Is GM about to open the NASCAR door to Honda? What's the price-point on loyalty?

  
Maybe General Motors has been taking Dale Earnhardt Jr. for granted? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   BROOKLYN, Mich.
   General Motors executives appear to be scrambling this week in figuring out how to deal with all the NASCAR teams that carry the Chevrolet Bowtie.
   And GM folks seem at a decided loss for words, or even just any coherent statement about the game plan. If there is a game plan.
   GM might just be winging this.
   GM has been spending about $125 million a year on its various NASCAR programs, according to conventional wisdom.
   That budget will likely get cut by at least 20 percent, maybe 25 percent.
   The tricky part is who gets the cuts.
    And the real tricky part is for GM's field bosses to explain all that face to face with the NASCAR men and women they work with every day.
   No wonder why out here in the trenches there is major league anger mixed with major league angst.
   Is anybody driving this bus?
   Check out what GM officials were saying about NASCAR only a few days ago HERE.
  
Jeff Burton, currently the lead driver for Richard Childress' four-man Chevy operation, concedes these are tough times: "I know Chevrolet is going to do everything that they can to do the best job that they can in motorsports.  
   "This is an unprecedented time…and in many ways it's a sad time…and in many ways it's an exciting time.
   "Chevrolet having to pull support is a big deal because so many people rely on and they have been such a big part of the series.  
   "I don't know everything I need to know about it to comment 100 percent, but I can just tell you that in my talks with Chevrolet they want to do everything they can to stay involved and be a part of the NASCAR deal. 
    "And I think they are.
   "But they have some tough decisions to make."

   And there is the sense that the GM-NASCAR cuts now being ordered may be larger than anticipated….maybe even larger than necessary, in the marketing sense.
   However consider this:
   GM is now trying to reinvent itself.
   Into 'what' is the question.
   First, GM will be getting smaller.
   But Chevy boss Ed Peper – who ultimately doles out the money to NASCAR – has been pointing this week to some curious issues facing GM: that it has a major 'image' issue on the West Coast and in many places on the East Coast.
   GM may be strong in the heartland of America, but in California and parts West, and in New York and parts East, GM, Chevrolet in particular, isn't seen in the same light as say BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Lexus, and others with more cache.
   So will Peper and Chevrolet look to change the image of that brand, to make it more upscale? And if so, where might NASCAR fit in, if at all.
   Does Jimmie Johnson winning NASCAR races in a pseudo-Impala make doctors and lawyers and other big-city professionals want to rush out and buy an Impala?
   Here's thinking one big change for Chevy-in-NASCAR is for GM's NASCAR version in 2010 to be the Malibu.
   But what's the thinking in NASCAR headquarters on all this?
   Yes, for years this sport got along fairly well with all those independent high-performance after-marketers dealing out the parts and pieces.
   But since Ford jumped back into the game in the mid-1980s, and Chevrolet started putting its own NASCAR cards on the table, the sport has changed.
   Now, with NASCAR having shutdown pre-race testing, the manufacturers' computer simulation programs have become all the more important. (And it's fairly easy to see which NASCAR teams get the good info and which ones don't.)
   General Motors needs a new NASCAR game plan, yes.
   GM's NASCAR teams need new game plans, yes.
   But NASCAR itself needs a new game plan….and there are no indications that Daytona even realizes that yet.
   Think 1972. Just after Ford and Chrysler, who had bankrolled NASCAR's meteoric rise throughout the 1960s, abruptly pulled out of this sport.
   What happened?
   Junior Johnson went to R. J. Reynolds and pitched a team sponsorship….and then Johnson and RJR's Ralph Seagraves suddenly decided the better thing for this sport was not to sponsor a car but rather to sponsor the entire sport – with a brand new marketing campaign.
   Now it took about three or four years for it to start paying off, but once the program caught fire – by attracting (even strong-arming) new non-automotive sponsors into the game – things really started happening.

  

  
Jeff Burton: Another Chevy man pondering GM's looming cuts (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  
  

Have NASCAR officials gotten too complacent?
   Did they miss the signposts?
   Have they deliberately carved a separate path from Detroit, with common template bodies that don't fool anyone?
   Have they lost touch with the key players in Detroit?
   Have the NASCAR bosses simply become too arrogant, reading too many of their own press releases about how popular this sport is, and what a great marketing tool it is?
   Here's hoping NASCAR execs aren't too late to the new game.
   Dale Earnhardt Jr., for many the face of this sport, particularly in Detroit, has questions himself.
   First, NASCAR's plans to introduce a new version of the car-of-tomorrow in the Nationwide series is quite suspect, Earnhardt says, in these economic times: "The phasing in of the Nationwide COT will be difficult period, aside from whatever factory support that you have or don't have," Earnhardt points out.
   "I understand that the COT (on the Cup side) is a very safe car, and I'm glad for its safety, and I appreciate its safety. But I wished that car had developed and evolved into a better race car over the period that we've used it.
   "It hasn't progressed into a better race car as quickly as I would have liked.
   "So that makes me apprehensive about the same process occurring in the Nationwide series….let alone that is secondary to the expense that it would cost.
   "You're talking probably two to three or four million dollars just to change over, even if you're currently a Nationwide program. That's expensive; that's a lot of people's entire budget."
   Even in good times Earnhardt says he wouldn't expect Detroit car makers to provide any more than 30 percent of that changeover.
   And since GM is apparently cutting its support for Earnhardt's own JR Motorsports, it's an even bigger issue for him now.
    "I really don't know what each program is (GM with its various NASCAR teams), as far as what assistance Chevrolet was giving them, in dollars or wind tunnel time or whatever," Earnhardt says.
    "But I know we'll still probably have a lot of engineering data back and forth.
    "Chevrolet cares really deeply about this sport, and they still are going to maintain some relationships, and they still want to see Chevrolets win, no matter who is driving them or who owns them. So they'll still offer quite a bit of support on the engineering side.
    "But obviously the financial side of it is entirely going away.
    "The manufacturers have been in and out of the sport many times. And Chevrolet has not gone away; it's just had to adjust to the situation…like everybody else did, with the economy the way it is."
     And that of course leads to the next question, which certainly rivals like Ford and Toyota, maybe even Honda, must be pondering: all NASCAR engineering support being equal, what about the check?
   Honda?
   Hey, that door may be opening.
   What price loyalty?
   Is General Motors about to open the door to losing some of its key players?
   Richard Petty was Mr. Plymouth once, and yet jumped to Ford. And then he jumped to Chevrolet. Then he jumped back to Dodge. Now he may jump to Toyota.
   Dale Earnhardt Sr. was once a Ford man, but Ford let him get away.
   Tony Stewart was a GM man, who went with Toyota…and who is now back with Chevrolet.
   Junior Johnson was a Ford man once, then a Chevy guy, then a Ford man again.
   Remember, this is a sports business.
   You don't think that Ford or Toyota or Honda wouldn't jump at the chance to pick up some of these guys?
   Now wouldn't that be a coup – Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a NASCAR Honda.
   Certainly General Motors has a long, legendary record with the Earnhardt name. But this Earnhardt hasn't won a nose-to-nose, door-to-door dogfight in over three years. Should GM accept part of the blame for not handling this sports property better?
    Earnhardt insists he's been so loyal to Chevrolet that he takes it for granted: "Our relationship with Chevrolet was more just about brand loyalty.
    "I've been with them for so long I don't really think we even negotiated with them on the manufacturer's support.
    "It was just about brand loyalty, because we've been with them so long and they've been such a good company to us."
    But suddenly that big check may not be in the mail.
   At least not from GM.