[jeff burmeister]

Jeff, Can you please post the following on my behalf?

Thanks,
Garret


Rallists,

I wanted to let everyone in the rally community know that we will not be making a sponsorship announcement here at the SEMA show this week. Lest this raise any questions I want to fill everyone what is taking place.

Firstly, we do have a signed agreement with a major new partner for the ProRally Championship. We finalized this arrangement just prior to LSPR and were optimistic that we could put all of the pieces in place to make a proper announcement at the SEMA show which was just two weeks away at that time.

Unfortunately, at a show like SEMA where you could run a entire rally season if you had a nickel for every flat-screen plasma monitor that you see and there a million things going on, it is important to make these type of announcements right to have the impact that we all desire. Given the timing of our agreement, there were no available slots to host an official press conference at the show or to secure any alternate space and time at the show to do this type of announcement justice. Our only other option would have been to put a press release out amongst the hundreds of others in the media center. Both our new partner and we felt that it was more important to make the announcement right with proper signage, vehicle decals, video presentation, etc. in order to give people something to talk about.

Rest assured there will be an announcement soon. We are currently exploring a number of other venues and events that will provide an appropriate setting and access to the media and plan to make this announcement within the next 30 days.

Thanks you all for your enthusiasm and support of rallying and I?ll keep you posted on when and where this announcement will take place.

Garret D. Mudd

VP Marketing

Sports Car Club of America/SCCA Pro Racing

(edit to correct my title)

 

[Paul Jaeger]

Its nice to see an example of good communication from SCCA.
Thanks.
Paul Jaeger
PRIMO Stage Crews
For a Good Time, Call PRIMO!

 

[rallytaff]

What is "rallist?"

 

[Don Kennedy]

Stop being nit picky for crying out loud!

 

[Widget Codriver]

Cool!

Thank you Garrett, for writing a clear, understandable explanation of where we are at the moment and what we can expect, and thank you Jeff for being the bearer of good news.

Rally on!

[hr]

[p align=right]John Dillon
John @ WidgetRacing.com
www.WidgetRacing.com

 

[Lurch]

PRI?

 

[mwilliams]

hmmm.

Shouldn't someone (a series sponsor) with "the brand recognition of McDonalds"; the type of someone (a series sponsor) the rallists would be interested in landing as a series sponsor ALREADY be at SEMA in a major way and be able to pull people into their booth for an "exciting announcement"?

I truly do hope SCCA Rally lands a decent sponsor for 2004+ but I can't help but wonder why a VP level marketing person can't look forward 4 weeks and make the proper announcement setting. As a new series sponsor I would seriously consider what I just signed up for...pun intended.

 

[MDBodnar]

Thanks.

I think this post is great. I really doubt it is an empty promise, and if the sponsor determined that SEMA was bad timing than so be it.

I'll even go so far as to say, if the whole deal fell through and that information was posted too, I'd be happy with the knowledge.

Ofcourse if it happened that the every year for a few in a row, well we would be back where we started.

Thanks again, I am glad the SEMA rumours have been updated.

Regards,
Mike

 

[Morison]

>hmmm.
>
>Shouldn't someone (a series sponsor) with "the brand
>recognition of McDonalds"; the type of someone (a series
>sponsor) the rallists would be interested in landing as a
>series sponsor ALREADY be at SEMA in a major way and be able
>to pull people into their booth for an "exciting
>announcement"?

That's assuming the major sponsor is a company that is already related to the car industry. There is also some validity to teh 'lost in the noise' argument that any announcment simply becomes one of many at the show ...

 

[human turtle]

For those of you who have never been to a SEMA Show in Las Vegas it is quite simply information overload of the grandest scale. As a press person there on business in the past there was simply too much going on, usually at the same time as literally a half dozen other things I wanted to see or people I wanted to meet. To do a run of the mill announcement among the masses would be like pulling your pants down in New York's Time Square on New Years (Rockin') Eve, not even 1 half of one percent would notice what you did and even less would care (don't ask me how I know this).

It will have significantly more impact at the right place with the right people invited.

John Elkin
"Don't go where the road don't go."- Ringo Starr

 

[Reno Rally]

On a side note about SEMA, Ford had a RS8 on display which is the Euro Focus RS with a 5.0 V8 and rear drive....interesting...

Lurch is there anything we should or whould like to know about this car?

David

 

[mwilliams]

>That's assuming the major sponsor is a company that is
>already related to the car industry. There is also some
>validity to teh 'lost in the noise' argument that any
>announcment simply becomes one of many at the show ...

I guess my assumption was based on the thread a few weeks ago where SJ sid that there would be an announcement made at SEMA. I took this to mean that our "series sponsor" was already associated with the industry.

Because IMHO, SCCA really has no business being at SEMA and from what I can tell they are not on the list:
http://www.semashow.com/planner/exhibitor_list.asp

Let's face it though; who, besides _all_ of us, really cares about the series sponsor for ProRally?

 

[Brian J]

I have to agree with Mr. Elkin on this one. I went to SEMA a few years ago with the guys who ran the performance shop I hung out/raced out of. Between walking around like kids in a candy store and actually trying to get some business accomplished by finally getting to do face to face meetings with some of their distributors, it was total sensory overload. It would be very easy for the SCCA's announcement to be obscured amidst everything else that goes on at the show.

Regards,
Brian Johnson

 

[Lurch]

>On a side note about SEMA, Ford had a RS8 on display which
>is the Euro Focus RS with a 5.0 V8 and rear
>drive....interesting...
>
>Lurch is there anything we should or whould like to know
>about this car?
>
>David

If it came out of Dearborn, it didn't come out of the Product Devpmt. Center. We have had some cool Focus concepts along with the GT(40) and some other unmentionable projects, but I haven't seen this one.

 

[Morgan]

I just returned from SEMA and sensory overload is an understatement!!
It was the right decision not to make the announcement there

 

[Glenn Wallace]

Hindsight being 20/20, it would seem that planning to announce at SEMA wasn't a good plan.

 

[jandreini]

No, SCCA needed to put all its effort into hyping the new Drifting championship.

 

[steve]

I listen to PRI on my way home every day.

Maybe I will hear something about the deal. Probably on Marketplace.

I will let you know.

 

[Lurch]

"Performance Racing Industry" show

not

"Public Radio International"

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[steve]

:7 :7 :7 :7