GettReal

So many Great Tracks but I'd be shocked if the Glen and Mosport weren't on there. As most of you may know, Ron Fellows is now a part owner of Mosport along with a Billionaire developer and they have spent a lot of time and a TON of money lobbying to get a lot of great racing back at Mosport. The facility there now is pretty sweet and now set up for some high end events... I think there will be a lot of angry fans somewhere since they can't hit all the good places.

I would say get rid of a couple of the Gran Prix Street Circuits and include the Glen and Mosport and that would be my picks.

cool95

I'm just wondering since SpeedTv is now Fox Sports/ SpeedTv will Speed be showing all the car races that they have been showing for 2013 in 2014?

I'm especially wondering about Le Mans for 2014 and who will televise that. It would take a very serious commitment to show all of the 24 hours like Speed is doing this year.

rmackintosh

California ROCKS! WOOT

Bill Dearborn

During the LeMans race they were interviewing the head of the Sports Car Racing organization and asked if Daytona, Sebring, Petite Lemans and the 6 Hours at the Glen would be on the schedule and the guy said that would be highly likely. They are only going to have 12 races so that leaves 8. They want to locate the race venues in the larger markets so that might indicate which ones get the axe.

Bill

Bill32

Yea, short tow to 3 great tracks. Sears is the most exciting track I've ever raced on (even the one weekend when it was a 1.8 mile track ).

c5_4_me

My bet is that Long Beach and Laguna Seca are a lock. Sears Point is a possibility and Lime Rock is out in my opinion.

BuckeyeZ06

This merger is going to create an opportunity for another series to take advantage of. There are tracks that will need races and drivers who need a place to race.

To me, having a series with a 40+ year history that features some of the fastest "bodied" cars in the world, and ones that are relatively inexpensive to acquire and operate when considering that performance, would be a good thing. Of course I'm referring to the Trans Am series. My gut tells me we are going to benefit from this merger...

drivinhard

they are all nascar owned tracks, so you better believe they will be there

Gary2KC5

Le Mans would not count as one of the 10 races as it would not be a United SportsCar Racing event.

93Polo

I hope Mosport and Road America make the schedule. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to see any of the street circuits dropped.

It will be interesting.

wulf312

I know most people won't agree with me due to the nature of the course, but I would hate to see Kansas Speedway lose the venue. This year is the first one race since the new road course has been added, and they added it solely to attract Grand Am. Without them, the infield course will rarely if ever get used. If Kansas Speedway does lose out, hopefully they can talk NASCAR into running the road course for one of their two visits to the track each season.

Of course, I live in Kansas City and since the closest big track is 500 miles away (Road America), I obviously have some bias.

That being said, I have been to Road America for an ALMS race and it was great. They would be crazy to leave it off the schedule.

quick04Z06

Frankly, with NASCAR at the helm, what they should do is take Le Mans off the schedule and not worry about a "Le Mans break".

There is no way in the world the France family, with their understated and politic manner, will convince the ACO to do anything that favors the Grand Am/ALMS cars. Plus, almost all of the dates are in the USA. The ACO loves US-centric racing. Ahem. Corvette Racing, if it stays in Grand Am, will never win at Le Mans again. The ACO will make CR use Lemon Juice for fuel or run on tires made of granite.

If I were Corvette Racing, I would consider jumping to WEC and maybe supporting some top-flight privateer Corvettes in Grand Am....

93Polo

Never had a problem getting close to the cars, Road Atlanta and Sebring both have some great viewing spots. The entrance to the hairpin at Road Atlanta gives a great view down into the cars.

I am not all that optimistic especially with the DP "Corvettes". The egos in Daytona combined with the politics in France also will not help.

However, the Le Mans break should stand. The GT is still very much for now the ACO class. Pratt and Miller has handled the ACO well before this year. As someone who has followed the ALMS from the beginning with PLM in my backyard, the ACO and the ALMS had some fights but the ACO is learning that adjustments need to be made for a series to work.

