[tifosi77]

I was just thumbing through tivo (I am gone about 8 months a year so I set it to record all the rally and f1 coverage) only to find that within a two week period I could watch the same usac race at least twice and sometimes three times! Now I think that everyone can agree that speed does not have enough programming to fill a day up and that is the reason that they have to repeat a lot of races. It sure must be easy to convince a sponsor that your team is a good investment when you are going to be on television at least two or three times for each race you run, that is really bang for the buck advertisement. Now the questions is why can't we get them to run scca coverage at least three or four times for each pro event and at least in a timely manner. now for speed it would have to make sense and that eans that sponsors would have to fork over cash but between dodge, subaru, mitsubishi, fram, and hawk I think that there are more than enough sponsors that would be up to pony up a little $$ since there advertising is already on every car and I beleive it would be more effective then just having it on the sides of cars. Hell subaru shows a commercial every ten minutes on speed these days even during NASCAR eents on't you think they would be more keen on buying spots where their product could be associated with excitement and winning? I thought the motto was "win on sunday and sell on monday" I think we all want rallying to grow (though there are some that clearly do not) because it means better events for us and more popularity makes it easier to find sponsors that will help foot the bill for our hobby. Frankly Rally is not really a made for tv sport but neither is hockey (anyone that has been to a hockey game will agree that it is not a television sport there is too much you miss when you are just following the puck on tv) we need to provide sponsors with a return on their investment and competitors need to see the benefit of major sponsor involvement. I think we as competitors need to be proactive and not let ourselves be victims of inept leadership, sanctioning bodies, or organizers. Manufacturerer involvement is a key selling point since it shows potential sponsors and technical partners that there must be value in this sport if a major car manufacturer is involved and spending wads of cash to field a team. Let us not forget that the Nextel NASCAR association was the result of a cold call, NASCAR was able to find a title sponsor move out from under the tobacco (spelling is correct I hope) ban and find a technology sponsor. This is from a series that still uses carbs and 4 speeds. I think that if we were to get some of the club rallies on speed that would be great you cannot tell me that the coverage would be worse then watching the late night dirt track round from ketchum idahoe! IF anyone has seen some of the Gorman videos the production is not half bad and would not be any worse than anything else that I have seen on speed or fox sports world . Well I know no one has the time or the budget or wants to expend the effort to go out there and film, well I will make it easier on you if you film it on mini dv or DV format and send it to me with the entry list and a small typed story I will edit it when I am not working and would be happy to help since doing nothing and complaining on the internet has gotten us nowhere perhaps we can at least get some local television coverage of even public access I am sure the local news could squeeze it in between the oldest woman on the street and the dog spa. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution maybe this can get us moving. CARS, NASA, SCCA, USAC all is welcome and at worst you get something nice to try and sell your sponsors. peopel can reach me jeff 9at0 chasteautomotive.com