What have they got to do?

[stroker]

I'll take Jono's thread with a slightly different tangent.

Conventional Wisdom here seems to be that CC is toast. If they continue as they are, I think that's true. However, I still think they can save it, but it's going to take dramatic changes to make the series viable. If I were KK or GF I'd be looking for solutions before selling out to TG for peanuts. I'm curious about what the rest of you think can be done to turn things around. I'll ask in advance--please don't clutter the thread with "It's dead, Jim" comments. I'm seriously interested in what proposed solutions are the most commonly held. In the interest of saving space, I'm asking that you make no more than two recommendations.

My first two are:

1. DRAMATICALLY (I'm talking 75% or more) reduce the cost of running a car in the series, with no subsidies.
2. Redirect marketing to attendance at the tracks and forget TV for the short term.

Flame on.

[eiregosod]

they need a policy of "run what ya brung"

the DP01 is nice but if someone wanted to bring a new chassis engine to the track then that would be neat.

[cart7]

At this point a pig would have to fly out of the Popes butt for this thing to go anywhere.

Right now they need sponsors supporting the teams and how you attract sponsors with "recap" shows of your races is beyond me.

You could give away tickets to the races to prop up attendance but someone has to pay for those tickets and it seems in the past that when they've tried that with give aways, the folks with the tickets still didn't come.

These guys came in and thought they could make the street festival idea work. They couldn't get it done. They've PO'd enough cities and promoters that I really believe most anyone would be pretty leery of dealing with these guys in the future. That leaves you with real race tracks and getting people to drive to them and pay money for a seat.

Tough sell when you have no viable star anymore and you're entire race field changes names every other race.
You're locked in a never ending catch 22. You need sponsors to pay the way for the teams and to pay for real drivers salaries so you can hire good drivers for the year and keep them. But if you're cutting costs on TV you can't get the sponsors interested so the teams are constantly forced to hire ride buyers to keep themselves afloat. With the musical chairs of drivers, no one gets interested in the series so your fanbase stagnates and drifts away. Now you can't even point to attendance as a means of interesting sponsors so the cycle continues.

To quote a TF regular.

"We wouldn't be having these problems if the series were more popular"

Duh...

How do you get there from here Einstein?

[SteveH]

1. hire competent management
2. write more/larger checks
3. put a sock in it and tell others to do so, also. get good press through good results, not by posting on forums and publishing blogs
4. be nimble but be correct in everything you do, no more false starts, no more China/Korea/Phoenix, etc.
5. accept criticism and don't act revengful when it happens

[opinionated ow]

Start afresh (and that includes telling Tony, things are getting big and you can either come with us or be buried). Put up 750K to the winner of each race and make a huge deal of it. That sort of money will gain interest from a lot of quarters. Put on a 30 race schedule, including racing at Eurospeedway and Rockingham. If a track won't pay them to come, hire the bloody venue. Put up 10M for the I500 winner, 8M for the German 500 winner and 2.5M to win a 500M at Pocono, Michigan, Fontana, Japan or the UK. Pay Montoya or Tony Stewart an exorbitant fee to race at least in the oval races. Schedule your races so that NASCAR will be at least half a continent away from where you are. Get rid of the 1.5mi ovals and instead go shorter. Run a 500 lapper (with little 500 format) at Music City Motorplex. Race at Richmond, USA International, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Gateway, Loudon, Iowa. Cut back on street races to just Toronto, Long Beach and Surfers. Race on road courses at Sebring, Mid--Ohio, Road Atlanta, Road America, Mexico City, Hallett (OK), Laguna Seca, Portland, Mt Tremblant. Race on the airports in Edmonton & Cleveland. Get back onto the dirt at New York State Fairgrounds, DuQuoin & Springfild (Sat & Sun of one weekend). Race in Indianapolis again on dirt (friday night), IMS Road Course (Sat) and O'reilly Raceway Park (Sun).

Frankly, expect to lose money for a year or two. Once you have everything huge, thats when it will be rewarded. It won't happen though....oh, and as for cars, open up the rules. Let people run 410ci sprint motors, they can easily be cranked out to 950hp on a par with the turbo v8s. Also let people put whacking great twin turbos on midget engines. Again they are readily available and cheap and you can control them with a pop-of valve. as for chassis allow any cart/ccws/irl chassis built since 2000, but enforce safety modifications. Give it three years and allow it all opened up again. Allow people to run their own designs, but limit wing size and shape and open up the tunnels, both to a size comparable to the 1993 regulations.

[STD]

Mine is simple, show a bit of passion that somewhere comes close to letting one know they are still really breathing.

