Factory Involvement...Good or Bad?

[TRuss]

With all the talk and specualation of the seasons to come, and the manufacturers who will be involved, it makes me wonder if this factory involvement will be good or bad in the long run. Or. Is it just part of a cycle?

I think we all agree, that all of the news and speculation of possible factory entries is good. It will increase car count, competition plus it tends to give us amazing machines to gawk at...which is probably the best of all.

At the same time, it makes it increasingly difficult for the privateer entries who always have and always will make up the majority of the grid. Especially once the factories lose interest, and money and begin to pull out. This inevitably always happens. One factory is willing to spend more money than the rest, ends up dominating the series and the competiors pull out. Following closely behind the dominant factory will pull out do to it's only competion being the privateers. While winning is always nice, beating up on a privateer team with half the funding or less hardly makes for a good magazine ad.

So then once again, provided that the series survives, it comes down to the privateers to soldier on and to make the series as exciting and as profitable as possible until the factory brand managers once again decide that this series would be a good place to market themselves...and we start all over again.

Though with the way things are headed in LMP2 it seems that maybe some lessons have been learned. Let's hope

[TRuss]

"Competion" I'm either a genious or retarted to be able to come up with that one.

[Fogelhund]

So your retarted? Once you were a tart, and you are again? :LOL:

Simply put, factory involvement is required, otherwise you have glorified club racing.

[TRuss]

I'm just plain tarted. God, I'm starting to think that maybe I am retarted...er...tarded, doh!

[JAG]

Factory involvment is good, as long as the privateers needs are still catered for.

The LMES is attractive to privateers withs its 1000K races and short schedule.

Problems occur when race distances are slashed and customer cars are either in short supplty or overpriced, as happened with the WSC in the early 90s and FIA GT in 97/8.

[nsxr]

Porsche got the factory involement in GTs perfectly. supply cars and drivers that are bullet proof and competitive. Now in regards to protoypes............. Factories should build the cars for the teams to use. And let the teams get out and race. Remember the factories come and go with the wind. Thats why they should only build. It takes away risk and some of the financial burden from them

[lj79]

Agree with Jag fully. Nothing whets my appetite more than factory duels, with the possibility of privateers spoiling the party

[tblincoe]

factory involvement is good as long as it involves privateers ala porsche... however, i think that factories, when running by themselves and not making chassis available to privateers can detract from a series competition wise (while giving a series more legitimacy)

[Woolley]

Factory involvement is fine, providing they sell cars to the teams as well. Things were never better than when a whole host of GrpC Porsches were trying to beat the factory examples. Sportscars need numbers, and they'll never get it if you only have manufacturer entries.

[skycafe]

I have always thought Porsche and Mazda did this correctly. Porsche builds a bullet proof car, backs it up with support like trailers full of spares and engineering support. Mazda helped to develop parts, and paid a pretty nice little support fee to performers with their products. Nissan did this for a while before their financial problems, and British Leyland did such a good job in SCCA Club racing in America that it is only now, after all sorts of rule changes, that other cars are competitive in SCCA production. BL helped build such an industry of support that it was difficult for anyone else to buck the trend.

[The Badger]

The one problem with "factory" teams is that when they pull the plug , thats it . Like Toyota , AMG , Nissan , Bentley etc etc . But if they put their weight behind an already existing team , generally that team still survives , like Oreca , Champion etc etc .

We need to have the works teams too , but a little more customer support would go down better !

[Asa]

Bentley was a bad example. They came (to a class that gave them no competition), they won once and they withdrew unreservedly. The Speed 8 is now a museum piece.

But apart from technically, the manufacturers provide a lot of marketing support which helps to drive up media and fan interest. This is something the privateers are hardly able to do.

[sportscarsRULE]

Originally Posted by nsxr

Porsche got the factory involement in GTs perfectly. supply cars and drivers that are bullet proof and competitive. Now in regards to protoypes............. Factories should build the cars for the teams to use. And let the teams get out and race. Remember the factories come and go with the wind. Thats why they should only build. It takes away risk and some of the financial burden from them

You're absolutely right that Porsche's approach to GT racing is great, but won't there still be a favored team that gets the upgrades and the factory drivers (Alex Job)?

[sportscarsRULE]

Originally Posted by Asa

But apart from technically, the manufacturers provide a lot of marketing support which helps to drive up media and fan interest. This is something the privateers are hardly able to do.

