Well, now that GM and Obama have pulled the trigger on bankruptcy, what next?

  
Chevy team owner Rick Hendrick (R) and Jeff Gordon (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   DOVER, Del.
   Okay, what are the game plans?
   Let's have some specifics.
   From General Motors – and what it says will be, in 60 to 90 days, "the New GM" -- and from NASCAR.
   President Obama's stunning decision to push GM into bankruptcy, announced Monday, in exchange for pumping some $50 billion into the company to keep it going, is part of a simply amazing situation.   
   What it all portends, on both the GM and NASCAR sides, is still only a big guessing game.
   But Rick Hendrick, GM's most successful NASCAR team owner, just moments after Sunday's thrilling Dover 400 victory charge by Jimmie Johnson, says no matter what happened next in Detroit/Washington, "My Plan A is Chevrolet, and my Plan B is Chevrolet, and my Plan C is Chevrolet."

   Obama insists he doesn't want to run, or micromanage, GM. However he is now the biggest single stockholder in the company, with at least a 60 percent share. So when he says he wants "sweeping changes" at GM, just what might that really mean?
  
  

  
President Obama at Las Vegas' Nellis Air Force Base a few days ago. Did NASCAR promoter Chris Powell invite him across the street to Las Vegas Motor Speedway? (Photo: White House)

  

   At one point in time GM had half the entire U.S. car market and was the largest private employer in the country. Now its market share is about 20 percent. In filing Chapter 11 Monday GM listed $82 billion in assets and $172 billion debts. 
   Gulp.
   Okay, what's the game plan for turning GM around?
   And what does all this mean for NASCAR racing, which GM's Chevy teams have been dominating lately, with four straight championships and leading toward a fifth?
   As GM goes, so goes the country?
   Whoops.
   A new day, a new world….or will the 'Heartbeat of America' flatline?

   Certainly GM – and whoever is going to be running this thing -- has to kick off a marketing revival to start selling cars again.
   And what can NASCAR do to help?
   If there's a solid game plan out there anywhere, it's not been made very clear. 
  

  
Kevin Harvick, driving an experimental GM hydrogen fuel cell car (Photo: GM)

  
  

Shouldn't we be getting more specific information about all this?
   For this kind of money?

   For those down here in the stock car trenches, the question is more personal -- is NASCAR simply going to stand on the sidelines and just watch what happens?
   Maybe NASCAR should try to become an active part of the solution, rather than risk being seen as just another aspect of the problem.
   Is it only going to be 'business as usual' in the stock car world?

   But then maybe it really doesn't matter all that much in NASCAR country what goes on up in Detroit-Washington. This sport got along, albeit not all that well, when Ford and Chrysler pulled out in the early 1970s. (Of course it was GM's Chevrolet division which then stepped in to fill the void in NASCAR.)
    However it does seem curious that NASCAR executives have seemed so noncommittal about this thing, as if almost disinterested.
   Of course NASCAR stockers these days are purpose-built, hand-crafted machines….and the sport could survive with teams doing all the engineering.    
   But one thing that has helped sell NASCAR over the years is that symbiosis between the fan as fan and fan as vicarious racer himself. NASCAR is car culture at its finest.
 
  

 
Maybe another Days of Thunder? Rick Hendrick and Tom Cruise (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  
 
  
Brand loyalty…heritage…marketing…promotion…sales….huge crowds of people…corporate synergies….NASCAR has a lot of weapons at its disposal. And there has been a decided sense this spring, from Detroit sources, that Detroit executives have been less than pleased with what may look like lukewarm interest in this debate on the NASCAR side.
   And NASCAR, remember, has a lot invested not just in Detroit but in GM, which has pumped a lot of money and enthusiasm into this sport, going back to that 1955 small block V8 and that 1963 Chevy porcupine 427 of Junior Johnson's and the 1972 comeback at Charlotte that helped rescue Charlotte Motor Speedway and other key NASCAR venues from bankruptcy…..
   But if NASCAR is doing much in this deal right now, it's keeping it under wraps.
   Maybe it's time for the NASCAR Frances and Bruton Smith to step up to the bully pulpit.
   Win on Sunday, sell on Monday….Well, if NASCAR doesn't start helping Detroit sell more on Monday, there might not be as much going on out at the race track on Sundays.
   And how in the world did this sport miss the gimme of having Delaware's Joe Biden at Sunday's 400?
  
    Hendrick, cautiously, says he doesn't think GM's bankruptcy will affect its racing programs: "I don't think so…because you see Ford and Toyota and Chrysler here.
    "But you just never know.
    "We just have to do the best we can.
    "They've been a big asset to this sport, and when you look at their competition, the people they're heads-up with are here. So I've had no indication that they're going to cut back or do anything."

