Ripple Effects   September 28, 2007 Debbi Willis - SCR        Far be it from me to dull the beaming smile of the happiest driver I’ve ever seen who hasn’t been to victory lane in nearly two seasons, but there’s been a very big stone dropped in the lake of NASCAR recently with major ripple effects. A serious power shift has occurred and it’s really quite the coup for Toyota. Orchestrated quietly and announced properly with dignity in a press conference as it deserved, Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) parted ways with General Motors Chevrolet and announced their new association with Toyota. Sure, it’s ‘old’ news but meanwhile, GM Chevrolet watched 25% of their major power in NASCAR walk away for “more support”. Support is something GM has not truly provided for a long time to their teams but depended on these major powers to maintain their majority share in NASCAR for them, i.e. shared engine building support (such as the RCR/DEI program), mutual team suspension & aerodynamics studies (such as the old RAD program). Look out, the new kid on the block is in the game now, and Toyota plays differently and learns quickly.   J.D. Gibbs, president of JGR referred to the “big four” teams in NASCAR that belonged to Chevy several times, namely: Richard Childress Racing (established in 1969 but not racing as an owner until 1981), Hendrick Motorsports (establish in 1984), Dale Earnhardt Inc. (established in 1980 but not racing a team until 1996) and Joe Gibbs Racing (established in 1991). Looking at this list of impressive organizations, the power begins to whittle down. JGR has turned to Toyota, so now we have three. RCR and DEI have merged their engine programs as one resource so they could actually be considered one powerhouse, which leaves really two teams: Richard Childress Racing (RCR) and Hendrick Motorsports (HMS). Fortunately for GM, both these teams are diversified enough to support themselves while GM flounders and levels off their support. J.D. Gibbs referred to this fact often when discussing the “support” they needed to be able to compete. Obviously, he’s referring to dealerships and wineries that RCR, HMS and DEI all manage in addition to their race teams. Perhaps there’s an idea there to think about for JGR’s future.

Still while the nations ‘Big 3” automakers struggles with real sales, profits and major labor issues nationwide, their participation in the sport of stock car racing appears to at an all time low. So low in fact that one of the “Big Four” teams of NASCAR opted out after being courted by Toyota. While using the word “support” sounds professional and generally more important, it really translates to cold, bottom line cash in the teams’ budgets. J.D. Gibbs made no bones about the number of people dependent upon their organization for their livelihood and how important it was to make the right decision for all of them. Knowing that they’ve had a strong engine program prior to joining Toyota and also knowing that Toyota will take over that program, I wonder if any of those people were laid off or has JGR simply reorganized? Could JGR have worked out a detail in their contract with Toyota to integrate their engine personnel with Toyota’s engine building department in Costa Mesa?   Pooling their resources with Toyota would seem very wise on both parts as the JGR personnel could share past experience to apply to the Toyota engine design and development as well as learn the foreign engines’ quirks, shortcomings and blessings. Certainly this would benefit both JGR and Toyota and share the wealth with the lesser teams who struggled through Toyota’s growing pains this season. Wouldn’t this be a match made in heaven for both sides? Ultimately, engines are engines. Oversimplified of course, but all work on the same principles. It’s only a matter of adapting various styles to the variety of needs in a variety of circumstances and figuring out the correct formula for all those different circumstances and demands. In the end, it’s always a matter of how well the builder is able to tweak the specs for the most response and thus best performance. Toyota has actually taken the sponsorship role back to the original days of sponsorship when GM, Ford, Dodge all used to provide more tech support and parts, engines, and R& D (this really translates to a major portion of budget monies in the team budgets).. Unfortunately, times crunched and teams took over their own Research and Development (R&D) with a little help from the automakers and complacency set in. Budgets were cut further. Small teams began to align themselves with larger teams for ‘assistance’ so that the automaker could channel the really big money into the Big Four teams. Now it’s come back to bite them. And bite them even more it will!

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