Automaker has over a century of motorsportexperience, and believes wins translate to car sales
By Andrew McCredie, Vancouver Sun - The collective groan of hundreds of thousands of race fans when Tony Kanaan slipped from the lead of Sunday's Indy 500 in the closing laps said it all.
That, and the slumped shoulders and silent stare of General Motor's North American president Mark Reuss, seated a few seats away from me in the air-conditioned Chevrolet hospitality suite high above the famed brickyard. (I say air-conditioned as the outside temperature was hovering in the 35 C range, the hottest ever in the 96 runnings of the legendary race.)
With Kanaan's Chevy-powered KV Racing car outpaced by three Honda-powered open-wheelers in the final laps, Chevrolet's hoped for triumphant return to the Indianapolis Speedway melted like so much of the ice-cream consumed by the speed-hungry horde ringing the two-and-a-half mile track.
When the checkered flag flew, it was two Honda's up front - winner Dario Franchitti and runner-up Scott Dixon - followed by Kanaan. Had Takuma Sato not spun out in Turn 2 on the final lap in a courageous, if not ill-advised wheel-to-wheel duel with Franchitti, it would have been a Honda podium sweep.
Forty-eight hours earlier GM president Reuss was holding court in a hotel conference room in downtown Indianapolis, confident his company's return to the IndyCar series as an engine manufacturer after a six-year absence would end in the victory circle.
"My dream is to win here this weekend and next week at the Detroit Grand Prix," Reuss said. "These next two weekends are the emotional turning point of my career."
Perhaps that was being a little dramatic, but the passionate Reuss is clearly as heavily invested personally in Chevrolet's diverse racing programs as the company itself.
Regardless of the outcome of this Sunday's race in Detroit - call it a home game for GM - Reuss can at least take solace in the company's sales figures. Selling a record 4.7 million vehicles in 2011 - including taking the top-selling car and top-selling sports car titles - in 2012 Chevrolet is off to its best first quarter sales in its history (1.8 million, or a new Chevy sold every 6.6 seconds).
For Reuss, there's a direct correlation between racing on Sunday and selling on Monday.
"When we have success on the track we have success in the showroom," he said of a sentiment that is in the very DNA of the company.
Six years before the first year the Indy 500 was run in 1911, Louis Chevrolet toured the Midwest as a daredevil driver along with Carl G. Fisher, who four years later, in 1909, began building his brick-paved track on the outskirts of Indianapolis.
The year of that inaugural Indy 500, Louis Chevrolet and Billy Durant incorporated the Chevrolet Motor Car Co. in Detroit, and in 1915 Chevrolet competed in his first Indy 500. His brother Gaston won the race in 1920.
"I don't think you can have a successful brand like Chevrolet if you go in and out of motorsport," continued Reuss, citing Chevrolet's absence from IndyCar in recent years as a problem on a number of levels.
But now with Chevrolet engines back in IndyCars, he reasoned, "we're going to sell more cars because of this racing program."
Just as the company founder saw value in campaigning race cars, Chevrolet's current braintrust see great things coming from the IndyCar engine program, which features small-block V6s with direct fuel injection.
Said Reuss: "We have to have technological innovation in racing, and the leap to direct injection engines will pay big dividends in our passenger vehicles."
In addition to the technological advances in engines and aerodynamics gleaned from racing, Reuss cited image awareness and marketing opportunities as other compelling reasons to participate in motorsport. He added that 33 per cent of sales leads come from motorsports.
In addition to IndyCar, Chevrolet is involved in many other high-profile racing series, including NASCAR, American LeMans, NHRA, Grand Am Road Racing, FIA World Touring and NASCAR Trucks.
Everything from Corvettes to Cruzes are campaigned in that large and diverse stable of race cars, ensuring that whatever your budget, there's a Chevy on a track that can also be in your driveway.
"It is," said Reuss, "who we are."
That, and the slumped shoulders and silent stare of General Motor's North American president Mark Reuss, seated a few seats away from me in the air-conditioned Chevrolet hospitality suite high above the famed brickyard. (I say air-conditioned as the outside temperature was hovering in the 35 C range, the hottest ever in the 96 runnings of the legendary race.)
With Kanaan's Chevy-powered KV Racing car outpaced by three Honda-powered open-wheelers in the final laps, Chevrolet's hoped for triumphant return to the Indianapolis Speedway melted like so much of the ice-cream consumed by the speed-hungry horde ringing the two-and-a-half mile track.
When the checkered flag flew, it was two Honda's up front - winner Dario Franchitti and runner-up Scott Dixon - followed by Kanaan. Had Takuma Sato not spun out in Turn 2 on the final lap in a courageous, if not ill-advised wheel-to-wheel duel with Franchitti, it would have been a Honda podium sweep.
Forty-eight hours earlier GM president Reuss was holding court in a hotel conference room in downtown Indianapolis, confident his company's return to the IndyCar series as an engine manufacturer after a six-year absence would end in the victory circle.
"My dream is to win here this weekend and next week at the Detroit Grand Prix," Reuss said. "These next two weekends are the emotional turning point of my career."
Perhaps that was being a little dramatic, but the passionate Reuss is clearly as heavily invested personally in Chevrolet's diverse racing programs as the company itself.
Regardless of the outcome of this Sunday's race in Detroit - call it a home game for GM - Reuss can at least take solace in the company's sales figures. Selling a record 4.7 million vehicles in 2011 - including taking the top-selling car and top-selling sports car titles - in 2012 Chevrolet is off to its best first quarter sales in its history (1.8 million, or a new Chevy sold every 6.6 seconds).
For Reuss, there's a direct correlation between racing on Sunday and selling on Monday.
"When we have success on the track we have success in the showroom," he said of a sentiment that is in the very DNA of the company.
Six years before the first year the Indy 500 was run in 1911, Louis Chevrolet toured the Midwest as a daredevil driver along with Carl G. Fisher, who four years later, in 1909, began building his brick-paved track on the outskirts of Indianapolis.
The year of that inaugural Indy 500, Louis Chevrolet and Billy Durant incorporated the Chevrolet Motor Car Co. in Detroit, and in 1915 Chevrolet competed in his first Indy 500. His brother Gaston won the race in 1920.
"I don't think you can have a successful brand like Chevrolet if you go in and out of motorsport," continued Reuss, citing Chevrolet's absence from IndyCar in recent years as a problem on a number of levels.
But now with Chevrolet engines back in IndyCars, he reasoned, "we're going to sell more cars because of this racing program."
Just as the company founder saw value in campaigning race cars, Chevrolet's current braintrust see great things coming from the IndyCar engine program, which features small-block V6s with direct fuel injection.
Said Reuss: "We have to have technological innovation in racing, and the leap to direct injection engines will pay big dividends in our passenger vehicles."
In addition to the technological advances in engines and aerodynamics gleaned from racing, Reuss cited image awareness and marketing opportunities as other compelling reasons to participate in motorsport. He added that 33 per cent of sales leads come from motorsports.
In addition to IndyCar, Chevrolet is involved in many other high-profile racing series, including NASCAR, American LeMans, NHRA, Grand Am Road Racing, FIA World Touring and NASCAR Trucks.
Everything from Corvettes to Cruzes are campaigned in that large and diverse stable of race cars, ensuring that whatever your budget, there's a Chevy on a track that can also be in your driveway.
"It is," said Reuss, "who we are."
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