rfn026

According to today's Washington Post GM will go into bankruptcy on June 1. It will either be a controlled operation or the more traditional bankruptcy.

LeMans is on the weekend of June 24. The Corvette is raced by a GM supplier - Pratt and Miller.

Right now it looks as if the suppliers are going to paid with government money. The government seems to be the only lender willing to step up with money.

What are you hearing out in Detroit about LeMans? Will Pratt and Miller be able to use the government money for LeMans?

Richard Newton

gkmccready

If Corvette Racing was smart they got themselves paid up front this year, and paid P&M up front, too. "No take backs!"

Tintin

Unfortunately that is not how it works in Chapter 11, the suppliers are forced to not be paid for whatever they have in the pipe right at the time but are also forced to return any money that they have been paid over a specific time frame. This was originally enacted to keep business owners from transferring money out of the company to shills and relatives and then declaring insolvency or asking for protection from creditors.. It has the effect of bankrupting suppliers in practice however.

I would not be concerned about the Corvette program , it is a tiny amount of money , like zip , compared to the overall picture. Obviously there is a business case for the racing or GM would not have done it at all, so the justification as advertising or product development will be pretty straightforward I expect.

Having had major corporate sponsorship in the past for my cars, the business case is always the primary focus for the sponsor. This is something that most racers do not get and that is why they do not advance in the game. The only people who race for the glory are the racers, not the people with the money..

I look forward to the GT2 program where there will be some competition and certainly some great developments for the road car over the next years.

By the way, I found one of my old sponsorship proposals that actually works if anyone would like to get a copy.. that being said I don't think that everyone should suddenly cram my inbox

I will share it with any of you if you think you are qualified to step up, really - no charge. This one was for Vipers to challenge Oreca in the Speedvision arena. It ended up being Porsches, but whatever, you need to be flexible

You can get a feel for the structure and flow of one of these although it has been awhile..

Gordy M

We had Pratt and Miller talk to our local club last week and they were talking about LeMans and the long lead they need to get equipment, etc to the track. They indicated they would be there whether GM went into a structured bankruptcy or not. GM Racing is the major supporter but they also have Compuware and several other sponsors. After the event, they will have several GT1 cars for sale. I believe the 03 LeMans blue vette is available for about 600K if you have any spare change. They started on the GT2 development almost a year ago and feel that program will still be funded. Currently P&M have 65 engineers on the staff and they are heavily involved in several research projects. Remember as the big three cut back on people and close operations they are outsourcing more specialty projects. By the way they brought one of their billet engine 500 cube street GT cars to the program. What attention to detail, ZR1 acceleration, suspension work, etc. For about 170K you can get one of those