I hate to use Grand-Am as an example, but Pontiac puts out TV and magazine ads when Howard Boss or Wayne Taylor wins a race with a Pontiac engine. This shows that factories can market their product by trumpeting the success of privateer teams using the factory machine.

I think the big reason factories run their own team is because they're afraid privateer teams may not win with the equipment (bad press). Didn't ferrari refuse to sell the 312PB to customers for this reason?

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by sportscarsRULE

favored team that gets the upgrades and the factory drivers (Alex Job)?

They helped create Job. At one point just a privateer running a 911. He has done a tremendous amount, and all credit to him, but Porsche helped him down that path. I would say someone like Friesinger is on that path too.

Honestly, Porsche is the model for how to do this!

robert

[Danske]

It's funny to say that without the factories racing would just be club racing as it's the factories who care the least about any money put up for participating in the events which is what makes an event professional, no?

[billnchristy]

Again, not to slam Grand Am down your throats, but its the only racing I have attended this year beacuse scheduling and attractiveness of the series' have driven it...BUT...

Riley brings a semi trailer full of spare noses, tails and whatnot, unpainted to each race that could theoretically be used for any team, not just his factory team.

http://www.pbase.com/billnchristy/image/45954605/large

[bf1]

My own point of view:

As for factory invovment, those of you who followed Touring Cars in the late 90's saw the way it imploded from over spending ect, and now the FIA has set up the TC Beaureau (sp?) which more or less monitors each participants progress and if one make/team ect is beginning to run away with it so to speak, they can,will and have pegged back those who have been seen to dominate.

Yes you may argue that is artifically keeping racing close, but without it manufacturers can enter with something spctacularly (sp?) too fast, blow the competition out of the weeds, which can lead to falling crowd numbers, TV viewers and general lack of interest in the series which would make the manufacturers want to leave and bang the series is gone..

OR

Like what happened to the Super Touring and the DTM/ITC too much money being spent and them a point was reached where manufacturers couldn't justify the budgets to boards of Management ect.

Why I use these examples is, that as you all know, Sportscar racing is very very expensive and that very higly developed technology is ever present so why not have a group that tries to keep Competition close without impinging too much on manufacturers if you understand what I mean

bf1

[JAG]

Touring cars, GTs and Rallying is controlled by major manufactuers. Without them they are finished.

Prototype racing can still blossom without major manufactuers as the chassis manuifactuers can take up the slack.

[Asa]

Originally Posted by JAG

Prototype racing can still blossom without major manufactuers as the chassis manuifactuers can take up the slack.

Without major manufacturers there will be very little marketing done to bring in the crowds or to finance the good TV deals.

Prototypes run with GTs anyway. The last time they ran on their own the series didn't last very long, did it?

[vs346]

Let's all remember Le Mans 1999.

How cool was that for a race? And it was all factory involvement.

I have to agree with previous posts regarding this tit for tat nature of motorsports. Privateers can't survive without the factories bringing crowds, among other things, and the factories can't survive without the privateers, bringing numbers to the field.

And then of course, you have Nascar and Grand Am. They don't need the same strategy because the cars are built to be the same, essentially make the drivers the stars.
In series like DTM, or FIA GT, the cars are penalised for how well they are doing, again artificially creating close races, but at least the cars start from different perspectives to reach the same goal, winning races.
That's the magic of sportscar racing, you have H6s, V8s, V10s, V12s, front/rear/mid engined cars. All of them interpreting rules and going for a win.
In Nascar or Aussie V8, the cars are built to one spec, creating a one dimensional racing that in my mind will never rival what could and has happened at LM in the past (1999). Audi, Toyota, BMW, Merc, Nissan. All showed up with REALLY different cars. That's 2 dimensional racing: the cars AND the drivers.

[billnchristy]

Uh...DTM is a tube frame sillouette series with spec sealed engines and parts, there is no ballast either...

[vs346]

sorry, just FIA GT, the point is the same nonetheless. you can replace DTM with Speed World Challenge if you'd like.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Asa

Without major manufacturers there will be very little marketing done to bring in the crowds or to finance the good TV deals.

Prototypes run with GTs anyway. The last time they ran on their own the series didn't last very long, did it?

No, but the series could still run for the teams, drivers etc. Without GT production, there is no racing.

As for the FIA SCC, that was never going to succeed against FIA GT, with its GT1 cars of the time.

You could now run a prorotype only series in Europe today, but why should you when you can have grids of 50+ LMPs and GTs.

[cybersdorf]

Oh nice, this is one of those religion threads like the ones that go on for page after page in Parc Ferme.