[RusH]

1. DRAMATICALLY (I'm talking 75% or more) reduce the cost of running a car in the series, with no subsidies.
2. Redirect marketing to attendance at the tracks and forget TV for the short term.

Flame on.

That`s pretty good...the TV needs to stay though, but needs to be cheaper. Forget Disney, get the races on Speed, the ratings will be almost the same anyway. Even buy a half-hour weekly show on that channel. I bet that`s cheaper then that crap they payed for on ABC.

[DagoFast]

they need a policy of "run what ya brung"

the DP01 is nice but if someone wanted to bring a new chassis engine to the track then that would be neat.

You are the closest yet.

I can't do it in 2 items. No one can. But I'll pollute your thread anyway. :laugh:

Take all the money now used to prop up teams and owning Cosworth and giving away chassis and put it in a pot. The Winner takes half, the payout drops off big after that.

Let 'em run what they brung. Who the hell would spend 10 million to win 1 million?

The economics need to be fixed at the most basic of levels. Now that sponsor and manufacturer money have all but dried up, its the right time to return the sport to this old business model.

Mike Kellner came up with this quote: "I wish this sport could be changed back from an entertainment business & advertising platform back into the car building and racing contest between motorheads it once was."

Stop and think about the simplicity of that statement. That's whats been missing for far too long. And that's what used to put the azzes in the seats. It certainly what put mine there, how about yours?

When there is compelling racing, the crowds will come. When the crowds come, promoters will pay you to show up. (amagione that!) Then the sponsors will come. Then TV will come, and they will pay you too. The manufactures will want to come.

And then you better have some smart, strong management in place to juggle the whole thing or we're right back where we are now.

[Indy]

What Dagofast says above is spot on, but I would add one important point. This could not be done with the current budget. The owners, if they expect to grow, will need to invest significantly in the series. The infrastructure in the form of systems and human resources even at the sanctioning body level must be much more robust, and of course much more needs to be done to promote the series and the races. Included in this should be top-notch web presence.

For whatever reason they seem to believe they can shoestring their way to growth, and that is not going to be possible.

[emjaya]

Here's what you do, Kev.

Buy the rights to F3 in the US and Canada. F3 = multiple chassis and engine manufacturers. Buy a chassis manufacturer and start producing a F3 chassis. Get Cosworth to start producing F3 Engines. If a car manufacturer wants to have it engine the spec engine, then let them.

Run the F3 races at every Champ Car race in the USA and Canada ( and Mexico? ). On weekends there's no Champ Car race; put on F3 races, even in states that are nowhere near a Champ Car race. Run some ovals.

Have state championships and a national championship. Pay decent prize money. Offer a cheap chassis and engine package, but allow other chassis and engines. Build up the interest in openwheel race cars. Show there is a ladder to climb and help drivers to climb it.

Take the top five in the national championship points to the overseas races and get the local teams to make up the rest of the grid. F3 rules are the same all over the world.

Atlantic's.
Currently the F3 breaths though a 26 mm (1.02")-diameter restrictor. Make the Atlantic's car a unrestricted F3 car. Offer a cheap chassis and engine package, but allow other chassis and engines. Pay decent prize money.

Champ Car.
Dump the DP01. Make Champ Car a turbo-charged F3 car. Use a spec epu to control horsepower; more for road circuits, less for ovals. Offer a cheap chassis and engine package, but allow other chassis and engines. Try to get local F3 teams to run in the Champ Car races. Offer a cheap conversion package. Pay decent prize money.

Run races for the turbo-charged F3 car in the other countries. Run a European championship. An Australasian championship. Pay decent prize money.

Build up the interest in openwheel race cars. Start running more junior open wheel races eg; Formula Vee, Formula Ford, at Champ Car races. Pay decent prize money.

Spend some money, Kev. I know it would be a new experience spending your own money, but who knows, you might actually make some eventually.

Note: It's the Australia Day public holiday, which means beer, B.B.Q and more beer.
This accounts for the rubbish I've posted above. :D :gomer:

[opinionated ow]

Here's what you do, Kev.

Buy the rights to F3 in the US and Canada. F3 = multiple chassis and engine manufacturers. Buy a chassis manufacturer and start producing a F3 chassis. Get Cosworth to start producing F3 Engines. If a car manufacturer wants to have it engine the spec engine, then let them.

Run the F3 races at every Champ Car race in the USA and Canada ( and Mexico? ). On weekends there's no Champ Car race; put on F3 races, even in states that are nowhere near a Champ Car race. Run some ovals.

Have state championships and a national championship. Pay decent prize money. Offer a cheap chassis and engine package, but allow other chassis and engines. Build up the interest in openwheel race cars. Show there is a ladder to climb and help drivers to climb it.

