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St. Jude Vendor Donor '03-'04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11
Hi Guys, Yes, Long but thorough.
There is another aspect of the GM/Pratt and Miller crime family. IT is this: If a private team with a small budget like we had, $1.4 Million could build a car and race up front then what reason would GM Corporate have to put over $50 Million dollars into their factory team?
Instead of helping us with say, $5 million, they chose to eliminate us.
Doug Fehan was a body man running a body shop running a small team in Firestone Firehawk and he learned how to milk money from GM Corporate. He has worked his way up the GM teet and since they are afraid of another team beating them, Corvette racing uses the GM Muscle to Make suppliers of the race team, withhold products and services to a team like LG Motorsports.
I had very bad lawyers, I could have made my case better in our lawsuit against GM and Michelin. But I digress.
In our last year in ALMS, of course we were blocked from buying Michelin Tires because GM said no.
We were also denied the new Direct injection 6 bolt cylinder heads and 6 bolt block because it was that much better.
In spite of all that, we managed to out qualify Corvette racing's $50 million dollar monster. ONLY ONE PERSON on Corvette racing team came over to congratulate us on our Outside Pole qualifying. JAN MAGNUSSEN!! and he had to jump off their golf cart while it was moving and ran over to congratulate us. The rest of the Pratt and Miller team stayed on their Carts and looked straight forward, never even glancing our way.
When we got the outside pole at the 2009 Petit LeMans race, the pratt and miller press release did not mention LG Motorsports out qualifying them and they whited out our name on their press release/qualifying sheet, and only said, "Corvette Racing nabs 3rd and 7th in qualifying.
Now if you are getting paid over $50 million as an outside race team sub contractor, Pratt and Miller, and paying Fehan over $500,000 per year to put on tight shorts and a yellow bike shirt, they would not want GM Corporate to know that a small private team could kick their ****!
We were at a total disadvantage on parts and got zero engineering help but we still managed to out qualify them.
Now the Corvette team that has the most "Record" Last and second last place finishes in GT1 has shoved any and all comers in a Corvette, out of racing professionally. I say last and second last because they had the only 2 cars in the GT1 class, and still got paid $50 million to pretend that the 1-2 trophies meant something.
Thus, the real finishing order was "LAST AND SECOND LAST" a record to surround your show car with in their show room.
BUT when they pay for a full page ad in USA Today that says, "CORVETTE FINISHES 1,2" the average non race fan really thinks that there is some giant accomplishment that needed a full page ad.
GM Management should be ashamed of it self. In years past, we heard through the grapevine that GM corporate guys would get pay offs but other than rumors, we never heard specifics.
The Porsche model: Porsche sells plenty of GT3 and GT Lemans cars to private teams. Then they let the cream rise to the top with their engineering help and finally they install a Top Porsche factory driver in the cars and they win. Ferrari does the same, Ford for now only has one team but they don't rely on USA Today to tout their engineering accomplishments.
So there you have it. Now you all know why LG Motorsports and I decided to race an Aston Martin and win with it just to show GM that LG Motorsports could win in anything we decided to build and race. My last 3 races in World Challenge I finished 4th, 1st and 4th and we decided to pull out of the World Challenge because they too were moving to the European model of "balance of performance" which is really socialized racing, "To each according to their needs, From each according to their Means". And the costs went up dramatically.
Entry fee for less than a full season was $6000 per race. Plus you were mandated to buy 2 full sets of Pirelli Slicks at $5000 for the pair. AND when we won Elkhart Lake? We won $5000. And all replacement parts had to come from the "Manufacturer" at triple the cost ????
But back to GM and their failed Racing model. I suspect that the ACO has been filling their bank accounts with money from "rule changes" recently. The rule changes are for sale.
We will see who paid the most for their favorable rules at this years LeMans.
NOW you know the rest of the story. LG Motorsports would never buy a GT4 Camaro for over 1/4 million dollars to race in World Challenge. So GM has once again killed another class.
FOR now we at LG Motorsports will have fun at Nurburgring with our C7 Z06 hotrod with 800 hp and at the same time, validate our Dual Intercooler package that solved the over heating issues in spite of GM and their fight to the death against the Class Action Lawsuit.
Everything Lou says is true, when I built my last World Challenge car (the P&M Cadillac were just getting started), Dave Spitzer (then program manager) called me and literally threatened me if I was competitive with them.
If you ever see a negative post about GM Racing from me, you'll know why! I am a huge fan of racing Corvettes, but a hate Corvette Racing!
Super interesting thread. Sub'd in case more people in the know chime in. Like to dream about AMT Motorsport racing at a Pro Level at some point. I also dream about winning the lottery.
