Why Won’t Chevy Race a Nationwide Camaro? November 7, 2009
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Jeff Burton tests Chevrolet's version of the Nationwide Car of Tomorrow at Talladega Superspeedway. While Ford and Dodge will race pony cars, Chevy's sticking with the Impala.
Hours before Saturday’s Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, race fans are strolling through the track’s main concourse, collecting all the sponsor swag they can carry.
For manufacturer Chevrolet, it’s a perfect opportunity to market its products to the legion of race fans that will pack the stands of the Fort Worth track this weekend. At the display, race fans can climb in a number of vehicles from the Chevy stable, take their picture in front of Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Sprint Cup racecars and check out the automaker’s new hybrid plug-in car, the Volt.
Fans who sign a waiver and pass a breathalyzer test can test drive a number of Chevrolet vehicles, including the new Camaro. The new Camaro is a shining spot for parent company General Motors, a corporation whose imaged has some bumps and scraps on it from its struggle in the recession and bankruptcy reorganization.
Promoting the Camaro at TMS is a perfect fit for Chevy. It has a captivated audience in race fans and Chevrolet is pulling out all the stops to promote its brand, and the new Camaro to race fans.
“It’s an all-star for us,” said Chevy racing marketing manager Terry Dolan. “It really gets your blood rolling.”
Well, maybe not all the stops.
Last week, the four manufacturers that race in NASCAR unveiled their respective models of the new racecar the Nationwide Series will compete with in four races in the 2010 season – the so-called Nationwide Car of Tomorrow. While Ford and Dodge will race their Mustang and Challenger muscle cars, Chevrolet and Toyota opted to brand their racecars with the Impala and Camry badging.
Dolan said it wasn’t that the manufacturer didn’t consider giving its Nationwide COT the Camaro treatment. Engineers and designers tried it, but they weren’t pleased with the results. “We didn’t see the two [Nationwide COT and Camaro] as a complementary fit,” Dolan said.
NASCAR has a great opportunity in creating a unique identity for the Nationwide Series beyond its reputation of being “Cup Light” or “Triple-A NASCAR.” The sanctioning body knows this and knows the sport, the manufacturers and the teams can all benefit from a Nationwide Series that’s fueled by a pony car battle. But Chevy won’t get on board.
The problem, Dolan said, is a template-based vehicle like NASCAR stock cars aren’t conducive to creating styling unique to the car, “the risk wasn’t appropriate,” he said.
But the Nationwide COT Mustang and Challenger models are unique racecars that more closely resemble their production counterparts than any other racecar in recent NACAR history. If they’ve found a way to do it, Chevrolet could find a way to do it.
Ford driver Greg Biffle, who will get the opportunity to drive the new COT Mustang, said the Nationwide Series should be a pony car series. “I think they should have done it 10 years ago. Those are the cars that people recognize as performance cars,” he said.
Biffle said Ford has something to gain over Chevrolet by running the Mustang in a Camaro-less field.
“Why not have them as the racecars on the racetrack, especially since the identity is simply a badging and naming on the car,” he said.
Team owner Richard Childress, whose teams race Chevrolets, said the manufacturer doesn’t need NASCAR to sell Camaros.
“Right now, they’re selling all the Camaros they can build,” Childress said. “It was strictly a marketing strategy. That’s totally their call, and we’re going to run whatever they ask us to.”
Toyota driver Denny Hamlin said fans can identify with the Camry and while the Japanese manufacturer doesn’t have a muscle car model in its Toyota lineup, the company’s Lexus brand has sportier cars that would potentially make good Nationwide racecars. But, he added, he doesn’t think it matters to fans.
“Everyone identifies with the Camry and knows the Camry and it’s tough to say if you can put it in the same class as the Mustang and Camaro,” Hamlin said. “I don’t think the NASCAR fans are really going to car about that. The hard-core fans, it won’t matter to them.”
Dolan said Chevrolet will race the Camaro in other racing series where the cars more closely resemble the production counterparts. But the impact that will have on race fans is unclear because those series aren’t as popular or as well-followed as NASCAR.
Not racing the Camaro in the Nationwide Series won’t likely affect Chevrolets ability to sell them in the dealership. But when the Mustang and the Challenger hit the track next year, it will definitely feel like something is missing.
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