Customer racing programs. Any good stories, pics, etc.?

Nice video.

 

Audi's program is similar to Porsche's. As a privateer, it's a good deal (if anything in racing can be considered a deal). The most important aspect, to me, is the spares trailer, which reduces your inventorying/storage/transport costs considerably.

I was told the FNA was planning the same sort of support for the 458GTs, but I haven't followed up on that. It's possible that the ALMS/GrandAm merger put those plans on hold.

CW

 

Ferrari has very good dedicated technical support at the North American races (Tudor / Pirelli World Challenge). The spares availability isn't as good as Porsche for the Tudor races or probably Audi for the PWC races, but they have a bunch of random things. If there were more Ferrari's in either series there'd be more spares... as it stands the teams bring a lot of their own and rely mostly on the technical support on site.

-mike

 

Sounds about as I expected.

CW

 

what's the at-track pricing like for spares from PMNA, FNA, etc? I'd imagine that's full-on captive audience bent over a barrel time...

 

For SURE...

WAAAAY back, when the Challenge Series was big(ger), one of the big beefs was about parts cost. Constant gripe.

FNA's truck carried some spares, but what REALLY got everyone's goat was that dealers had to buy and could only install FNA-supplied parts. This meant that for a set of, say, replacement 6-point harnesses, you paid the FNA price of $X. The same exact harness direct from the OEM was 1/2 $X.

Captive market. Could charge anything they wanted. I recall an owner who wrecked his primary and T car one weekend who was going around the paddock with a blank check for anyone who would sell their car to him.

CW

 

That's not the case anymore with PMNA or FNA. Each team can negotiate their own specific discount, but generally you pay list price on everything. There aren't any markups that I've seen. And lets be honest, paying list price on items you don't need to buy ahead of time is a good deal.

Also, FNA doesn't care who installs the parts. The teams do all the work (except ECU/computer stuff).

-mike

 

Agreed for any of the pro series (IMSA/ALMS/GrandAM), but for the Challenge, it was dealer only (and I know I'm mixing it up a bit here) for a long, long time. Some owners were maintaining in their own shops, and that was controversial. But, today, there's less stringent oversight (outsourced race shops who are loosely affiliated with a dealer) can maintain.

But, for the series you're running in, I agree that your shop was not a dealer or dealer-affiliated. There should have been some level of support by SpA/FNA/Michelotto and/or development assistance. But, while I'm no ESM-insider, I got a bit of the story when I was offered the pair of 458s...

CW