Ask just about anyone walking down the street what NASCAR, IndyCar or Formula 1 is and it’s pretty much guaranteed they will not only know of the sport, but likely even know a driver or two. Ask the same people about Rolex Daytona Prototypes or Le Mans and chances are they will draw a blank. So is the secret of sportscar racing.
Now I haven’t been around racing for all that long – less than a decade. But, I have been led to understand that sportscar racing used to be a huge, fan-focused sport and it saddens me that this is no longer the case (if it ever was). When people ask why our racing has so few fans – why people aren’t interested in sportscars, I always tell them the same thing – blame the business model.
You see, sportscar racing is a competitor-funded enterprise. The competitors and the companies they own or hold a stake in (or the companies that teams know well and have convinced for sponsorship dollars) are the ones that cover the costs to run the events, pay for the teams, race cars and development. Prize money is little or sometimes nonexistent, and even a winning car often doesn’t even break even on the weekend with the prize money.
Why so few fans? Because there is no need for them. The advertising effort to push and educate fans into the sportscar racing world is not happening, or certainly not at the level of IndyCar or NASCAR. It’s not happening because it doesn’t need to happen. It’s less work and more profitable (at least in the short term) to let the teams find the money and cover the expenses than it is for the series to build a huge fan base with which to leverage advertisers. It’s not that fans don’t love sportscars – in fact I truly believe they are the most exciting, and certainly the most relevant cars in racing.
I mean no disrespect to any other form of racing out there – but watching cars that are essentially the same as a car you can buy off the showroom floor – Ferraris, Audis, Porsches and BMWs all smashing into each other and making bold and aggressive passes for hours on end – watching the strategy of endurance races play out, or the intensity of sprint races – it’s a beautiful, exciting and relevant thing.
Sportscar racing isn’t popular because the series, the media, and the teams don’t do enough to educate fans and get them to the track. And without fans (a LOT of fans) you lose manufacturer support. Once the manufacturers leave a series – it is not a “pro” series anymore. Real research and development will not happen and many of the racing developments that translate to road cars will stop.
This article may be more of a rant than anything else, but I would love nothing more than to see a big marketing push, especially in Canada, to educate the public about sportscar racing. Our automotive enthusiasts should know sportscar drivers just as they do NASCAR or F1 drivers, they should understand the way the races work as well as understand the differences among the cars. The media should cover sportscar racing as they do open-wheel and NASCAR. It’s a situation where the more fans know, the more they will enjoy watching the racing, and the more compelled they will be to follow the series in the future.
Really, it’s a snowball effect. The more fans and media there are, the more manufacturer support there will be. The more manufacturer support, the more fans, and the more media! So where do we start?
The teams need to do their part by handing out hero cards, taking pictures with fans, sharing Facebook and Twitter accounts and keeping fans connected and updated. They need to connect with their local car clubs for the brand of car they race and set up big meets at the races (car corrals) with the support of the race tracks.
Sportscar Series need to hand out brochures that explain how the series works, have TVs placed throughout the paddock with standings, driver intros and previous race highlights playing so the fans can become engaged. They need to have flags, banners and announcements that guide the fans to the paddock and pits at appropriate times. They need to promote the race weeks prior with promise of excitement and drama. They need to reach out to new outlets with exciting racing news, not the same old bland post-race press releases.
The media needs to invest in sportscar racing and make more of an effort to tell the story, rather than just list off the top three drivers in each class. They need to put cameras in places no one puts cameras, and follow a team or two for a weekend, to capture the real story.
The manufacturers need to support private teams with occasional engineer support and parts at cost, in exchange for a more professional image and some promotional work from the teams. They need to support the advertising potential teams can offer, rather than being afraid of associating themselves with anything but multimillion dollar race teams.
The real secret of sportscar racing is that none of this is secret. It just needs to happen.
Photography by Gerry Marentette
