Import Tuner Fans = Sports Car Fans ?

[LouisTheShark]

I just had an interesting conversation with someone in the import tuner business and we discussed the merits of marketing sports car racing to that group. Both ALMS and Grand Am are trying to market to this demographic but I am starting to wonder if it is really the right path to success?

The import tuner market's roots are in drag racing and drifting. Magazines that cover the import tuner market follow domestic drag racing series like NHRA Sports Compact Series and NOPI. Most of the drifting coverage is for events in Japan as drifting is just starting up in the U.S.

The poignant point made to me about this was that drag racing and drifting are short attention span sports and unfortunately marketing research shows that today's youth has a very short attention span. Even the video games that are such a big part of the import tuner market are all based on short races.

Sports car racing, even in its simplest form as a 45 minute one class sprint race still requires a much longer attention span. Forget the complexity of multiclass endurance racing and maybe we all need to really rethink this path. If the import tuner group is not the future fan base of sports car racing, how does sports car racing find a new younger future?

[Graham Goodwin]

All i can report is that my son (16 years old) and his friends know a great deal of information about a whole range of sports cars from playing Gran Turismo and the like.

What is interesting though is that whilst some of them like F1 or touring Cars - all of them have been wowed by the sights and sounds of the GT cars when whenever we have taken them to see them 'live'.

For very many of these youngsters its the combination of the aspiration to one day own or drive these cars, the sight of so many of them jostling for position and possibly even most of all the loud and lairy soundtrack.

They also appreciate greatly the access they can get to the cars and drivers - The Brit GTs and (to a marginally lesser degree) FIA GTs paddocks are fun places to be. The willingness to indulge fans with an answer to a question or a polite request for a photo, poster (or for the really lucky ones a minute or two in the driving seat) really does pay off.

I hear what you say about the attention span but get 'em young, expose them to the strategy early and they do respond fantastically well.

I may be a bit different here - I was persuaded by my then 7 year old son to take him to the 1995 Le mans 24 hours (He LOVED the Mclaren F1 with a passion).

I liked the racing already, was hooked by the atmosphere and the event and life has not really been the same since.

I posted somewhere else once saying that anyone who is serious about building the sport should ensure that they try to take someone they think might enjoy it to a race. It really does pay off. I well remember another 10-Tenther bringing his son along for the ride and for the first few races he didn't look as if he was enjoying it. Now he takes pics (very good ones too) and is never happier than when chewing the fat in a paddock. mass marketing is a wonderful thing but there are real rewards in micro-marketing too!

[nsxr]

as a loyal reader of import tuner I say were more touring car fans. Just look at the R/C cars. Honda Accords,BMWs, Alfas.and the like. Plus the only series that a import guy would be into is the jgtc.For the simple fact it races the cars we wont. Supras,skyline, NSX[ I love that car!]oh yeah for all you sports car fan who wont to know more about the import racing thing read Super Street. It featues jgtc,super endurence and Tuksuba time attack cars, and the falken skyline form the nurburmbring 24h{sorry for the bad spelling product of the california school system]

[paul-collins]

Originally posted by LouisTheShark
The poignant point made to me about this was that drag racing and drifting are short attention span sports and unfortunately marketing research shows that today's youth has a very short attention span. Even the video games that are such a big part of the import tuner market are all based on short races.

It's a very valid point. Yet people are still drawn into 4 hour NASCAR marathons. Obviously IMS has found a way to keep people riveted to the show. (I hope I'm not coming across as facetious - I have great respect for their success, even if I'm not all that interested in their product.)

I don't think track action will capture the tuner crowd - it's the paddock action that will sell the product of SWC / ALMS / Grand Am. The tuners may drag race for mere seconds, but they'll work on their cars for weeks. So, if they come to the race and get interested in the cars in the paddock, you can then take them to different locations and they can then see how the cars handle on the track based on what they saw in the paddock.

Anyway, first you have to find the story they're interested in (with NASCAR, it's the warrior story - with sportscars, it's the tech) and then sell them the race series by showing the race through the filter of that story.

[RacingManiac]

Originally posted by nsxr
as a loyal reader of import tuner I say were more touring car fans. Just look at the R/C cars. Honda Accords,BMWs, Alfas.and the like. Plus the only series that a import guy would be into is the jgtc.For the simple fact it races the cars we wont. Supras,skyline, NSX[ I love that car!]oh yeah for all you sports car fan who wont to know more about the import racing thing read Super Street. It featues jgtc,super endurence and Tuksuba time attack cars, and the falken skyline form the nurburmbring 24h{sorry for the bad spelling product of the california school system]

JGTC: Sportscar, original rule based on FIA GT rule(when GT1 car still exist). Driver quality varies.

