Potomac-Greg

That's what I thought. It's funny when the announcers say something like, "The two TRG cars have come together! Obviously there are no team rules out there!" It's pretty obvious to me that it's usually one rich guy running into another rich guy that he probably just met a few days earlier.

pat056

What about the input from Porsche, BMW, etc? I heard in World Challange Cadillac and Volvo sponsored cars for a couple of years.

disasterman

I was at a "pro" race shop yesterday looking at a car for a friend. This is how they work it.

Wealthy owner who wants to race and limit his exposure - create team and get some sponsorship to cover the cost.

Pay to drive guys putting up $1-200k to compete in a prepared car with a hired pro who works for the team and anchors the ride. 3 driver endurance car with two paying drivers and one pro.

Paying driver who wants a better shot at finishing up the charts pays more and gets two hotshoes.

There are many types of business models out there for racing.

BBailey

Last time I looked, a competitive seat in a Rolex GT car was in the neighborhood of $25k to $40k per weekend. That's likely gone up lately as I haven't looked in the last year or so. Double that plus the per diem of the "pro" driver if you want a "paid" pro in the car with you.

Seats can obviously be had for substantially less than that but as the price of the seat goes down, the probability of competitiveness goes down as well, generally speaking (there are exceptions to this rule at times).

PedroNole

A few additional points:

1) FlyingLizard does get quite a bit from ShoreTel and PortalPlayer. However, the team was still heavily subsidized by Seth in the first couple of years. It likely is again again this year due to adding the 3rd car. Porsche now helps (lower costs...) and FLMS does as a good a job as anyone of running it as business, attracting sponsors and putting out a good product.

2) AJR and TRG should not even be compared. Totally different operations. AJR (on the Rolex side) is sponsored almost exclusively by Ruby Tuesday and focuses on one team.

3) TRG although surely sponsor friendly and with many in the stable has a lot of their cars (at Daytona for example) occupied with rich guys who buy rides. I think TRG does a good job of selling an experience to the guys and matches them with pro drivers and gets them to be their own team within TRG. Look at Jim Lowe. They hooked him up with a pro driver, he did a limited schedule and added a couple of paying drivers at Daytona. Now, Jim has left TRG and is doing his own team.

As someone out there right now trying to put a team together for Daytona (and hopefully beyond), it is brutal raising money right now and probably just as hard to hang on to sponsors. At the ALMS and Rolex level, our sport is dominated with people who primarily pay to do it.

MTosi

I think all of this points to the pathetic state of sportscar racing in this country and pretty much worldwide. IMO I think you could start a new Trans AM similar to the pre 73 non tube frame bs, and market it quite sucessfully if you could get the Frances and their contacts involved (those evil people who actually understand marketing).

Potomac-Greg

Clearly, a good road race is more exciting and interesting than NASCAR, and NASCAR has created a huge following on a painfully simple racing format. They did it by selling the drivers' personalities and by creating (dubious) ties to road cars. The potential is there. Maybe it's just that road course racing is too scattered.

IROC was cool, but then it just became a NASCAR format (cars, tracks, drivers). Seems to me that a GT2-level series drawing a dozen great drivers (including NASCAR) running a short season (6 races?) of 90 minute races might be the ticket.

MTosi

Sometime I'll start a thread about my dream series for the states.... lol

It would be something like this-

90 Minute races (Road Atlanta, Elkhart lake, LRP, WGI, Laguna, Barber etc.) Single pit stop races

75% of the TV money goes back to the teams

Ultimate goal of NO pay for your riders 9 (as in REAL pro drivers and REAL sponsors)

Cars -
Mustang/M3/911/Challenger/Camaro/Vette/Viper etc.

No "performance adjustments" (build a better car if you want to win)

-Street cars with FULL original material unibody (no tube frames, or light weight unibodies).
-Suspension must use original design and mounting points, but open other than that
-STANDARDS!!!!!!!!!!
-NO WINGS, Small Front and Rear spoilers allowed
-Brakes open except no carbons
-Engines stock block all NA, but pretty open above the heads (various forms of injection etc.) output of 500-600hp
-HUGE slicks NOT super sticky and ones that last a while

Then go racing

DogInBlack

Anyone know the payouts and contingencies on Rolex GT, Koni, or ALMS GT?

race911

One of the best series I was (peripherally) involved with was the "resurrection" Trans-Am of the early '80's. Lobenberg, Ribbs, Hobbs, Newman......I know I'm forgetting other big names. We were filler in Nor Cal with SCCA classes, but got to be part of a paying spectator weekend. Maybe some of you other guys were too in other parts of the country.

Back to where the money comes from. I guarantee you no one has busted *** as hard as Buckler to get a team/shop up and running. Yeah, I think he started with a little money, but I remember him hawking his fiberglass goodies out of his trailer to pay for his initial racing. The he and Rob King figured out how to build that first car, then that true underdog win at Sears......and off he went.

And Johannes showing up at time trials when he first got his license. Who knew! His dad, Tom, was our chief instructor the year I got back into track events in '94 or '95.

PTurbo965

I agree.

Does anyone have any idea what the price tag would be to lease a car/parts/crew from them for a race like the 12hrs of Sebring?

PedroNole

I don't think they have an entry in ALMS.

analogmike

It costs over $30K to run a good Koni car at a 90 minute race. We came in 6th at Lime Rock and got $1000. I think the top proze was only $5K... would make a LOT more sense to run a Camaro at the dirt ring for the same prize money.

Anyone fast want to codrive with me in a winning car at NJMP in a few weeks???? You will need to pay half.

sechsgang

I just got an offer for half off another car at the NJMP race...ugh...I want to do this one really badly, but I dont know if I can!


-Drew

DogInBlack

Hard to call that a professional racing series! And you're right, the dirt racers here collect around $2000 for top 3 on Saday night. Some of the local drag races pay 10k for a win