype that takes on the Audi and Peugeot turbo-diesels in the American Le Mans Series season opener on March 21. And if Nick Wirth's radical ARX-02a is as quick as he promises, his prediction could very easily be correct.

The 2009 Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring is one of the most eagerly awaited sports-car clashes in years. The three heavy hitters in LMP1 go head-to-head for the first and perhaps only time this year. What's more, two of them, Acura and Audi, will debut brand-new cars.

No one doubts that Audi's new R15 TDI will be a dramatic improvement over its predecessor, the R10. The big question is, has it closed the sometimes massive performance gap with Peugeot's 908 HDi, a car that was quicker than the R10 at Sebring last year?

Acura's ability to take on the diesels is less clear. Its 2008 LMP2 car was good enough to win overall on tight and twisty tracks, yet, by its own admission, it has jumped up to the premier prototype class with one hand tied behind its back. Wirth maintains that his gasoline-fueled contender has a "significant power disadvantage despite rule changes designed to create a level playing field between diesel and gasoline cars.

Producing a diesel engine was a "no go in Acura's time frame, according to Erik Berkman, the man who runs the program out of Honda Performance Development in California. That's why Wirth and his team came up with arguably the most radical sports-car chassis of the present era.

"Nothing has been left on the table by Wirth in his bid to create a car ...