Tsukuba "time attack": Solo 1 racing in SCCA, where single car go out on the track to set laptime. Since it is governed by SCCA, it can be consider a form of "sportscar", but more generally road racing or club racing.

Nurburgring 24: Its a combination of GT, Touring Car, and even production simply because the variety of the cars that was there....

[LouisTheShark]

The youth is terrible important when growing a sport and with NASCAR no longer having the black tobacco cloud over the head, they are working on more programs to market to that segment.

Sofar, part of the passion of introducing motorsports to kids is the passion of the parents. Graham's example of introducing his son to Le Mans and GT racing early I am sure was fueled by Graham's own passion for these races and series. There are a lot of examples like his in NASCAR-ville where parents have introduced their kids at young age to NASCAR racing.

I think if you compare the sales of Grand Turismo style video games to NASCAR video games, the GT games outsell the NASCAR games. I think it is this GT market segment that seems to be drifting to import tuner cars, drag racing, and drifting.

NSXR brings up another very valid twist in the tuner group and that is the popularity of R/C cars that resemble tuner cars. The tuner market clearly is very well integrated between toys and the real thing. I think NASCAR has a lot of toys and youth merchandise available as well.

Maybe the trick to make sports car racing more popular among kids that do not have someone introduce them to the sport is to create a toy and youth merchandise program?

[LouisTheShark]

"I don't think track action will capture the tuner crowd - it's the paddock action that will sell the product of SWC / ALMS / Grand Am."

The NHRA learned the hard way that without a life style show (i.e. bikini and show car contests) attached to the race events, the fans did not care much about the paddock and did not show up. For this group the live races have to include more than just cars.

[paul-collins]

I can see what you mean, Louis. I guess that's why Sebring is such a standout compared to, really, any other sportscar event in North America - it has its sideshow.

I would be surprised if the attempts to bring in the tunerz don't include some sort of concours (or whatever they call it). Certainly Mosport 2002 had its share of bikinis...

[pirenzo]

Right i get it. I thought this thread was about fish

[billnchristy]

A lot of good points...

I am a 27y/o sportscar fan. I got my passion for the racing from the very same Video games and R/C cars that are being used to lure fans in now. If it hadnt been for the Toyota GT1 and Nissan 390GT in Gran Turismo I might not had bought the Lemans game. If it hadnt been for that I wouldnt have started watching Speedvision at work...

You know where that leads...

A few years later I have been to ALMS, Grand Am, Trans am, SWC races and am trying to build an ITB Golf GTI...

The main reason for all this? I liked the cars, then found out how exciting and different the racing was.

ALMS, SWC and the like need to attend tuner and even classic car shows and enter a few of the rides. When people see what beautiufl examples of craftsmanship and technology these cars are, you cant help but get impressed. Couple it with a free DVD or something that highlights the racing that you could take home and you would have droves of fans waiting for the next race...

[nsxr]

i'm sorry how can you compare the might of the hks track -attack altezza[2jz turbo all carbon body built for only that race and costing $300,000} to somedobys daily driven miata, I mean come on. whats next you say a Doran totota can beat an R8 come on. plus the tuksuba battles have been going on for years, its major deal in japan to hold this title.

[RM40]

Well, I'm 15 so some of you might be interested in what I have to say.

I originally started to like racing because my 3rd grade teacher was into NASCAR. From then on until 5th grade I watched NASCAR every weekend. I then stumbled upon CART and F1 on Fox Sports World (was watching the Monaco Grand Prix once and thought it was CART) and I started liking it. I then looked up the schedules and started watching Speedvision. By accident, I turned on the ALMS and just got hooked. Since then, it's been nothing but sports cars. The only race I have attended was last year's RFK D.C. race. I have to say that without Gran Turismo, I would not be as interested as I am now, since that came out when I was in 5th grade. I'm pretty sure that I am the only one in my high school of 1,950 that likes sports cars. However, I do live in a red neck part of Montgomery County (one of the richer in the country, so you'd think we'd have a mroe rich taste, i.e. sports cars) so it does tend to be NASCAR only. I would go into this deeper, but I got the PSAT's tomorrow.

[RacingManiac]

Originally posted by nsxr
i'm sorry how can you compare the might of the hks track -attack altezza[2jz turbo all carbon body built for only that race and costing $300,000} to somedobys daily driven miata, I mean come on. whats next you say a Doran totota can beat an R8 come on. plus the tuksuba battles have been going on for years, its major deal in japan to hold this title.

