NASCAR a crucial part of Chevrolet's marketing arm

INDIANAPOLIS -- Chevrolet had fun last week at the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, hosting its annual golf outing at Brickyard Crossing.

As you might have heard, it hasn't been all fun and games lately in the car and truck business, and some have speculated that one or more of the major manufacturers involved in NASCAR racing might get out of the sport in the face of mounting losses, sagging sales and the economic drain that the current fuel crisis has placed on their business.

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Terry Dolan, head of Chevy Racing, addressed that point-blank just before teeing off in the annual best-ball tournament on the championship golf course that surrounds Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"I don't anticipate that GM would completely leave racing," Dolan said, standing next to one of the new-generation Chevrolet vehicles, the Chevy Traverse, that will be in showrooms this fall. "You have to look at what we do: We manufacture cars and trucks.

"Consumers who are automotive enthusiasts are also race fans, and they enjoy seeing cars and trucks do exceptional, high-speed, dynamic things on the track. It's a great portfolio for us. If you look at Chevy and all the racing that we are involved in, we sell a lot of cars and trucks to race fans, and we plan to continue to do that."

As for NASCAR, Dolan said that program is annually put through the same test that all the other series that Chevrolet supports are.

"We look at all our racing platforms on three key elements," he said. "No. 1, can we race to win? If we're there, can we be up front and leading the pack? No. 2, is the audience relevant to our brand? Does it consist of the people that buy our cars and trucks? No. 3, do we get a quality return on investment for the money that we put into the sport?

"It takes two investments. It takes a technology investment, to get cars prepared to compete, and it takes a go-to-market investment to literally take the on-track message and convert it into something that's meaningful to a consumer to drive their behavior to want to purchase a vehicle.

"We're constantly evaluating all the series we participate in. We put them through that three-step evaluation and we determine whether or not it makes sense for us to continue. We've been in business for 100 years. We're looking forward to the next 100 years in our chapter in history. I would guess that, whether we're racing gasoline-powered cars or perhaps battery-powered vehicles or even hydrogen-powered vehicles, there will be General Motors vehicles racing somewhere across the globe." (Continued)