GTS Challenge Doomed
09-30-2008, 03:22 PM
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GTS Challenge Doomed
I hate to say it boys, but the powers that be at NASA have effectively screwed the pooch on a great series.
Although NASA did nothing to promote GTS other than give the series a place to run, GTS had grown exponentially over the last 3 or 4 years and was one of the largest run groups all year in the Great Lakes region. All thanks to the dedicated and hard work of the racers themselves and the series director. This was truly a grassroots effort.
However, to its apparent detriment, GTS became too profitable for NASA to overlook any longer. A telling event occurred this year when GTS obtained a series sponsor for the season, NASA threatened GTS's ability to run with NASA sanctioned events unless the sponsor paid NASA a sizable sum (more than it was preparing to give GTS). Obviously, the deal fell through much to the detriment of the racers in GTS and the sponsor for that matter.
NASA moved the NASA Nationals to Utah. There are very small to non-existent GTS fields east of the Mississippi. The GTS Nationals had the largest or close to the largest field of competitors this year at Mid-Ohio. If I recall correctly, there were over 50 cars running GTS. Based on the feedback I heard, there may have been one or two cars traveling from east of the Mississippi to race at Miller next year. The consensus was, why go that far to race guys we could race here for a lot less. Many, myself included, would have gone if there were GTS Challenge cars on the west coast to race against. The largest field in CA last year was 5.
NASA got wind of a sizable number of GTS racers indicating they are not going and planning to have a GTS "nationals" weekend elsewhere.
Many of the long-time GTS racers privy to the goings on, felt that NASA was overstepping its bounds and quite frankly had lost its way. Extorting sponsor money and moving the nationals without warning or input from GTS really set the stage for what has become a very ugly situation.
Today, NASA proclaimed that the director resigned and have taken over the series. How they can claim an interest in the name, rules, etc remains to be seen and I was hopeful that cooler heads would prevail.l It is unfortunate that greed and the quest for profit has so polluted NASA they forgot what the organization was supposed to be about, THE RACERS.
Not sure where this leaves the legitimate GTS Challenge. For those interested, I am sure there will be posts on the official GTS Challenge web forum at http://gtschallenge.oli.us/index.php
Hopefully, GTS will hook up with another series and continue to exist in its current form. If so, my biggest complaint against GTS was that NASA's recent schedules did not provide much in the way of decent track time over the course of a weekend will be addressed positively. As NASA grew, it became more about money and less about racing.
Good news for PCA and BMWCCA if you ask me.
Although NASA did nothing to promote GTS other than give the series a place to run, GTS had grown exponentially over the last 3 or 4 years and was one of the largest run groups all year in the Great Lakes region. All thanks to the dedicated and hard work of the racers themselves and the series director. This was truly a grassroots effort.
However, to its apparent detriment, GTS became too profitable for NASA to overlook any longer. A telling event occurred this year when GTS obtained a series sponsor for the season, NASA threatened GTS's ability to run with NASA sanctioned events unless the sponsor paid NASA a sizable sum (more than it was preparing to give GTS). Obviously, the deal fell through much to the detriment of the racers in GTS and the sponsor for that matter.
NASA moved the NASA Nationals to Utah. There are very small to non-existent GTS fields east of the Mississippi. The GTS Nationals had the largest or close to the largest field of competitors this year at Mid-Ohio. If I recall correctly, there were over 50 cars running GTS. Based on the feedback I heard, there may have been one or two cars traveling from east of the Mississippi to race at Miller next year. The consensus was, why go that far to race guys we could race here for a lot less. Many, myself included, would have gone if there were GTS Challenge cars on the west coast to race against. The largest field in CA last year was 5.
NASA got wind of a sizable number of GTS racers indicating they are not going and planning to have a GTS "nationals" weekend elsewhere.
Many of the long-time GTS racers privy to the goings on, felt that NASA was overstepping its bounds and quite frankly had lost its way. Extorting sponsor money and moving the nationals without warning or input from GTS really set the stage for what has become a very ugly situation.
Today, NASA proclaimed that the director resigned and have taken over the series. How they can claim an interest in the name, rules, etc remains to be seen and I was hopeful that cooler heads would prevail.l It is unfortunate that greed and the quest for profit has so polluted NASA they forgot what the organization was supposed to be about, THE RACERS.
Not sure where this leaves the legitimate GTS Challenge. For those interested, I am sure there will be posts on the official GTS Challenge web forum at http://gtschallenge.oli.us/index.php
Hopefully, GTS will hook up with another series and continue to exist in its current form. If so, my biggest complaint against GTS was that NASA's recent schedules did not provide much in the way of decent track time over the course of a weekend will be addressed positively. As NASA grew, it became more about money and less about racing.
Good news for PCA and BMWCCA if you ask me.