The whole idea of "track attack" is the same deal as Solo I, thats what I am getting at. Maybe the protagonist is different as one might be a factory/tuning firm backed effort vs some guy's weekend activity, but the idea is the same. One car, one lap, and compare laptime......

BTW, I am only 20, I have no clue as to how I am hooked. I just remember coming to Canada in 97 and discovered this TV channel call Speedvision and start watching whatever was on it. Before I liked cars, but never thought much about it. After watching Speedvision I just start going through websites and stuff on all things racing. F1 stands out as I somewhat follow it when I was in Taiwan, but their coverage of Le Mans and Petit Le Mans just turned me totally toward cars with fender. I actually start playing Gran Turismo after the fact.....since I never had a video game console myself....

[billnchristy]

I think that is the problem and why we cant become a larger than NASCAR audience...too much bickering

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by RacingManiac
JGTC: Sportscar, original rule based on FIA GT rule(when GT1 car still exist).

Er, not quite. The regulations for JGTC differ from the old GT1 rega in various ways. The cars are more remote from their roadgoing counterparts (hence less homologation worries) with purpose-built chassis; yet the chassis as such are more controlled than GT1 was. All of which makes for a remarkably stable series. GrandAm would have been well-advised to... - but let's not go into that.

As for the Nürburgring, it simply offers multi-class racing. The smaller categories are going to be about touring cars, and hatchbacks, simply because there aren't so many sub-2000cc GTs.

Anyway, I feel the import/tuning scene is just as conservative as all the others: the "import template" against which every other car is measured is the 4cyl. turbocharged hatchback. Over here, it's the 16V, or V6, Volkswagen Golf GTI (the one car I would, were it in my power, un-invent), or the VTEC Hondas. Over there, the rolling material is usually Japanese (where does this leave MG? ).
The GT crowd will only accept "thoroughbreds" which nowadays all belong to the same 2 groups anyway.
NASCAR - oh well you know what they are like ("10 reasons why NASCAR stockers can't compete in GrandAm") - V8-engined juggernauts that all look alike.
F1: V10-engined soapboxes that all look alike.
So we all do our own little thing, and that's just road racing.

Is the DTM touring car racing? Is the M3 a GT? Is it appropriate to let a Subaru WRX and a Porsche 996 compete in the same race? How boring. They are all (or at least regard themselves to be) performance cars so they should compete against each other. This is the beauty of endurance racing, no?

One thing I'd like to add is that I strongly resent the tuning freaks' "street racing" attitude - why won't they kill themselves in the comfort of your own homes, without annoying others?

[nsxr]

the jgtc said the rules are loosely based of the dtm rules.the old gen. of gt1 [mclaren gt1] cars are just allowed in hence the mistake. But i've always wonderded how the last porsche gt1 would far against them.the 98 model I mean

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by nsxr
But i've always wonderded how the last porsche gt1 would far against them.the 98 model I mean

It would blow them away...

[Liz]

The drivers of the Speed World Challenge tell me that they spend lots of time on a race weekend talking with "tuners" and answering their questions -- as many as 50 per race team on a weekend. The SWC guys will let your kids look at their tool boxes and under the hoods of their cars, and they might even let them sit in the car and have their photo taken if they are really interested. They are like the stock car drivers were when I was young and there was no NA$CAR.

I think we older people tend to think that young people today are different from the way we were at the same age. I don't remember having the attention span of a gnat for things that didn't interest me. However, I would spend hours rearranging my hockey cards and making scrapbooks of British pop singers and writing them long letters. My sisters spent two or three hours a day applying makeup and ironing their hair. I have the feeling that today's younger crowd can pay attention to what interests them. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to get them to understand that sports car racing interests them.

Unfortunately, Jim Liberatore has no clue in the world and believes firmly that high school and college age youth will stay home on Saturday afternoons in the summer to watch week-old race broadcasts at 2:00 p.m. Try as I might, I could not convince him that NA$$CAR didn't have an audience of 60 million or a huge gate take the day they ran their first race. The man wants a guaranteed profit before he invests a dime.

And THAT is where the whole idea of enterprise goes wrong.

[Fab]

Originally posted by pirenzo
Right i get it. I thought this thread was about fish

Tuna fish ?

[Fab]

Tuners seem not very interrested by Le Mans in France, or even races ; I don't see a lot of tuners each time I come to the track.

[Aysedasi]

No, probably due to the marked absence of pianos...........