This weekend is the Bonneville Speed Runs and the Pike's Peak
Hill Climb.
Dodge Power ran the salt flats more than a few times.
Even this 1970s NASCAR Daytona clocked a 217 mile-an-hour
speed back in the day.
And Mopar power is still there.
Check out this Plymouth Barracuda.
That's Dodge enough for me.
At Pike's Peak, they too had their share of
Dodges over the years.
And I'm sure at least one of these Hill Climb specials ran
Dodge power.
And someone must have run a Viper or an ACR or something
up Pike's Peak one time or another.
But today, it's time to talk about where Dodge
will no longer be.
And that's NASCAR.
And if I do this studio show halfway decent, we'll keep
your attention as we translate what's really going on with
that announcement, what it means for US racing now that
Chrysler has pulled Dodge out of NASCAR, but parked itself
in Le Mans Racing with SRT Viper, Global RallyCross with
Dodge Dart, and AMA Supercross with the Dodge brand,
respectively, and TORC off-road trucks
with the Ram brand.
Studio Shakedowns are not like the other Drive shows,
blasting around in cars or at race tracks.
But this show at least has to be as exciting as Olympic
rowing, right?
Whoa, easy, big dog.
And I promise not to do lines like "Dodge pulls out of
NASCAR," "the Viper engine was re-stroked," and "RallyCross
AMA, and TORC are banging the humpty humps."
You know what I mean.
I'm not going to do any of that.
So Dodge is leaving NASCAR.
SRT head Ralph Gilles announced that pretty much at
the same time that SRT started their America Le Mans and Le
Mans 24 quest with the Viper at Mid-Ohio.
Now, I tried to make a last minute run to get Ralph Gilles
on Skype to join us.
And his willingness was there.
He's been nice enough to chat with us twice before.
But today's timing really just didn't work out.
So let's go through some of the questions and topics that
I would have posed to Ralph and maybe talk to
myself about it.
But really, you and I can insert
our answers and opinions.
And maybe down the road, when we do meet up with the SRT
boss, he can confirm or set us straight.
Damn.
I just did a dick joke.
And that's the last one.
So let's start with why Dodge left NASCAR, and let's start
with their official announcements.
There were two things I took away.
One, they kind of said they couldn't put
the right parts together.
Literally, the quote had to do with the following.
Five months the team worked to put a structure together that
would fit their overall business and competitive
objectives.
And while they were pleased with the interest from teams
and sponsors, they couldn't develop the right structure.
Well, that begs the question.
What were the factors for leaving?
And I feel it was pretty basic.
Not having an engine program anymore after Penske left, not
having the dollars to do the program right, and not having
the right teams to race competitively and win.
And as I said, this all started when Roger Penske, the
only major Dodge team, announced that he
was moving to Ford.
Now, he had the engine program, and
he closed that shop.
What reasons did Penske give Dodge SRT for leaving?
You know, that's the question I would have wanted to ask.
Now, we know the Penske people.
We know Roger.
And his comment to us was that he questioned the commitment
of Dodge to NASCAR versus what Ford was offering.
And that pretty much is the same rationale he used to move
from his Mobil 1 sponsorship to the current Shell Pennzoil
sponsorship.
Roger's a winner, and he looks for that type of commitment.
Now in the Dodge announcement, they used as evidence of their
support for NASCAR that the 2012 Dodge budget, but the
marketing budget, was three times larger than before.
But that was again marketing, not tech.
So a question I would have posed to Ralph is, were we
talking marketing versus technology?
Was Roger right to question the commitment?
You know, we'd have to address why Dodge couldn't attract a
Penske replacement team either.
And that kind of starts with getting back to the roots of
what was Dodge's objective to be in NASCAR?
Worst case, were they funded just to be there?
Well, that really isn't true.
They were winning with Roger.
Were they funded enough to win championships?
And that's something where they never did.
They came back in 2001 with Evernham and they won races.
And they won races with Roger.
But they have not won that championship.
So the question is, is this a marketing exercise?
Is it a sales-only exercise?
But even then, you'd have to be competitive and a winner to
make it work in NASCAR world.
So what are they currently doing in motorsport?
Well, we mentioned Viper, RallyCross with Dodge Dart,
the TORC off-road series with the Ram trucks, and Motocross
with the Dodge brand.
Why are they going there versus NASCAR right now?
Well, it seems to kind of convey more technology and
younger, hipper, cooler feelings.
Is that something they would get with NASCAR?
What is NASCAR's image?
Well, we've read your comments.
And we can have this conversation here now again in
the comments again.
But there's always the debate about real race
cars versus real cars.
The gap between NASCAR racing and what some of you, maybe
even I, call real racing.
And then there's the whole decline in popularity, which
probably did factor into Dodge's decision.
Now, there was a sound bite that I read, a news piece that
I read that said ticket revenues have fallen 38% over
the past 5 years with the three publicly traded
companies which manage--
promote--
35 of the 38 NASCAR races in the schedule.
Now, if that's true it's interesting, because NASCAR
says their fans are still there.
