SRT8 out for GTLM - letter to the race HQ

[Titan1969]

Sent a letter to SRT8 HQ, trying to raise awareness. Win on Sunday sell on Monday...

I wanted to thank the Chrysler division for its support of the SRT racing group and for its great showing at the Tudor events in 2014. It has been reported that Chrysler is ending this SRT team, however I hope the Dodge name will be back in the racing for a 2015 season.
I am a 40+ year old Gen X'er who grew up in Michigan watching my father and uncles race at Martin 131 drag way in Martin, MI. With that early upbringing in drag racing, my father was a diehard Mopar fan and passed on those genetics to myself.
I began drag racing at 16 years old with a Fury 426 max wedge, 360 Duster and eventually a '70 Dodge Challenger with a 440 CI + 8-71 BDS blower.
I really enjoyed watching the racing this year against Porsche, Corvette and BMW. While I understand financially it often doesn't make sense within the financial departments to carry these race teams, it does help sell the brand to the public.
I am an owner of a '95 Viper and '06 300C SRT8, furthering my commitment to the Chrysler/Dodge financial line.

Please forward this email to higher ups within the organization as you see fit, in the hope enough fans have asked for a '15 race team sponsored by Dodge.

thank you.

News: The move is part of Chrysler’s decision to reposition SRT as a performance sub-brand of Dodge, with all focus now on the Dodge brand’s product lineup. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Viper will retire from racing for good, but any future factory efforts will likely be with a Dodge-branded team.

“Our company has made a business decision to discontinue the SRT Motorsports Dodge Viper GTS-R racing program,” Chrysler design chief and the man in charge of the SRT Motorsports program Ralph Gilles said in a statement. “We are very proud of the amazing achievements our fantastic teams, drivers and partners have achieved on track the last few seasons.”

 

[VIPER GTSR 91]

This is old news and they are done as far as racing in GTLM. Within 72 hours of winning their series the plug was pulled on them. They have also heard the heat already from tons of Viper fans across the world.

 

[MoparMap]

It's definitely a tricky and sad situation. The Tudor series doesn't get the best exposure, so often times the people actively watching the races are already fans who own or want to own the cars. In that sense they're not really advertising the car, because the people seeking out the series to watch the car already know about it. Stuff like commercials that more of the mass public will see is likely a much better use of advertising money from a marketing standpoint. Drag racing is similar. Since you're a fan you're likely aware of how drag racing is often times pushed to stupid times of the day for air time on TV. They frequently have qualifying on stupid late like 11:00 pm running to 1 in the morning.

Until recently I didn't even know about the Trans Am series. When I saw the news that Dodge was entering a Challenger (and especially after I saw the car), I looked into the series to see where I could watch it. I was disappointed to find out there's no TV networks offering the races anywhere, it's pretty much internet only. If I was enough of a die-hard fan I'd still try to watch it or stream it to my TV, but frankly I'm lazy and don't want to go through the trouble. For the US being so big into motorsports, we have some pretty lousy options when it comes to watching our favorite cars racing on TV. If you don't like NASCAR you're pretty much out of luck. IndyCar isn't too hard to find, but it just doesn't do it for me as much as F1. Part of that is I don't really care to watch roundy-rounder racing as it's just kinda boring to me personally. IndyCar doesn't always run that, but it's still just not as exciting. I think the announcers have a lot to do with it. The F1 guys are just fun to listen to.