GRAND-AM: Owning The Story
As most auto manufacturers have continued to cut and carve away at their motorsports budgets since the global economy fell in its ear in 2008, one marque – one of the smallest on the international stage – has not only held its ground, they’ve dug in and have kept their auto racing programs going at full force.
As Robert Davis, Mazda’s Senior Vice President of Product, Quality, and Research tells it, maintaining the appearance of calm in the middle of a financial storm is an art all by itself. Davis admits that even Mazdaspeed’s budget has been lightened, but it has only forced his staff to tighten their belts in order to keep the multitude of open-wheel and sportscar programs they support moving forward.
“Well, I appreciate anyone that has noticed we’ve carried on with the same programs and the same commitment, but we’ve been forced to make cuts just like everyone else has. Our budget from 2008 to 2009 got cut 58% to be exact. And it was through the help of a lot of great partners that we’ve been able to maintain our position in motorsports. Our partners have been willing to share in the financial burden and the reward has been great. Management recognized that for the 2010 programs, and we were able to carry forward the same budget we had in 2009. And certainly it’s hard but it’s not impossible. I’m lucky – I have a great CFO who gets it, who, if you asked him outside of his CFO hat, would say we need to invest more in motorsports. And he’s not even a motorsports guy. He just intrinsically knows in his heart that it’s the right thing for the brand.”
Passion for Mazda’s ladder system in the United States – one where the manufacturer seeds and funds the earliest stages of karting all the way to top-tier sportscar programs in the Rolex GT category – is central to what the brand represents. But Davis says that no matter how much enthusiasm Mazda’s senior management might have for motorsports, providing hard data on its benefit was essential to keeping the same level of funding.
“My CFO said, ‘take the guesswork out of this, we all feel this way but we might be too close to it, so find a way to measure it.’ We hired an outside firm to put together a comprehensive survey – the people taking the survey didn’t know it was motorsports related. Motorsports was so buried into the survey results that they never even knew that the endgame was trying to measure motorsports because it was done in conjunction with normal marketing research to measure the effect of different marketing programs. But he is the one who talked with us and said, hey, let’s get something standardized so we can look at it. We all sensed it was the right thing but give us some dimensions. Actually it was done before the crash so it was kind of his way to say, hey, give me a reason to invest more money versus less. And the output ended up being a way to save almost everything we do.”
The survey allowed Mazda to key in on specific models that owners felt were sporty, and helped them to tailor the aftermarket offerings through Mazdaspeed. Beyond corporate funding for Mazda’s motorsports activities, Davis highlighted Mazdaspeed’s importance in supporting the ladder system.
“Our system is built from the ground up. You ask how we were able to enhance or keep our grassroots programs, and it’s because those people buy cars and they buy parts from Mazdaspeed. Those business units are very well measured. We know
the gross profit on those cars and parts and we know if we didn’t have it going that they wouldn’t be buying from us. That foundation allows us a big latitude. It’s a big chunk of our budget. It’s about – net profit on the cars and the parts is about 30% of our budget that management allows us to deal with. So it’s a big part of our budget. So when we say, hey, we want to enhance, we want to do a program like USF2000, for example, we say we’ll sell x parts and generate y amount of net profit in the investment. Here’s the investment and it’s a good business case. And because of our overall size we’re able to make that case.”
I’ve long been intrigued by Mazda’s multi-tiered open-wheel ladder. From the aforementioned karting, to Skip Barber cars, to USF2000, to Star Mazda, and until its demise earlier this week, the Atlantic Championship, Mazda has gone out of its way to associate itself with Indy-style cars, when simply sticking to touring and GT cars would seem like a more natural fit.
Davis says they see things differently.
“Let’s face it, race cars drive and feel like our streetcars. And having that credential is important to us and that credential probably isn’t specific to closed-wheel or open-wheel: it’s just racing. So we probably look at it a little different in the big picture. The on-track presence, regardless of what it is, is important for us. And that’s why we’re into karting, for example. It’s really not directly tied to streetcars but the presence in go-karting is important because it breeds and facilitates involvement with our brand by those racers and their families. A lot of people race in open-wheel, and we want to be there to support them.”
On Mazda’s already packed open-wheel ladder, the announcement of the addition of a new rung for 2010, the USF2000 Championship, came as a bit of a surprise to me. Holding their ground was the original goal for Mazda, but expanding their footprint in motorsports seemed overly ambitious in this economy. Helped by the sales of Mazda MZR engines to power the series, Davis said is an easy decision to make.
“We had a lot of questions on why we went with Dan Andersen’s revived USF2000 program. We knew that the progression from the Skip Barber car to a Star Mazda, while the next Michael Schumacher or Sebastian Vettel might be able to do it, it was too big of a step for most drivers. That step used to be filled by Formula BMW and it needed to be reestablished with something else. Dan Anderson has been a great partner with us for a long time with his Star Mazda team so it was a natural fit. The racer in us allows us to see the landscape of where we need to go and who we need to be associated with.”
The main topic of interest for the Homestead-Miami race today is Mazda’s placement of both of their 2009 open-wheel champions in the GRAND-AM Rolex Series. Such a lateral move for youngsters with visions of Indy 500 and F1 glory struck me as rather bold. With the ladder system often rewarding the champion of one series a free ride in the next higher category, Mazda faced a dilemma with Atlantic champion John Edwards and Star Mazda champion Adam Christodoulou
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Posted: March 7th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS.
Tags: alabama bed and breakfast, Barber Motorsports