Take the top five in the national championship points to the overseas races and get the local teams to make up the rest of the grid. F3 rules are the same all over the world.

Atlantic's.
Currently the F3 breaths though a 26 mm (1.02")-diameter restrictor. Make the Atlantic's car a unrestricted F3 car. Offer a cheap chassis and engine package, but allow other chassis and engines. Pay decent prize money.

Champ Car.
Dump the DP01. Make Champ Car a turbo-charged F3 car. Use a spec epu to control horsepower; more for road circuits, less for ovals. Offer a cheap chassis and engine package, but allow other chassis and engines. Try to get local F3 teams to run in the Champ Car races. Offer a cheap conversion package. Pay decent prize money.

Run races for the turbo-charged F3 car in the other countries. Run a European championship. An Australasian championship. Pay decent prize money.

Build up the interest in openwheel race cars. Start running more junior open wheel races eg; Formula Vee, Formula Ford, at Champ Car races. Pay decent prize money.

Spend some money, Kev. I know it would be a new experience spending your own money, but who knows, you might actually make some eventually.

Note: It's the Australia Day public holiday, which means beer, B.B.Q and more beer.
This accounts for the rubbish I've posted above. :D :gomer:

i don't agree with using F3 for everything....but your F3 idea is sound. And by not banning previous generation cars there are cheap ways to get into the racing

[mueber]

In the spirit of brainstorming, I think they have to generate interest among American fans, suppliers and sponsors, and control costs:

Go back to the old Lola/Reynard chassis rules to make chassis more available

Stick a 350 cubic inch Chevy, Ford, Chrysler in it. Crawl to Dearborn and apologize directly to Ford. Cosworth can build stock blocks, so can lots of other folks, the "Unhondas"

All races are claiming races. If you finish in the top three, your car and engine can be claimed for a fixed amount, to control costs,

Bring back Pook to market/promote, put Cottman in charge of everything else, to put people in charge who know racing,

Establish a department to develop sponsorship from the American automotive industry to tie into the AMERICAN stock block formula and help free the individual teams from the burden of securing sponsorship and/or talentless/nameless ride-buyers,

Put the races on Speed Channel for now to save money and to tie in with broadcasters who actulally know something about racing,

Exile Gentilozzi, that doesn't need any explaination, does it?

[Spicoli]

http://i29.tinypic.com/zu604w.jpg


and get rid of gentilossi.:thumdown:

[Insomniac]

Stop running the series by committee. Either announce that you are going to run the series yourself or hire people and entrust them with running the series without interference. Essentially, stop hiring people and usurping their authority or hiring puppets.

If you are going to subsidize, then set up a program to match every sponsorship dollar from unaffiliated sponsors (i.e. not Indeck, Sonny's BBQ, LX2, etc.) up to half the reasonable costs to run a one or two car team. Get real sponsors to invest in ChampCar and give them an opportunity to see if it works for them at a discount.

Driver stability and more American drivers. The nationality of your drivers should match where you race. It's quite dumb that 6 of 14 races are in the U.S (I'm surprised it's that low after I went and counted) with only 2 American drivers. You need to keep the line-ups stable. Once people finally get to know a driver and cheer for them, it doesn't help they vanish, or worse, go to the IRL.

I'm not an engineering expert, but someone should go back and look at the early 90s cars. Even with the multiple chassis manufacturers, the cars could not be set up to run nearly perfect around the course. Figure out why and try to make the DP01 harder to drive.

Will pushing the engine life to 2,400 miles drive down the costs? Can it be done without a reduction in power?

Are there changes/options you can make that might have teams race on different strategies. Having two tires is a nice idea, but when everyone uses the same tires at the same time, it doesn't do much. I keep coming back to the last Denver race. It was a memorable one to me, and a big reason was the reds just wore down before the stint was up. I understand Bridgestone not wanting a tire out there that may make them look bad, but if you explain it's ultra-soft, makes the car go a lot faster but wears out faster, most people will get it. Of course, I don't know if teams would employ different strategies with these tires.

Ban pit-to-car audio about when other cars use P2P or how much is left. In fact, don't make the information available at all. Let the driver's decide when to use it and find out when they are out.

On the last test day, have a race with one stop. Enforce blocking penalties as you plan to all season and let the drivers know what is, and isn't acceptable. Then stick to it during the year with a drive through penalty (not give up one position). Penalties should be harsh, but handed out equally to all violators.

Go back to the two-group qualifying. Use the morning practice times to split the cars into two groups. Give each 30 minutes, unlimited laps and 15 mins of green flag time minimum. Always use the preceding practice session to create the groups.

Ohhh, and finally, when there is less than a week until testing begins, it would help to have more than 3 drivers signed for the season.

