PMNA Jens Walther on Porsche's 2014 plans
 

Gotta scratch your head on this one.... Lizards dumped a LOT of money into the Porsche brand and had an excellent relationship for many years. If I was the Lizards, I wouldn't be happy at all....

sometimes it's really difficult to understand german business decisions.

+10000

I think it comes down to two things:

- CORE has engineering and manufacturing (carbon fiber) resources that Lizards doesn't, and that allows them to have an equipment advantage.

- Jon Bennett is cool with not driving the RSR, Seth Neiman wasn't; and the RSR with Seth in it was not as competitive as the one without. I think Porsche doesn't want gentleman drivers in factory supported programs.

the best part of that article: Brumos is interested in an RSR. :rockon:

This was the first thing I thought of when I heard the talk at COTA.

From the linked interview:

"However, if we go into racing with the factory program, it's really about having no compromise. The competition is very strong; we race against other factory programs and want to make sure that we have top drivers, professional drivers with experience but also who can concentrate fully on their driving combined with top cars and a top team."

Seth probably doesn't care one iota. it means he lost Patrick Long but he's got great drivers ina great 2 car program in GTC. Frankly, not sure what more PMNA wanted from Seth. dude wrote massive checks to fund the program. that guy OEMEXP on this site was I think a mechanic ro CNC engineer for FL and was saying how they used to rebuild the entire car every X races, what stuf was replaced EVERY race, that your head would spin with the warehouse of takeoffs with minimal hours on them. ive bought quite a few things from them that were mint mint.

and Seth always had the primary car with the best of everything with Patrick and jorg. he paid all tha tmoney for them to race. and the dude was traveling to the track for the weekend, writing a check, so for giggles, he'd fund a SECOND RSR (RSR!!) so he and another top driver could get midpack results.

is core coming with two cars? two x 2 pro teams? jon bennet maybe sees value, or just likes having his company, CORE, in the limelight,but over time, that glory fades away when you realize you're a race car driver and you want to be turning the wheel not sitting entirely on the pitbox.

Porsche is awesome. so in high demand they can build a factory program on a privateer's bank book.

atleast that would be my thinking.

It sounds a bit like a control issue. At one point Jens says that the factory has selected the entire team and they will call the shots. Maybe Seth, since he was funding the thing, was calling more shots than the factory would have liked. It does seem like there was a falling out somewhere along the line.

I must thank Seth for years of Porsche racing in North America.

Now I gotta go buy a CORE t-shirt and hat. :D

some guys have so much money they'll spend 300k/car per race weekend just to be the owner of the factory Porsche team. if I had crazy lunacy money, that's probably not an unfun way to spend it. I assume he's going to run his prototype. but even if I had that kind of money, after a while, I think id be bummed that Porsche, the manufacturer that my checkwriting is helping to subsidize the team efforts, wont even let me drive a car . now if he can justify it as advertising and markeing for his company, great. and yeah, for a while his ego will be sky high being the owner of a factory Porsche team, etc. or "partner" as Porsche calls it. I like to call it check writer. at some point, people realize they are in it because they love to RACE. and there, the big boys are in the RSR, and he's in his prototype.
I think PMNA makes a mistake. give the guy an RSR. give hima pro factory driver. he'll feel awesome and they probably will be just fine. he can stay on the lead lap and then they'll scrap for a top 10, a 6th every once and a while.

eh, overthinking it. if I had crazy money, id enjoy my race big time. but I would probably never do so unless I was also driving. id rather hang with my kids than go to a track to just spectate.

Let's not forget that Craig Watkins has retired. That's a huge piece of the Lizards' brain trust that is no longer in play.

i am with SG.
i am not interested in a factory team driven all by factory drivers. what's fun about that. they are paid to go fast, they should go fast. boring. when customers willing to cut a check, buy your car, race your car, you bend over to make his team look good. when i see amateurs using your product and wins, that means something....

oh, SG is correct. i been to FL's "garage" here in CA. if you think you climaxed having sex... well, you haven't until you get into that warehouse.....

^^ you can always root for Falken.

or pick someone in this series:

http://imsachallenge.com/