Corvette Racing won't jump to WEC, if that was much of an option they would have likely jumped to the FIA GT with the GT1 car years ago. I always wanted a Factory FIA GT team. The Daytona Cobra Coupe and Viper have FIA titles, and I wanted Corvette to have one.

69

http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2013/...wn/#more-15554

[VIDEO] Corvette Racing's Doug Fehan Talks USCR on Shakedown


Check out this in-depth interview on Trackdown on Shakedown with the always well-spoken Corvette Racing Program Manager Doug Fehan, who discusses with his old friend Leo Parente a wide range of subjects, including the 2014 United Sports Car Racing (USCR) series racing at Le Mans, Corvette marketing, and the ingredients for a successful Corvette Racing driver.



When asked the biggest challenge to making the upcoming USCR better than the status quo, Fehan compares it to a three-legged stool consisting of safety, the technical inspection, and the registration process.

“To me, there’s a three-legged stool from which everything is stacked upon,” Fehan says. “The first is safety. And although it doesn’t fit the NASCAR template, having our own self-contained, dedicated safety crew is of paramount importance. To me, that should just be plug and play. We have a great program that runs here in ALMS, and it should follow over. My opinion.”

Fehan says he’s not been overly impressed with what Grand Am has presented from a technical inspection standpoint.

“And, this ought to be plug and play, again, with the ALMS,” he says. “It’s a streamlined program. The competitors respect it. It’s efficient. And it gets the job done. There’s no reason, really, to change it. And it certainly would be an upgrade from what I’ve seen at Grand Am. And by the way, they recognize that there’s always room for improvement. And that’s the important thing. You have to recognize that you can improve, and then the willingness to improve.”

The third leg is the registration process, and Fehan says anyone who has gone to Grand Am knows that sometimes it can be challenging, as opposed to the ALMS, which provides a far more welcoming atmosphere.

“And if you’re bringing a potential sponsor, or an executive from your company, and you start swimming uphill in a big hurry, that’s the first eyes on that those people have for your organization,” Fehan says. “So registration process needs to be improved. We have a great program here, and hopefully that will be plug and play. Those three things, to me, are the fundamentals, which is an odd position to take. Others are going to talk about other things. Those are the three things I find to be the most important.”

Shifting gears, Fehan talks about how well Chevrolet knows its Corvette customers.

“We stay in constant touch with our customer, more so than anybody else,” Fehan says. “When you look at other manufacturers, and they talk about knowing their customer– you live in the marketing world. You know it’s, he’s between 45 and 52 years old. Annual income of $102,000. He’s got two kids, both in college, married, with a pet. That’s knowing your customer.”

But at Corvette, it moves well beyond that.

“We know the people individually,” Fehan says. “We know it’s Charlene and Jim. We know their son, Trey. We know he’s graduating this year from USC. And we know their dog Rover, because we’ve signed his little vest. That’s knowing your customer. So we have the ability – and Harlan Charles does a great job, and along with Tadge Juechter, in relating what they take and learn from our customer. I mean, from our customer’s lips, and putting it into the vehicle. There’s nothing in the new car that the customer hasn’t asked for. So we don’t guess at what they might want. We know what they want. And that’s what makes Corvette unique in all the automotive world.”

Parente points out that when Chevy and GM prop Fehan up in front of crowds at the corral, he gets that same kind of feedback. “So, I don’t want to turn it into an infomercial, but it connects the dots between the racing and the real car,” Parente says.

No question, Fehan admits. “When you can relate to your customer on truly a firsthand basis, believe me, you have that customer captured,” he says. “And you have that customer far more than just Corvette. You have that customer for Sonic, or Silverado, or Cadillac ATS or CTS. They buy more than just a Corvette. They have more than one car.”

Parente asked Fehan how Corvette Racing evaluates its drivers and what criteria goes into making a great racer.

