Quote:
Originally Posted by Maelochs
Actually, this is the U.S. manufacturers' dream: a pure branding exercise, with minimal cash outlay. Look at NASCAR, where only the stickers are different, pretty much. Sports car racing is a low-visibility sport, so companies want to get involved for low cash outlays.
Ford and Chevy can stick an engine in a car and get all the publicity they can hope for--and by putting branded bodywork on a spec chassis, they get around the problem of sharing the spotlight with the chassis manufacturer.
Dallara won at Petit, but Coyote definitely won the constructors;' title—but no one anywhere is or ever will talk about that. Chevy won with its "Corvette DP."
The dream of the future for manufacturers is of a huge mass of stupid people glued to their TVs for several hours talking about Chevy and Ford while Riley and Coyote actually fight it out on track.
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I don't see it as a problem per se if it's a branding exercise. That happens everywhere. Look at Mercedes buying the former Tyrrell F1 team that was shortly even Honda. And their F1 engine subsidiary was once Ilmor. It means quite a little for some random fan if a race was won by a Coyote, Dallara, or Riley. Most viewers aren't going to buy a racing car. It makes more sense if the cars are known by some road car brands' names and they have some styling cues.
Of course, I don't want a spec series with styling cues. Try to keep the regulations as open as possible without the costs exploding.