Photo Credit: Richard Prince for Chevy Racing
This is a blog post that has nearly been written three times since the inaugural TUDOR United SportsCar Championship began last year, and after Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen, I’ve decided not to hold back my feelings for how I believe Corvette Racing/Team Chevy PR is undermining its core fan base in support of the Corvette Daytona Prototypes.
As Dennis Miller says, “I don’t want to go on a rant, but…”
First and foremost, Corvette Racing as a brand was built with GT cars. Fans connect to the C7.Rs cars because they represent our street cars. There’s the technological transfer from C7.Rs to C7s that we have all bought into and the cascade engineering principles Doug Fehan and Co preach every race weekend to the Corvette corral choir. Win on Sunday, buy on Monday? Not with a Corvette DP. I don’t understand Corvette Racing’s emphasis on the Corvette DPs from a fans point of view. Most of us have years invested in following the GT cars and now we are we are being forced to find our race coverage outside the team because of the focus on the DP cars.
During a race week, fans count on the insider knowledge that the Corvette Racing twitter account shares. And on race day, it’s especially important if you want to follow the race and you are away from the TV. Even worse, you are watching the race on Fox Sports 1 and then the race coverage shifts to Fox Sports 2 and you don’t have access to that channel to watch the race live, then Corvette Racing’s twitter account is even more important.
Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen was going pretty good until early in the final hour when Oliver Gavin in the No.4 Corvette C7.R got tied up with a Porsche and ended up breaking the steering on his C7.R. Here was the tweet from Corvette Racing:
Olly is off at Turn 1. Says car understeered and steering is broken. #Corvette #C7R
— Corvette Racing (@CorvetteRacing) June 28, 2015
And that was it for the C7.R coverage from Watkins Glen for the rest of the day. No word that the No.4 Corvette was officially retired or even more egregious was that Corvette Racing’s own twitter account didn’t acknowledge that the No.3 Corvette C7.R finished GTLM in fourth place.
But we did have several updates on the race for the P1 finish including this final congratulatory tweet celebrating the win by Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante in the No.90 Corvette DP:
In the end, @RWestbrook1 and @ValianteM weathered the conditions at @WGI! @sdrmotorsports @TeamChevy @UnitedSportsCar pic.twitter.com/qBeZQ7dWUi
— Corvette Racing (@CorvetteRacing) June 28, 2015
This is just the latest example of what happens when Corvette Racing isn’t in contention for the race win.
We saw this happen at last three times last year as the races ended at COTA, Road America and Petit Le Mans, Corvette Racing’s twitter account fails to update fans on how the C7.R finished in its class. (Last year at Petit Le Mans, the C7.Rs didn’t even get a tweet about their qualifying results).
Like last year, the C7.Rs have started strong and so coverage has mostly been consistent until you take away the podium finish. The moment they falter, it’s out of sight, out of mind for the C7.Rs.
When you couple that with the fact that TV coverage almost always focuses on the Prototype class and then who’s winning the other classes, unless the C7.Rs are in contention, you can have an almost complete blackout of C7.R news.
After each race, Corvette Racing will send out a press release updating fans and media with the results and quotes from the drivers. Corvette Racing has combined their wrap up press releases of the C7.R results with the Corvette DP as well. If the C7.R doesn’t win, but a Corvette DP does, the headlines go to the Corvette DP. And when Corvette Racing sends out that press release, sometimes we’re lucky to get a photo the C7.R in action. Other times, we only get the Corvette DP photo.
Another issue I have is how Corvette Racing’s website is woefully out of date when it comes to multi-media. The photo galleries have only been updated twice since the beginning of last year’s season!! Most fans have no idea about the photos on the Chevrolet media site and despite popular opinion, not everyone is on Facebook. But even it you are on Facebook, you will still be out of luck. This weekend on Facebook.com/TeamChevy, the TUDOR series-leading No.3 C7.R as well as the Le Mans winning No.4 C7.R didn’t even make the site. Not one photo. What a joke.
Fyi, of the 17 photos from Watkins Glen that went up this weekend on the Chevy’s Racing website, only four were C7.R related.
I say all this as both a media professional but most importantly as a fan who loves the team and all they represent. The change of emphasis to the DPs may only be happening because they are doing better in their class than the C7.Rs are doing in GTLM. Perhaps is corporate driven by Chevy (Team Chevy) to go with the winner. But considering that Corvette Racing was built on the success of the GT cars, is supported by Corvette owning customers and has the ability to directly impact sales of new Corvettes (like the 2016 Corvette C7.R Edition), its PR department should prioritize its commitment to the C7.Rs over the Corvette DPs no matter what the outcome.