   
Tony Stewart, as Grand Marshall of the Rose Parade. Hey, NASCAR marketing and promotions reach everywhere (Photo: GM)
   

   

GM's various sports sponsorships including more than just NASCAR, where it supports 20 Sprint Cup teams and has sponsorship contracts with 10 major NASCAR tracks. It also spends ad money in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the PGA, the NBA, and the American LeMans series.

   Hendrick, of course, has much more riding on all this than just his four-car Sprint Cup team and the Tony Stewart-Ryan Newman satellite operation. He's one of the biggest auto dealers in the country.
   The bankruptcy, Hendrick says, "is a planned 'get-in/get-out.'
    "I've got a lot of faith in GM, and especially Chevrolet. I've been with them for a long, long time.
    "Our business is good, the products are good…And this economic downturn has hurt everybody, it's hurt every manufacturer -- Toyota and everybody else.
    "Some people, maybe their pockets were deeper than others.
    "But I feel we're going to be good, we're going to be okay.
    "They've got great products right now, so I'm hoping they'll get in and get out in a hurry…and we'll just take it a day at a time."
    GM and Chevrolet are iconic American brands…
    However GM's credibility is now at stake. Bankruptcy isn't good for business, no matter how you try to spin it. And simply dumping so many workers, kicking them out the door like so much trash, won't help the image either. GM needs a clear,  bold marketing strategy – based on more than just 'We're closing a lot of plants, firing thousands of workers, killing off some legendary brands, and promising to build a new small car.'

   Yes, GM management has made some major blunders the past few years, like buying into Fiat, for a bigger share of the European market, and then bailing out (at a cost of billions); like not creating a more diversified lineup of passenger vehicles; like selling off controlling interest in its GMAC financing arm; like giving the lead in 'green' to rival Toyota; like those crazy rebate wars that created unrealistic MSRP stickers….
   But now whoever is going to run the new GM not only has to come up with a good business model and product line but also with a good marketing program. After all, who wants to buy a car from a company in bankruptcy? So this marketing gig better be a strong one: You now own the company, so why not buy the car too.
    One problem facing GM and Chevrolet, though, might be that some would see NASCAR racing as 'extravagance.'
   This sport certainly needs to avoid that.
  

  
These two guys certainly have a lot to talk about: GM's Rick Hendrick and Dodge's Richard Petty (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

So how to use NASCAR racing to sell Obama Motors?
   Well, first off, get Juan Pablo Montoya some wins. He's got a shot at making the championship chase. He's been running well lately.
   Diversity? May be time to crank that program up a couple of notches.
   Get Sarah Fisher into a stock car…teach Ashley Force to make left turns…create a NASCAR Danica.
   Steal Lewis Hamilton from Formula One.
  Montoya is running much better this season, after switching to Chevrolets: "Our car (last year) was nowhere near where we are right now. The performance of the car and the company moved a long way. We're running Chevys now, and that's huge.
    "If I look at myself now and I look at myself a year ago, last year we were there because we finished every race, but this year we're there because we've got a fast car.
   "So I'm pretty optimistic we have the chance of making the chase. It's not going to be easy, but the potential is pretty encouraging.
   "The magic number (average finishing position) is a 14.5 (to make the chase), and we're like a 15-something. So you've got to improve it a little.
   "For us the next four or five weeks are really important; they are weeks we normally run really bad.
   "Dover is a good race track for us. (Montoya qualified third and ran up front until blowing right-side tires.)
   "Michigan is a tough one, and it's always been a tough one. But if you look the places where it's been tough on how we've been running, you know it should be good.
   "And we have two good road courses (including Sonoma in just three weeks), and we have a good chance of winning there.
   "But the main goal is to make the chase."
   

   
Rick Hendrick's new boss: President Obama (Photo: White House)
   

And NASCAR is pushing its diversity initiatives, though they may need stronger promotion. It just announced the 13 college students picked for the summer's diversity internships at various NASCAR operations. There is more to NASCAR's diversity efforts than just offering opportunities for promising new drivers. Details on the program HERE
   Maybe NASCAR – and GM – need to start running some TV ads trumpeting just what's going on down here in the stock car world.
   Of course it's not clear if anyone at NASCAR headquarters really knows any of the new players at GM all that well. And that was always one of NASCAR's strengths (and GM's) -- that the key players in this Detroit-NASCAR racing game on both sides knew each other well.
   So maybe we should watch what Roger Penske might decide to do if he buys Saturn from GM.
   And then maybe the new bosses at GM should go back over that original Saturn game plan -- of creating something 'new and unique.'
   And maybe NASCAR can help.
  
  

  
  
Next? Good question.