SCCA, WCVision, plan for future

On July 2, SCCA Pro Racing and WCVision announced an agreement that put a new organization in control of the marketing and licensing rights for the SPEED World Challenge series. The nearly 20-year-old series featuring GT and Touring Car championships has been a fan and driver favorite, but competitors felt there needed to be a change in order to turn it into a profitable venture. This led to the formation of WCVision, a collective group from competitors in the World Challenge community that hope to take the series to a new level.

Full details of the arrangement were confirmed last weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, where some of WCVision's founding members were on hand to address the media and teams on the company's future path.

"A number of us looked at an opportunity in the marketplace right now, and with a package, that being World Challenge, decided to put a team of investors together and draw up a marketable story in the for-profit environment," said Mike Davis, WCVision investor and CEO of Applied Computer Solutions. "We figured, hell, stock market's not doing anything, real estate's not doing anything, might as well put our money somewhere. So that was the intent of it; to invest in this commodity, go out and try to realize its potential. All of us own businesses and are in business for profit, so we understand that commodity. So that is the goal of this group, is to work in concert with SCCA to take World Challenge and brand it and turn it out and try to turn it into a very profitable series."

Davis, along with six other founders, has three fundamental goals in place to make the series into a for-profit organization. The first goal is to elevate the profile of the series through improved televised race coverage, production values, and viewing times. They also hope to form partnerships with print and internet media to help boost the series' exposure. Goal number two is to increase the size of the field through attracting new teams to the series. Third, WCVision hopes to secure sponsorship partners with a value proposition that will benefit all involved.

"We want this show to be expanded, to be able to take people outside of the core race base watching the show now, we want to expand it," said WCVision co-founder Nick Esayian. "We want to focus on improving demand. It's like what came first, the chicken or the egg? We'll try to bring business partners in that will financially be able to help us do that, but at the same time we still need to market to people to build the demand to get the business partners."

SCCA will continue its longstanding relationship with World Challenge by sanctioning ad officiating the series, providing a stable and balanced rules package to all competitors. The already successful championship will now benefit from two companies working together in unison.

"Speaking on the part of SCCA Pro Racing, I think there's three points that need to be made," SCCA Pro Racing President and CEO Robert Wildberger said. "The first is that this new agreement fortifies the long-term success and integrity of an already proven product: the World Challenge race program. Second, it allows SCCA Pro Racing to focus 100 percent its energy on what it does best and that's as a sanctioning body and race operator. Third, we believe this is the most important announcement for World Challenge in over a decade and we are very, very proud of this program."

Davis did say WCVision would have some control over the broader scope of the series in terms of the regulations. This will be carefully dealt with as nobody wants to see World Challenge go the way of Trans-Am or Champ Car, with the team owners having a substantial influence on the series.

"The biggest thing is we're trying to do a separation of church and state if you will, where you've got competitors in the board of directors that compete against each other and the SCCA is going to take care of the rules and the sanction body," Davis said. "The investors are primarily concerned about the marketing aspect of it. Again, we've got a hard separation between those two because otherwise you're going to show favoritism and that's not what we want to do in this series."

One of the first priorities WCVision has is to form the 2009 schedule and television package. In recent years, many teams were left without knowing where they'd even be racing for the next season. Bob Woodhouse, co-chairman, wants to change that by announcing the schedule in the coming months. This will provide teams with ample time to devise their 2009 campaigns.

"On the schedule, we hear the competitors loud and clear as all of our investors are competitors," Woodhouse said. "A schedule needs to be out there where a team can build sponsorship. So, the schedule needs to be there earlier, we need to evaluate it not just from the convenience that we're going the shortest distance from race to race, that would be great, but of all things, making sure the television fits, making sure that the places we go give your sponsors something back that provides value for them."

The current television package is also in the discussion phase, as the series only holds a short-term contract with SPEED. Esayian said they are looking at other options for next year, but nothing is decided at this point.

"I don't want to think we're the Green Bay Packers comparing an Aaron Rogers to a Brett Favre, a long time veteran," Esayian said. "But like Mike [Davis] said, we're here on a for-profit basis and we need to do what's best for the series as well as from, an economic stand point, the sponsors that are going to get involved, what's good for them. We know that SPEED will put a fantastic package forward, when we get to that point, and we'll be interested in looking at some other options. It'd be too early to say that we're leaning one direction or the other, but we're excited to be moving the chains to get things solidified early enough where we start making plans for as well."

In addition to Davis, Woodhouse and Esayian, seven-time SCCA Pro Racing drivers' champion Peter Cunningham was also present at the announcement. Jim Haughey, Dennis Carlton and Dino Crescentini complete the seven-member WCVision organization. The first official staff member to be hired has been Davd Drimmie, who takes the role of VP, Marketing & Communications for the series. Esayian, along with all the members are in it for the long haul, knowing there is no road to instant success.

"Success of a race series isn't a one week or a six month period," Esayian said. "There's going to be some small improvements and then some breakthroughs along the way and we need everyone's support. From the competitors, to the people that have been with the series a long time, from SCCA as well as the tracks and our business partners like SPEED. We look forward to working with everyone to expand that."