Fans that we talk with who passionately follow Corvette Racing have noticed a decline in C7.R coverage during the race weekends in favor of the prototypes and frankly we don’t think that’s right.
Editor’s Note:
Jim Campbell, Chevrolet’s Vice President of Performance Vehicles and Motorsports, reached out to us this afternoon about today’s blog post and I appreciated the call. Jim listened to my concerns and I hope he understands the passion we have for the C7.R as well as the staff at Corvette Racing. Jim does take some exception to the fact that I called the Corvette DP ‘not a Corvette’, and I can understand his reasoning behind his support as he’s been such an integral part of Chevrolet racing since 1999 and the Corvette DP Program falls under his leadership. He did also state that communication can be better through Corvette Racing’s twitter account and pledged to make that happen.
He also tweeted the following to Corvette Racing fans:
Appreciate feedback on @CorvetteRacing stream. Always looking for ways to improve coverage during races. Thanks for your passion!
— Jim Campbell (@CampbellJim) June 29, 2015
Related:
Corvette Racing at Watkins Glen: No.3 Corvette C7.R Finishes Fourth in the Wet
Corvette Racing at Watkins Glen: Points Pay Off for Starting Positions
[PIC] Corvette Racing Celebrates their Triple Crown Wins with a Team Photo
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amen!!!!
The CorvetteRacing.com website is maintained by the National Corvette Museum, via volunteer labor. It is updated with any press releases and photos sent to media by Chevrolet Racing. We are working on a new site design, but welcome any additional volunteers who in the future would like to contribute to it with articles and photos.
The drivers do a better job of operating social media accounts and getting content out there than the official account. Jan and Oliver seem to have their own social media handlers that keep their Twitter accounts rolling throughout a race weekend while Oliver, Tommy and Antonio are all very good about giving personal accounts on their accounts.
[…] Keith also calls out a subject tgat Corvette race fans have complained about for the past few years: the completely inadequate TV coverage provided by Fox Sports and the way FOX uses the races to help them get cable companies to pick up their Fox Sports 2 channel, a channel that isn’t even available to most cable subscribers. Living in the Motor City, Fox Sports 2 isn’t even offered by our cable provider, Cox and I’ve tried to get them to add it for two years but my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. It is a disgrace the way USCC fans are jerked around by Fox in order to catch even parts of a race. Take a minute and read Keith’s story. It is well worth the time and then make your voices heard. Oh yeah, I forgot the Corvette Racing site – http://www.corvetteracing.com = offers no way of contacting them via email, typical for the poorly designed site! So you’ll have to be pretty vocal to be heard but Corvette Racing owes its loyal committed fan base a lot more in this area than we are getting. You can read Keith’s story here: Corvette Racing’s PR Coverage Undermines Its Core Fan Base […]
[…] Unlike Keith’s commentary I do not take issue with the information on the DP cars. There are racing fans that enjoy that racing as well and there needs to be a site that deals with that as well. And the DP coverage on the Corvette Racing site is as poor as the coverage of the GTLM class. In short the Corvette Team, Drivers and Fans deserve far more than a “phone it in” site. Put a little time and effort into making the site reflective of the team it represents. Take a minute and read Keith’s story. It is well worth the time and then make your voices heard. Oh yeah, I forgot the Corvette Racing site – http://www.corvetteracing.com = offers no way of contacting them via email, typical for the poorly designed site! So you’ll have to be pretty vocal to be heard but Corvette Racing owes its loyal committed fan base a lot more in this area than we are getting. You can read Keith’s story here: Corvette Racing’s PR Coverage Undermines Its Core Fan Base […]
Corvette has been dropping the ball a lot lately. We were at the Watkins Glen race. They have a huge truck just trying to get sales leads from some computers. Guess what they didn’t have at Watkins Glen though. Any sort of merchandise at all, while most other teams had tents or trailers there to let fans who want to give them their money and show support do it. I planned on getting both of my kids some merchandise, and so did their grandfather. Seems they don’t care much anymore. A few years back they had plenty of merch at Limerock. At Watkins glen this year, absolutely nothing while even Privateer Teams like Dempsey or Flying Lizard had places for fans to get merch. We asked the women at the Corvette Sales Lead trailer (thats what I’ll call it), and they said they got over 100 people asking the same question.
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