Last edited by Mark@AMT Motorsport; 03-03-2018 at 08:32 AM.
FOR now we at LG Motorsports will have fun at Nurburgring with our C7 Z06 hotrod with 800 hp and at the same time, validate our Dual Intercooler package that solved the over heating issues in spite of GM and their fight to the death against the Class Action Lawsuit.
Thanks and keep those cards and letters coming
Lou Gigliotti
LG Motorsports
972-429-1963
[/quote]
Can't wait to see you guys run this beast at the ring! Do you have any particular goals for a lap time?
No question that it is a great car built in Germany by Callaway's race shop over there. They run just over $525,000 plus another $300,000 for spares which has now become the cost of admission into any Corvette racing in the US.
The American Pirelli World Challenge series has been taken over by europeans totally.
The truth is the truth and GM made a concerted effort to eliminate privateer Corvette teams from Professional racing in America.
No one forced them to do it but they did what they did.
The Callaway will be a force to be reckoned with until the "Balance of Performance" adjustments get thrown at them.
I say that Corvette racing should just let Callaway take over all GM Corvette racing totally.
Just my .02
LG
PS, do you know what lap times they were running in the test?
Not sure about lap times. you are 100% right, unless you bring hollywood $$ or oil drilling $$ there is no real way to slot in. Porsche IMO has done it right over the years, but you will never buy one of their factory mid engine 911's. Race ready Cup car yep. But you can get into the sport in amateur racing via PCA, and if you have some $$ rent a seat and move up the ladder from smaller teams to larger ones. But you still have to bring sponsorship $$, 1/3 of the F1 seats are paid rental seats now. No idea why Chevy doesn't promote Corvette racing series like PCA. I had a lot of friends that bridged from amateur to bronze seat racers via PCA, cups seats and 4th driver stints in enduro etc.. I crewed for independent Porsche teams, and when you wrecked the Porsche NA rep came to your pits to see if you needed parts, you could talk to their people, Lambo/Audi are doing a great job of this now too. I look at Kevin Butler and the opportunities that he has had as well as Alex Job, all small owners but Porsche roots. But they too have jumped to Astons, Audis as the market opened doors. Callaway brought the 1st real race C5 Corvette to Daytona before Pratt/Miller, they must have not song to right song on cue.
Originally Posted by LG Motorsports
No question that it is a great car built in Germany by Callaway's race shop over there. They run just over $525,000 plus another $300,000 for spares which has now become the cost of admission into any Corvette racing in the US.
The American Pirelli World Challenge series has been taken over by europeans totally.
The truth is the truth and GM made a concerted effort to eliminate privateer Corvette teams from Professional racing in America.
No one forced them to do it but they did what they did.
The Callaway will be a force to be reckoned with until the "Balance of Performance" adjustments get thrown at them.
I say that Corvette racing should just let Callaway take over all GM Corvette racing totally.
Just my .02
LG
PS, do you know what lap times they were running in the test?
St. Jude Vendor Donor '03-'04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11
Originally Posted by tw78911sc
Not sure about lap times. you are 100% right, unless you bring hollywood $$ or oil drilling $$ there is no real way to slot in. Porsche IMO has done it right over the years, but you will never buy one of their factory mid engine 911's. Race ready Cup car yep. But you can get into the sport in amateur racing via PCA, and if you have some $$ rent a seat and move up the ladder from smaller teams to larger ones. But you still have to bring sponsorship $$, 1/3 of the F1 seats are paid rental seats now. No idea why Chevy doesn't promote Corvette racing series like PCA. I had a lot of friends that bridged from amateur to bronze seat racers via PCA, cups seats and 4th driver stints in enduro etc.. I crewed for independent Porsche teams, and when you wrecked the Porsche NA rep came to your pits to see if you needed parts, you could talk to their people, Lambo/Audi are doing a great job of this now too. I look at Kevin Butler and the opportunities that he has had as well as Alex Job, all small owners but Porsche roots. But they too have jumped to Astons, Audis as the market opened doors. Callaway brought the 1st real race C5 Corvette to Daytona before Pratt/Miller, they must have not song to right song on cue.
Years ago, in 88 and 89 GM and Corvette did actually have a great series that paid $1 million dollars in Prize money. Drivers like Tommy Kendall, Boris Said, PD Cunningham, Lou Gigliotti, Fangio all raced in this series and each name above moved on to bigger and better things.
BUT in 89 GM shut it down and the "World Challenge" was born where the Corvette could actually race as Private teams in the early 90s all the way till the mid 2000s. Then the greed and politics set in. PWC eliminated the Corvette from World Challenge GT Class so Cadillac could use it as their own marketing tool. Of course they could not let a Corvette beat a Cadillac??? They even kept Callaway out of the series by ordering them to stay away or they would lose their Callaway brand. NOW that Caddy is gone, the Callaway is now ok to run but no one can afford the price of admission like the old days.