“The first thing, foremost, the foundation from which we build, is the ability to bring the car up to speed and not make mistakes behind the wheel,” Fehan explains. “You can’t go brain dead in a racing situation. That’s the platform. So first you have to qualify there. There’s nobody here that can’t go fast enough. Then you need someone who has a personality that allows him to check his ego at the door, to understand that he is no different or no more highly valued on this team than the guys who drive the truck, or the guys who are working on the car. He has to understand that he is part of this family. He lives here, all the time. And you only have to look around. I can find these guys in 30 seconds. They’re not off romancing something down the block. They are here. They live here. They have to be willing to subscribe to that. And probably the second most important thing is the ability to relate to our customer, and to appreciate what that customer means, and what that customer brings to the party. Because without our customer, he’s not working. He needs to know that. And I think when you look across the board, and you watch our guys interact, number one, they’re trainable. And number two, they’ve been well trained.”

Fehan proved to be right when he told Parente that he was expecting good things to happen in the July 21 race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

“We never bring all this equipment and all this manpower to a race that we don’t think we can win,” he says. “OK? It’s 25% great car. It’s 25% great team. And it’s 50% good fortune. If we get a little bit of that good fortune rolling our way, we should end up with a good result here.”

Fehan proved prophetic as Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner scored their second victory in the American Le Mans Series with a hard-earned effort in the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix.

rfn026

Fehan forgets one thing. Since he's been running the Corvette race team Corvette sales have gone in the tank. It's not all his fault but how can he talk about the great marketing program when we're down to early 60's numbers?

If the marketing program is so great why are Corvette sales down and Porsche sales up? The C7 is going to either make some careers - or end them. Keep in mind that not a single Corvette Chief Engineer has ever been promoted. Most were pushed into early retirement.

The C7 program is a huge deal within GM. We need to see some impressive numbers 12 months from now.

Richard Newton
Car Tech Stuff

lvrpool32

This shake up may really hurt Lime Rock, they have both Grand Am and ALMS races currently and if they loose both, that leaves a huge hole in their schedule. They still have the Trans-Am and Vintage festival, but it means they will need to start hunting for new "premier" events.

Everett Ogilvie

Was re-reading this thread and thought I would look up some representative lap times just out of curiosity. And because it would be such a loss if they ever take Road America out of the schedule, here are some lap times from there;

Prior ALMS GT1: 1:59
Current ALMS GT(2): 2:05
Current Grand Am DP: 2:02

I am glad to see that the DPs are still quicker than current ALMS GT cars, and DPs are SO horsepower limited (relative to the chassis) they could do much better with even 20 more HP (those of us who follow Grand Am have been wanting them to uncork them for a long time).

Regarding Road America and the NASCAR-owned Grand AM/ALMS "merger" - at least they have been running the Nationwide races there for several years and they have been GREAT races, so I think NASCAR will keep Road America in the schedule going forward for their sports cars - I sure hope so.

69

At the upcoming Road America Event, there are a few updates/briefings on the United SportsCar Racing Merger. I hope that these updates/briefings will start to bring some clarity to this merger and the 2014 racing schedule.

Friday, August 9, 2013
1:45 pm - 2:15 pm ALMS Fan Forum at the Road America Center
At the Corvette Corral Saturday, August 10, 2013
9:30 am - 9 45 am United SportsCar Racing Merger Update - Steve Focazio, Manager Track Marketing and Promotions.
12:00 pm - 12:30 pm Corvette Racing Presentation - Doug Fehan, Program Manager

bjm

From people I've talked to I think that Road America is basically a lock and will be on the schedule. I would venture to say that the turn out for the RA event in two weeks will be their largest event of the year and will feature some an EXCELLENT weekend of road racing!

As for Lime Rock I agree, I think they may miss out on a date at least for 2014.

93Polo

Hopefully they uncork the DPs. I would hate to see GT slowed down.

RA remaining on the schedule would be great. I would hate to see Lime Rock pulled, it always gets interesting there.