What was to have been the 2013 Dodge NASCAR entry (r) sits alongside the street version of the Dodge Charger.
In what a top executive described as “Clearly an extremely difficult decision,” Dodge is pulling out of NASCAR, the maker announced Tuesday afternoon, confirming reports that had first surfaced on the website run by the popular race series earlier in the day.
The decision to abandon what is the most widely followed motorsports program in the U.S. was the belated result of the decision by Team Penske to abandon Dodge and sign on with its arch-rival Ford Motor Co. That unexpected setback, last March, left the smaller brand frantically searching for a new team and sponsors just as was ready to begin testing an all-new car for the 2013 NASCAR season.
After months of effort, no effective solution came together, a senior Chrysler executive lamented during a Tuesday conference call with reporters, leaving the Dodge brand no option but to pull out.
“Cash,” insisted Ralph Gilles, the head of Chrysler corporate motor sports operations, “was not the issue.” Instead, he repeatedly stressed, the effort to replace the Penske team had to be seen as “a multi-piece puzzle. We couldn’t, unfortunately, put together a structure that made competitive sense for next year.”
The loss of Penske, which was lured away by the offer of a lucrative, multi-year contract with Ford, left Gilles and his motorsports operations “working literally night and day,” meeting with a variety of possible new teams and sponsors to salvage the 2013 NASCAR effort. But nothing appeared to provide all the solutions necessary.
A clearly disappointed Gilles left open the possibility that Dodge might yet work with one of the smaller NASCAR teams currently using its vehicles in the stock car series. If that were to happen, however, there would only be minimal “in-kind” support, not a full-on sponsorship deal.
Nonetheless, it appeared clear from the executive’s comments that the automaker is still hoping to stage a comeback at some point. While few still believe the old adage “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” remains valid, there is still a general consensus that the sport’s incredibly loyal fans generate traffic, especially for a successful team.
As a result, “We don’t know” how much of an impact the NASCAR news will impact Dodge at the showroom, acknowledged Gilles, “but we know there’ll be a few fans out there who’ll revolt.”
Ironically, prior to Penske’s decision to bolt for Ford, Dodge had roughly tripled its support budget for NASCAR marketing efforts.
It’s actually not the first time Chrysler corporation has been left without a flag to fly in the NASCAR series. It pulled out of the stock car circuit in 1977 and didn’t formally return until 2001.
In recent years, Dodge had steadily pulled back on the breadth of its team support, in part due to the increasing financial troubles that led parent Chrysler into bankruptcy in 2009. But there has also been a general consolidation among the teams on the NASCAR circuit, Gilles stressed.
The first sign of trouble – after the defection of Penske, that is – came when Dodge announced it would miss a critical day of track testing. But the final decision to pull out was made only last Friday, Gilles revealed.
While the executive – who also serves as Chrysler’s head of design – left open a return to NASCAR in the future, he stressed that Dodge would have to “go to whiteboard” and start strategizing its stock car plans all over again.
Who can be surprised by this? In my view, Dodge and Chrysler never had the dedication and funds to make the investment worthwhile, nor the realization of what it takes to succeed in NASCAR. You “have to do your time” in NASCAR, invest vast amounts in marketing $$ and other non-on-track expenses, stroking major egos and waiting for “you turn”. It isn’t that NASCAR decides who wins, it’s that you don’t get any breaks on rule interpretation and you don’t get access to the top teams: bottom line, you don’t win.
The new European bosses will have looked at NASCAR with complete bewilderment, and they will have asked where’s the return. Chevrolet/GM spends as much in NASCAR (in aggregate) as the top OEMs spend on F1. Were Dodge to spend like Chevrolet (thereby pretty much guaranteeing success), the Europeans would have a cow: where’s the return on investment?
The Penske defection was the last straw and even if Dodge didn’t want to believe it, Dodge was a dead man walking from that moment on. Dodge won’t be back in NASCAR in our lifetime no matter what they say now.
Hi, Rex,
It’s pretty obvious that the Penske/Ford move both took Dodge by surprise and left it with little room to maneuver. And the complexity and cost of trying to come back with an alternative was simply too much for the maker. I am not convinced Dodge will completely walk away. Recall, Chrysler/Fiat CEO Marchionne considers himself a Canadian — with clear exposure to and understanding of NASCAR — and thus may be willing to accept the price tag, especially as he seems intent on doing what’s necessary to build a solid base here for both sides of the company. But whether Dodge can come up with a workable plan is extremely uncertain and they may have no choice but to shrug and stay on the sidelines — as they did from 1977 to 2001.
Paul A. Eisenstein
Publisher, TheDetroitBureau.com