But now TV is down.
Why, if they're not going to races, would not TV be up?
So we've lost TV.
We've lost attendance.
And then we get back to what does the public think and what
are they saying?
Well, race fans, a lot of us, a lot of you, don't think it's
real racing.
NASCAR fans, they love their sport.
They're mad at Dodge for leaving, or they're taking a
positive spin and they're hopeful of returning.
But how about general market buyers?
You know, I have a feeling if we went out on Times Square
and put a mic in their face and asked them, we would get
the reaction of, well, who cares about Dodge in NASCAR?
Or who even cares about NASCAR?
I'm not sure the general market buyer really is
influenced by Dodge being in NASCAR.
Let's talk a little bit about, what is the SRT brand?
Well, it's in the name.
And Ralph mentioned that when we talked to him at one of the
auto shows.
Street Racing and Track.
And Viper is their showpiece.
And that's all about power, performance, technology.
And every time he talks about Viper and SRT, he talks about
road racing, not drag racing, not oval track.
And then we get to, what is the Dodge brand?
Well, I think they're still finding their roots.
The toughness of Dodge trucks has been spun off to Ram.
So is Dodge another Toyota brand, another
generic family car brand?
Does it need NASCAR performance?
Is Charger really the right image for Dodge?
It's a question that we'd want to ask.
And I'm curious what you think.
And then we get to the reality of NASCAR racing.
What were the NASCAR options for Dodge?
You know, we have four of the best cup teams--
Roush, Penske, Hendrick, Childress.
They're all tied to Ford and Chevrolet.
That leaves Toyota.
The Joe Gibbs racing team is sort of the best of the rest
of the leading teams in NASCAR.
And they're tied to a long-term
contract with Toyota.
But as Toyota learned, and as we all know in racing, money
can shift that type of affinity and loyalty.
And maybe that was another question that Dodge really
didn't have or was committed to the bucks to get
the right type team.
And Joe Gibbs is a winner.
But it all comes at a price.
How about Richard Petty?
That's a Dodge name.
And everyone would get all teary-eyed nostalgic
remembering Petty Blue on Dodges.
It would be a great joint venture.
Petty could do the history thing for Dodge and Gibbs
could do the development and the real racing.
But none of that happened.
The sponsors didn't come together.
The money for the programs didn't come together.
I was the one rumoring that Ganassi would be the guy to
make the shift, because he didn't want to be second in
line to the key Chevy teams.
And he, being road racing, would do that.
And Riley being the production company that's building the
Viper race car, and since he races Grand-Am, that would all
come together.
But Ganassi is a business guy, so
somewhere that wasn't there.
Andretti was rumored.
That deal never came together.
And then you go all the way back to why does Dodge really
need NASCAR to begin with?
And it relates once again in my mind to road
car versus race car.
There really aren't a lot of technology transfers.
In my opinion, what really does transfer from NASCAR
technology to road car are some engine efficiencies, some
materials technology development, lubricating
efficiencies, and maybe some aerodynamics.
Maybe that wasn't enough for a company like Dodge SRT.
So now they have the Viper program, which really is the
SRT program.
But it rubs off on the entire Chrysler organization.
And what do they need to do to make this program work?
They debuted at Mid-Ohio with a few problems.
But it came forward very, very early.
And it's still in development.
I think it came forward more as a marketing gesture to give
the Viper fans something to cheer for.
The car was not good on v-max.
You could see it had mid-corner high-
and low-speed push.
And coming off the corners, even the Lotus was gapping it.
There could be issues with weight distribution of the
car, could be issues with development.
It could be the 8-liter engine.
And I know they've taken weight out of it, but it could
be just the whole platform.
But I doubt that the car will stay slow.
And what they need to do is make this thing a winner and a
very competitive car, just like the old Viper used to be.
So in closing, kind of let's recap where I think we are.
The SRT brand is really not right for NASCAR, so it makes
sense them going away.
NASCAR is not technology-relevant, so
another reason.
NASCAR is not a global brand.
And no matter how we parse the words, whether it's Fiat,
Chrysler, SRT, or Dodge, they're a global company.
NASCAR may be trying to get younger.
They've got even Keselowski, the Dodge driver, who was
Twittering.
But there's too much image baggage to really feel young
versus RallyCross and Supercross and all those other
things, and even Viper.
And Viper is the performance image of Chrysler
through the SRT brand.
And Viper, like Corvette, is a global brand, thanks to its
past history and just the reputation of the car.
And of course, we all know, Le Mans Racing, whether it's ALMS
or getting back to LeSarth, that's all global as well.
Viper will help SRT, Chrysler, and Dodge be
younger, hipper, cooler.
And Riley, the race car builder, is in the business of
selling race cars.
And I guess that would make sense for Viper as well,
whether it's a GT3 version in Europe or just selling more
customer cars, because that's what happened with
Viper the last time.
And what if that is the business case here?
Because with NASCAR, the business case was to spend
Chrysler money.
What if Viper, in selling race cars and selling the road
cars, is really a business case to make money?
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