[Andrew Longman]

I think most importantly they need to be very clear and aligned about what Champcar racing is. What's it's appeal? What's it's distinction? Why should teams, drivers, fans, and sponsors care?

What they've said is not too bad. It is a series of diverse and challenging venues with very high performance cars which demand and bring out the best a driver can deliver. It is NOT a series that rewards teams who bring the most money and technology but rather rewards the best driving and engineering skills, the best teamwork and organization, and the best strategy.

Where this has failed is that they have not used it to inform every decision they make and they have not made it a central and loud message in their marketing. They have not hired and empowered people running the series to make and keep this Champcar "brand" a reality.

With this in mind, as a practical matter, I don't think they can make the car less expensive. I don't think they can do away with turbos. The cars need to be credible as wicked fast, hard to drive, monsters. I think it also hurts that they don't race on big ovals where they can claim (again) that these are the fastest race cars on the planet (that can turn).

Second, the series needs to produce more value. They need to invest in whatever people it takes to increase sponsor value. To me, the ideal would be to engage a series sponsor who had a vested interest in making the series successful because it would also grow them. In the 70s RJR did that for NASCAR because they had very few other marketing outlets. It need not be exactly that situation but a few years ago when Red Bull was trying to establish its brand through event based marketing they created I could have seen them very interested in sponsoring the series and even promoting races. They need to find someone who similarly want to build a brand and would promote the series as a means of promoting themselves

[stroker]

Here's what you do, Kev.

Champ Car.
Dump the DP01. Make Champ Car a turbo-charged F3 car.

I was thinking something along these lines the other day.

What about dumping the DP01 and putting a turbomotor (say, an additional 200hp?) into the Atlantic and making that the new CC? Instant 20+ car grid. Then you just need to find a new steppingstone from Star Mazda to "CC".

[stroker]

Go back to the old Lola/Reynard chassis rules to make chassis more available

Stick a 350 cubic inch Chevy, Ford, Chrysler in it. Crawl to Dearborn and apologize directly to Ford. Cosworth can build stock blocks, so can lots of other folks, the "Unhondas"



I admire your willingness to be turned into a crispy-critter, Mueber. :p You appear to have missed the memo that Champ Cars are turbo-charged and that's the end of the discussion. :)

Seriously, what you're advocating is going "back to the future" of F5000 using modern chassis. I don't think that's a bad idea, as there was no TV of F5000 and I could live with it, especially as your idea is a good candidate for the cost reduction I mentioned in my first post.

Personally, I have no problem with either turbomotors or stock blocks as long as they're affordable, which I think is what the series needs.

Nobody else has made this observation lately (that I've seen) so I'll stick my neck out a bit. It seems like CC is aiming for sponsorship in the $5+mil realm and it's just not going to happen. The exposure isn't there. If we can get the cost of running a car down to the sub-$1mil range, then I think there are a bunch of potential businesses/retailers that might be interested in getting a season's worth of exposure in CC rather than an associate sponsorship in NASCAR. Bottom line is that a fully sponsored car in the $1mil range is a lot better than the alternatives we have right now. I think either the stock-block idea OR my other post of dropping the DP-01 and going to Turbo Atlantics as CC is the most direct way of getting there.

[stroker]

I think most importantly they need to be very clear and aligned about what Champcar racing is. What's it's appeal? What's it's distinction? Why should teams, drivers, fans, and sponsors care?

What they've said is not too bad. It is a series of diverse and challenging venues with very high performance cars which demand and bring out the best a driver can deliver. It is NOT a series that rewards teams who bring the most money and technology but rather rewards the best driving and engineering skills, the best teamwork and organization, and the best strategy.

Where this has failed is that they have not used it to inform every decision they make and they have not made it a central and loud message in their marketing. They have not hired and empowered people running the series to make and keep this Champcar "brand" a reality.

With this in mind, as a practical matter, I don't think they can make the car less expensive. I don't think they can do away with turbos. The cars need to be credible as wicked fast, hard to drive, monsters. I think it also hurts that they don't race on big ovals where they can claim (again) that these are the fastest race cars on the planet (that can turn).

Second, the series needs to produce more value. They need to invest in whatever people it takes to increase sponsor value. To me, the ideal would be to engage a series sponsor who had a vested interest in making the series successful because it would also grow them. In the 70s RJR did that for NASCAR because they had very few other marketing outlets. It need not be exactly that situation but a few years ago when Red Bull was trying to establish its brand through event based marketing they created I could have seen them very interested in sponsoring the series and even promoting races. They need to find someone who similarly want to build a brand and would promote the series as a means of promoting themselves

excellent post, especially the last bit. CC might be in need of some Guerrilla Marketing.

[Methanolandbrats]

Find sponsors.