Dodge exec excited about future of sport

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Mike Accavitti has plenty on his plate as his job as director of Dodge Motorsports and SRT product planning, but he found the time at Daytona International Speedway to sit down and talk about some of the auto manufacturer's objectives, both on the track and in the marketplace.

Q: Now that Toyota is officially here, do you welcome the competition or does it cut into your segment of the NASCAR market?

Accavitti: It would be kind of a boring series if we just watched one manufacturer drive cars around for five hours, so yeah, from a manufacturer's standpoint, it's always the more the merrier. The free market economy is based on that theory and I think that applies to NASCAR racing as well.

Q: You compete in the marketplace; you compete on the track. How much time do you spend watching the other manufacturers?

Accavitti: We are constantly looking at what they are doing from a marketing standpoint. We look at graphics on their cars versus ours. It's an integral part of our processes. It's not like we dedicate one hour a week to looking at what the competition is doing. It's darn near in every element of what we do, we look at who does it best. What can we learn from these guys? Are we better than they are at this? Are they better than us at that? It's an integral part of everything we do.

It's a check-and-balance system. We look at it like, 'Has anyone ever tried this before?' It doesn't mean it's good or bad, but if somebody has tried it and it failed, what can we learn from that? If no one has tried this and it's like, 'Eureka, we found something that's new and exciting that no one has ever tried,' we'll continue to try it.

Q: Can you maintain brand identity with the Car of Tomorrow?

Accavitti: To be honest, the Avenger looks more like a production Avenger than the Charger looks like a production Charger. The Car of Tomorrow is really more representative from the front clip back than the current car. We're excited about the ability to launch Avenger, a brand-new production car for us, using NASCAR as a promotional tool.

Q: Is the Avenger co-marketed with Charger?

Accavitti: Yes. Dodge is our performance brand, so it makes sense that we would run a couple of cars. Charger is a street performance car, Avenger is a street performance car, Dodge Viper is a street performance car, the Ram truck is a street performance truck, so it makes perfect sense that we would leverage NASCAR and market them both as our performance vehicles. (Continued)