There are also trends where things are developed by the aeronautics industry, pass through auto racing, and make it to the family car. Disk brakes, supercharges, and multiple valves per cylinder are all examples. Disk brakes: from WWII aircraft, to Jaguars at Lemans in the early 1950s, to the Austin-Healy 100S the first car with disks at all for corners, to most cars today.

Check out the side by side picture of a real truck and a Nascar “truck”:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/nascar/2008/news/features/05/20/inside.research.development.center/trucks.510.jpg

It does not matter how many participate. It matters how many see benefits that outweigh the costs.

I would argue that the massive amount of money companies like Honda and Toyota are pouring into F1 does not make sense because their bread and butter is reliable appliance cars, which have nothing to do with racing.

GM does not have the money to be wasting on motor sports. They should be spending the money designing small, fuel efficient cars, not cars for hoons.

This is simply a myth that automotive manufacturers would like you to believe because it helps them sell cars. For example, I’ve seen an interview with the head of the BMW Williams F1 team among others where he also stated that this is a myth.

If fact, most often the complete opposite is true; technology is developed with production vehicles in mind, but is still too expensive to implement, so it first appears in racing.

International Racecar Engineering had an article on this misconception as well a while back.

While it might not make any difference in the US, rest assured that participation in world class motorsports (Formula 1, World Rally Championship, and the LeMans Series) gives a participating company prestige and “reputation” that allow it to sell cars in other parts of the world.

Just look at the list of companies that participate in world class events:

Citroen
Peugeot
Subaru
Suzuki
Ford
Toyota
Honda
BMW
Mercedes Benz
Ferrari
Renault
Audi
Porsche

These don’t include GT1 or GT2 cars

Off the top of my head.

What motorsports are GM in?

They’ve already cut back the Corvette program and NASCAR is…well….

To be a world class company, you need to be in world class motorsports.

Every thing else is just NASCAR.

For Ferrari, for Porsche it makes sense. No one is going to buy a Camry because Toyota is dumping hundreds of millions of dollars per year into F1. And for GM, which should be concentrating on appliance cars, it distracts from what they should be doing.

So would you rather GM cut developement funds instead. GM needs to save cash. GM doesn’t have the luxury of being motorsports unless there is a direct payoff. They are facing bankruptcy despite their claims otherwise.

“Gosh, Tony, I hope there will BE Chevrolets to base your car upon in the future!”

For any manufacturer, NASCAR is utterly nothing but “marketing.” If it fits into the marketing budget, then I suppose it’s worth their while.

Otherwise, I don’t see that GM could possibly “learn” anything from any current form of motorsports, with the possible exception of anything having to do with the Corvette. Only if some form of alternative-energy series were developed, might GM get some kind of engineering benefit from its participation.

To be fair, though, essentially the same goes for any other manufacturer. Either the “technology” is stone-age, as in NASCAR, or it’s in an entirely different league compared to passenger vehicle development. Again, unless some alternative-energy series emerges, motorsport’s usual hunt for more horsepower just isn’t very relevant anymore. The technology of passenger vehicles is heading down an entirely different path.

Ford of Europe in its days of pain took too long to get out of the various racing schemes it was involved in, particularly F1 which didn’t bring anything to the bottom line. Once sorted then yes, reassess and enter the correct areas that actually bring something to the company or can be used like Ferrari and F1 to eventually get something onto the car on the street. GM should be doing the same with its interests, pull out make sure it is more stable then reassess in the coming years. Sema should stay as the after market and tuning market are huge opportunities that can’t be missed in these cash strapped days.

It seems that we can learn more from college kids racing solar powered vehicles and races where vehicles find their own way across the desert.

These events tell us which new ideas may have promise.

We don’t really need more vehicles that use most of their fuel to make noise and heat – we need vehicles that are efficient.

How much does GM lose a month overall? How much do they spend on media advertising? How much do they pay Pratt and Miller to run the ALMS/Le Mans Corvette program?

My guess is that racing is rather small line item in the grand scheme of things. Cutting it would be an all too public statment about their bottom line.

NASCAR isn’t the only racing that GM is involved in.

They are involved in the SCCA SpeedWorld challenge, where Cadillac won the Manufacturers’ Championship in the GT class in 2005 and 2007. I’m sure some of that success trickled down into the 08 CTS

Pontiac races in the Daytona Prototype class of Grand American racing, usisng a LS6-based engine. I’m sure the lessons learned from that engine trickled down into the rest of the LS lineup.

If GM was able to take something away from their own experience and use it to improve their product (especially on the 4 cylinder front) then I would say that their participation in those activities was a worthwhile endeavor.

Chevy also does drag races in the NHRA sport compact series with the 2.2-litre Ecotec engine. The late John Lingenfelter gets the credit for pulling unheard of amounts of power from that engine, but his pioneering work probably paved the way for the Ecotec turbos under the hoods of the high-performance models of the Sky, Solstice, Colbalt, and HHR.

The Corvette program should keep going, but they should stop running GT1 in the ALMS and run GT2 instead. There’s absolutely no sense racing against yourself all year. Go race against the Porsches and Ferraris and everyone else. Then a win actually means something.

There’s more to motorsports than NASCAR. GM is in almost every form of motorsports there is. Yes, they should cut the budget.

They’re at the top in almost every form of racing. They’ve nothing to prove.

Yes they do rally, off-road, dirt track, asphalt, everything.

F1? What’s that.

Last year I was trying to sell three of my house that I normally rent out. So I had multiple mortgages, electric and water bills and no rental income for 6 months. I was hemorrhaging cash every month. During that period I re-examined every expense and cut away. I cancelled my newspaper and all magazine subscriptions, cancelled cable, no high speed internet, I only purchased the cheapest foodstuffs sold in supermarkets (Ramen Noodles, chicken pot pies etc). GM needs to do the same, they can’t afford to dick around.

Postscript for myself, after six months of being unable to sell the house I have them all rented out and due to my earlier cost cutting I am banking more money every month than my salary at work. Its amazing what you can cut if you really cut everything that is not essential and its amazing on how much you really can save if you have to.

Racing makes better cars, end of story.

Just imagine how much better GM engines would be if they spent as much money in ALMS, WRC and Formula/Indy as do in racing series where carbureted V8s run around in circles? Super GT (Japan) and DTM (Germany) makes NASCAR look like a joke.

GM seems to be incapable of learning from anything, including history, racing, or basic economics class.

They might as well drop out, their not car people anyway. It’s too bad, their ALM program was one of the best things going for GM culturally (as in their corporate culture)-actually competing with other companies. Though the way GM operates I’m surprised they didnt’ run a Buick and a Pontiac in the same class as the ‘Vette.

Corvette Racing MUST CONTINUE.

Get out of NASCAR truck racing immediately.

Get out of NASCAR car races immediately, the CoT is a joke with absolutely no relation to production cars.

What are the chances of GM actually making decisions that will make sense?