Only when GM started the In house GM Funded, MULTI MILLION dollar effort did the GM Corvette race team start to hoard the money that Corvette and GM were willing to spend on racing and you better not try to get any!!!.
IF a successful private team came in and did well, then how could GM Corporate justify a $50+ million dollar budget for the in house team? they could not and the team principles made sure that no one got the "Good stuff" and no one could buy a new Pratt and Miller Corvette.
So you had a few years where there was NO other cars in the GT1 class and the headlines kept coming. BUT today you still have the Corvette racing team principles guarding the money $$$$$$ and no one gets it but them.
NOW watch.....Callaway will do a great job in PWC. GM will see it and probably move in to the series with a Pratt and Miller car and mandate that Callaway go back to Germany.
My prediction because it is all about the GM racing dollars and who get them. Sad but true.
I have a lot of respect for Reeves Callaway and I personally think they do a better job than Pratt and Miller. All it will take is the GM Board to figure it out and life for the Corvette racers will change.
LG
Last edited by LG Motorsports; 03-08-2018 at 12:58 PM.
5-8 years ago I looked at World Challenge. I wasn;t quite up tot he task, and today that hurdle is even bigger.
I've also looked at the GTD class, was approached by Dodge to buy one of the first GT3-spec Vipers, but decided against it. I am very good friends with Tony Ave, who is tight with Bob and Bill Riley, who designed the Viper.
As you know, I "landed" in Trans Am, and after seeing things from the outside, and reading this thread, am so glad I did.
TA is not cheap, but pales in comparison to PWC and IMSA GTD. I've talked to friends in those series and my weekend costs are about 1/3 what they are spending.
This can all change if big-money enters Trans Am, but for now I am in the right series.
St. Jude Vendor Donor '03-'04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11
Originally Posted by BuckeyeZ06
5-8 years ago I looked at World Challenge. I wasn;t quite up tot he task, and today that hurdle is even bigger.
I've also looked at the GTD class, was approached by Dodge to buy one of the first GT3-spec Vipers, but decided against it. I am very good friends with Tony Ave, who is tight with Bob and Bill Riley, who designed the Viper.
As you know, I "landed" in Trans Am, and after seeing things from the outside, and reading this thread, am so glad I did.
TA is not cheap, but pales in comparison to PWC and IMSA GTD. I've talked to friends in those series and my weekend costs are about 1/3 what they are spending.
This can all change if big-money enters Trans Am, but for now I am in the right series.
Good decision. It appears that an old World Challenge Corvette, (and I have one sitting here) is legal in the TA3 or even TA4 class.
I have done the TA thing when it was also very inexpensive and now, the new TA cars have almost 200 hp more than back in the early days, 98-2002 for me.
I could build a brand new car that could win races, (Long beach and Lime rock wins) for about $150k.
Today with the extra hp, parts burn down even faster so the car has to be rebuilt almost every race. (driveline)
BUT, for a corvette PWC car that can not race there anymore, the TA 3-4 is a perfect place to race.
Good decision. It appears that an old World Challenge Corvette, (and I have one sitting here) is legal in the TA3 or even TA4 class.
I have done the TA thing when it was also very inexpensive and now, the new TA cars have almost 200 hp more than back in the early days, 98-2002 for me.
I could build a brand new car that could win races, (Long beach and Lime rock wins) for about $150k.
Today with the extra hp, parts burn down even faster so the car has to be rebuilt almost every race. (driveline)
BUT, for a corvette PWC car that can not race there anymore, the TA 3-4 is a perfect place to race.
Just my thoughts and good luck in your racing
Lou G
Long Beach winning Corvette>>
Daytona Paul Revere 250 winning Corvette below:
Those C5 bodies were/are so good, maybe the only one better was the Jaquar.
We are using SB2 motors sourced from PME. I generally schedule rebuilds at 1000 miles (which is 5 race weekends). I now have an Xtrac transmission, so while the the upfront was substantially higher, the maintenance costs are lower and the reliability is way better. We plan on 100 man-hours of maintenance between each race (provided I don't run into something hard).
The issue I have with IMSA is the homogalation (sp) fee ($1M per model?) that really changes the dynamics of a series. If a manufacturer is going to pay that amount, they are certainly going to want to control who uses their cars so they can recoop the cost.
World Challenge was a travel issue. For me, there were too many west coast races.
This has been an interesting read, thanks for sharing your stories. I love watching these series on tv, never knew about the behind the scene nonsense
Likewise.
