I wrote a letter to all the appropriate addresses I could find on Nissannews.com. I was bitchin about luck of support for Grand-Am team and how it's a poor desicion on the side of Nissan... To my surprise, 3 day later I've got an answer:

 

Interesting reply.Where is Dean Case located?

 

WOW, a real person from Nissan that actually speaks candidly!
This could break into a lot of topics...

 

I had an impression that Nissan didn't help at all in 2004... Feel like fool now

Also what does he mean "BEST grassroots program in the business as far as SCCA club racing is concerned."?

 

Sounds like a halfazz answer. I guess finishing in the top 10 and more so top 5 in every race doesn't matter. I've noticed that in there press releases they always state what happen decades ago more then what they are going to do or plan to. Currently they don't have any problem sponsoring a factory back spec-v in the ST series of GA that had a lousy finish at Daytona. Of course it's a business and the other manufactures, ie FORD, BMW, AUDI, Acura,.. aren't backing off their support for GA for lack of TV coverage or what not. Also, it doesn't appear that they will be in SPEED Challenge either this year. So what road racing series are they even in other than JGTC if they are so passionate about it?

 

Also that part about "business" is kind of wrong IMO. For me and passionate car peoples I know, it's very important to know that cars we own are in professional racing. Also I would imagine that people thinking about buying 2 seater sports coupe for $35K+ are not indifferent to the fact that it's real sport car and it's in real professional racing...

So it shouldn't be about direct money return. It should be about brand recognition and sales boost. As far as I know Nissan is doing extremely good in sales department. So why whould they say they didn't get return on they money?

 

What he means by grassroots is the scca club racing has good support from Nissan. They are more people who particiapte in this than any other form of motorsports. They also pay contingencies for pro solo as well. And since channels like the speedchannel no longer show anything but asscar (nascar) they monies that would be spent for advertising is mostly wasted. If speedchannel turned back into speedvision it would help. For those that recall speedvision was the one channel that did not show nascar except for high light and really old vidoes from the 60s & 70s. They use to cover the jgtc, british touring car and etc.
No all you get is asscar twenty four seven.
So I can see why Nissan redirected thier monies, no publicity.
It sucks, we should write SpeedChannel but thats not gonna happen.

 

Yes, speedchannel's variety of coverage is really depressing... I would really want to see german DTM series. Mika Hakkinen there this year... Any idea where I can get it? Some german sattelite channel?

 

We probably have to move to Germany with our great coverage of motorports

 

I would imagine it's possible to get german TV on dish here... Just got to know how

 

Yeah, I remember the news about Speed Channel's purchase by Fox (I think) a few years ago. Last weekend, I just wanted to sit back and watch some road racing, and all they had was NASCAR coverage all weekend.

I was also impressed that Dean Case even responded. It is true that sometimes, the number of participants sometimes outnumber the number of spectators. I was at Infineon Raceway to watch ALMS and the Speed World Challenge, and was surprised to see so few spectators. World Superbike draws a bigger crowd at Laguna Seca, and should draw an even bigger crowd this year since they're hosting MotoGP. But, the biker community should be much smaller than the road racer community, shouldn't it?

In a better world, we'd see more Japanese cars in the GT class (for SWC) and GS class (for GAC), but check out the bulletin:

http://www.speedvisionwc.com/competi...ppendixa-1.pdf

http://www.grandamerican.com/Events/...?SessionID=440

There's not a single Japanese car in either high power classes. The Touring and ST classes, however, are jam packed full of smaller displacement japanese cars. It seems like the Evo VIII, Sti, Z, S2000, R32's would all fall in a class in between GT and Touring. They're not competive enough for GT, GS but too much power for Touring, or ST.

 

We are currently working with Nissan Motorsports to get back into the game. At this time we both feel that with the new additions to the BMW and new FRPP purpopse built GAC Mustang the 350Z simply is not competitive in its current form per the rules.
We are working together (350EVO and Nissan Motorsports) to bring the car back to a competitive level for the GAC series.
We are currently working on a game plan with some parts such as the 3.9 final drive and some new parts that hopefully are going into production
That will help us out.
We are working on it.....it just may take a little time.

 

Oooohhhh, I cant wait for new 350EVO products!!!! Keep 'em coming!

 

Good to hear BJ.

 

I want some support from NNA!! SCCA T2 would be nice if there was some help from Nissan. What other classes, at the club level would be good?

 

"The best grassroots program in the business"? Hey Case, have you ever heard of Mazdaspeed and the Spec Miata series? Its hard to support road racing when your production cars aren't competitive. (non-tube fram GT cars, non GAC) Bottom line is NNA has still dropped the ball. How many fully sponsored RX8s are in ST this year? I am very impressed by what Schuitemaker was able to do, doing all the R&D themselves. Carlos, now that your profitable how about a couple of hundred thousand for the teams to create some brand recognition?

 

They probably think they have brand recognition. From the first Z. And it sufficient... Why keep pouring money into it

 

Also, if we want to send a group answer, we can do it. Something less spontaneous than my first letter. Something more productive. We know now Nissan will hear us.

 

The point here is that Nissan has supported road racing (Grand-Am, SCCA, etc.) now and in the past. Their level of support may not be what we would all wish for, however. They've made no bones of making their revised business philosophy perfectly clear: the company will not undertake any project without the potential to make money. That broadly stated philosophy allowed Nissan to survive and even thrive in an intensely competitive marketplace.

Now I'd love to see gobs of support for the 350Z in all forms of racing as well, but realistically, how does that make sense? Take a close look at ALL the cars in ALMS, SpeedVision Cup or Grand Am- most are privately-funded efforts with some associate sponsorship added here and there. This is the state of professional road racing today. Perhaps tomorrow might see a coherant formula that creates some synergy to attract a lot of media attention and sponsorships for teams. Then, I'd expect to see Nissan jump in with both feet.

Dean Case is accurate in stating that Nissan does more to assist with grassroots motorsports than the majority of companies. As an active SCCA National driver, I would contend that the contingency and parts program that Nissan Motorsports offers is about as good as it gets. Again, would I like to see more support? Certainly! But the fact is that Ford and Chevy could care less. Import favs like Honda and Toyota are a step lower and (if you look closely) only Mazda is on par with what Nissan offers. Granted, Mazda has gone a step further by getting sanctions for Spec Miata, Formula Mazda, etc. but you still have to pay to play!

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I know that Nissan Motorsports wants to see the 350Z in active Grand Am Cup competition. As BJ has reported, they will work with Nissan to get some rule changes in the works. But economic factors inside each of the teams are the primary reasons we aren't seeing those cars out on the track so far.

 

I think the Caddies, RX8s, and Audi RS6s were all factory supported. Ford now has the Stang motorsport from the factory. My disappointment is that the 2 GAC teams have made amazing strides for the 350Z and Nissan should want aid in there developement. I am completely ignorant to what went on w/ Performance/Unitech, but that is a sad statement that after the success they have had, and shelling out huge bucks for big name drivers, they are hanging it up.