Despite that ridiculous BoP bullshit, it's still maybe the best racing shown on TV. Didn't realize the extent of politics involved... knowing of it diminishes my interest considerably.
St. Jude Vendor Donor '03-'04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11
I will add one more tidbit. In 2006 when we were poised to win the Driver championship, we won our second race at Utah beating the Porsche 911 and the Cadillac CTSv by .3 second.
GM racing went to SCCA and convinced them that my Corvette was too fast. GM wanted to win the Manufactures championship and they were afraid that we would win too many races and Corvette would win it.
ALL we wanted to do was win the Driver championship to add to the 3 championship that we already had.
GM racing manager went to SCCA and got them to add 150 pounds to Corvettes that had won a race before. (me) plus we had to add 40 pounds of rewards weight too
SO we went from Utah getting the pole, winning the race to Elkhart lake where we qualified 14th and finished around there as well with the 190 pounds added.
it took till the second last race of the season to get them to remove 1/2 of the weight but it was too late.
I lost the Drivers championship by 1 point to the Porsche driven by Lawson Ashenbach but I beat the Caddy of Pilgrim who finished 3rd in the championship.
ALL that mattered was that Cadillac won the Manufacturers championship and they did not care that Porsche won the Drivers.
Of course they apologized but big deal, TOO little too late.
All they had to do was keep track of me and make sure GM won both championships but instead they handed the Drivers championship to Porsche.
HA then they hired Lawson as a GM driver...... Go figure!
I will add one more tidbit. In 2006 when we were poised to win the Driver championship, we won our second race at Utah beating the Porsche 911 and the Cadillac CTSv by .3 second.
GM racing went to SCCA and convinced them that my Corvette was too fast. GM wanted to win the Manufactures championship and they were afraid that we would win too many races and Corvette would win it.
ALL we wanted to do was win the Driver championship to add to the 3 championship that we already had.
GM racing manager went to SCCA and got them to add 150 pounds to Corvettes that had won a race before. (me) plus we had to add 40 pounds of rewards weight too
SO we went from Utah getting the pole, winning the race to Elkhart lake where we qualified 14th and finished around there as well with the 190 pounds added.
it took till the second last race of the season to get them to remove 1/2 of the weight but it was too late.
I lost the Drivers championship by 1 point to the Porsche driven by Lawson Ashenbach but I beat the Caddy of Pilgrim who finished 3rd in the championship.
ALL that mattered was that Cadillac won the Manufacturers championship and they did not care that Porsche won the Drivers.
Of course they apologized but big deal, TOO little too late.
All they had to do was keep track of me and make sure GM won both championships but instead they handed the Drivers championship to Porsche.
HA then they hired Lawson as a GM driver...... Go figure!
Lou Gigliotti
LG Motorsports
Porsche won the GT Manufactures' Championship in 2006.
New drivers were also causing a stir in SPEED GT. Rookie Lawson Aschenbach was practically flawless in his first full-season of SPEED GT competition. Behind the wheel of his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, he climbed the podium steps three times, including a win at St. Petersburg, and never finished worse than ninth. Numbers like those gave veterans Lou Gigliotti and Andy Pilgrim a run for their money and helped Aschenbach become the first driver in SPEED GT history to win the Championship in their rookie season. Thanks to an equally strong performance from Porsche teammate Ricardo Imery and guest appearances by Randy Pobst, Porsche won a tight SPEED GT Manufacturers’ Championship by a scant three points over Dodge.
St. Jude Vendor Donor '03-'04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11
Unless I have memory loss, I believe that Cadillac won the manufactures and Porsche with ashenbacher won drivers.
I dont Have Alzheimer’s yet but I could be mistaken
At the last race of the season, at Laguna, Aschenbach's Porsche was protested for illegal brakes that they were running for a few races. GM with the attempt to reverse their mistake, pushed hard to get the car DQ'd but Porsche reps were at the event and gave SCCA a letter written that day that said " Porsche changed the brake package for the Porsche 911 because there were no parts available and they were sorry for the delay in changing the brake package that Porsche allowed."
BUT the Porsche Cup cars that were there all had multiple spares of the brakes parts in question but SCCA allowed the Porsche Letter win the day.
We out ran both Porsche and Cadillac that day but came up short for the championship thanks to the politics of both manufacturers and LGM was just collateral damage.
I need to go back and find the full points results for that season for Manufacturer and Drivers.
I don't trust the "Summary" because they left out the Laguna race on one Series summary. But hey, if it is on the internet it must be true
LG
Last edited by LG Motorsports; 03-08-2018 at 07:45 PM.
02-28-2018, 01:02 PM
