Ford made a series of announcements yesterday about the investments it was going to make in motorsports. The amount of money now flowing into racing from manufacturers hasn’t been seen in decades, global racing is more accessible to watch, and it’s really starting to feel like the good times. Enjoy it while it lasts.
I want this to be a celebration of what’s to come with a tinge of warning. People don’t always know when they’re living in a golden era, and I think we’re living in a golden motorsports era. I even think there’s a reason to believe it might last. At the same time, there are many reasons why it might vanish just as quickly as it appeared.
Nissan is frequently in The Morning Dump as a company that had good times, then bad times, then good times again. These are definitely not golden times for Nissan (unless you’re Greg Kelly, maybe). The same could be said for Bosch. The massive German automotive supplier is hurting.
The whole world could be hurting if tariffs against Mexico and Canada go into effect… tomorrow? Maybe?
Not Since 1998 Has It Been This Good For Motorsports Fans
The idea for The Morning Dump today came from our pal Parker Kligerman who is both a professional race car driver and a student of racing history. I was introduced to Parker roughly a million years ago by a mutual friend at NASCAR who had a sense that we’d hit it off.
Meeting Parker in an RV before a race I was a little suspicious. Many NASCAR drivers, like many athletes, are boring. Just because they race cars all day it doesn’t mean they like cars. And, at first, there wasn’t a lot there. Then someone suggested Parker show me the SEMA project he was doing with Toyota.
It was a rally car made out of a Camry with those classic ’80s TRD colors, which led to a discussion of WRC, old IMSA cars, Trans-Am, everything. We’ve been friends ever since.
Ford yesterday announced it was doing all the racing. In addition to being a part of F1 in the future, Ford’s going to compete in the top GTP/Hypercar class at Le Mans; continue in NASCAR; develop drivers like Porsche does; reunite with the Triple Eight team in Australian Supercars, and on and on and on.
The company isn’t alone. GM has been great in IndyCar, IMSA, and is targeting F1 with Cadillac.. Porsche never left. Audi wants to be in F1. Honda and Acura are everywhere. It’s awesome.
When was it ever this good before? Parker and I eventually agreed that 1998 was probably the last best year in motorsports. Häkkinen v. Schumacher in F1. One of the best Le Mans lineups ever. Jeff Gordon being Jeff Gordon. The tobacco money probably didn’t hurt.
But it’s not ciggies that are funding racing now, it’s the automakers. Why? Here’s what Bill Ford said last night:
We are entering a new era for performance and racing at Ford. You can see it from what we’re doing on-road and off-road. When we race, we race to win. And there is no track or race that means more to our history than Le Mans. It is where we took on Ferrari and won in the 1960s. It is where we returned 50 years later and shocked the world and beat Ferrari again. I am thrilled that we’re going back to Le Mans and competing at the highest level of endurance racing. We are ready to once again challenge the world, and ‘go like hell!’”
Some of this is the current mix of executives at Ford. CEO Jim Farley loves motorsports and spends some of his free time vintage racing old fords. Ford’s global head of motorsports, Mark Rushbrook, is a smart guy who has brought together a lot of successful teams. Ford ended the year winning NASCAR’s top series and started the year winning its class at the Rolex 24.
I think it’s bigger than that, though, or you wouldn’t see almost every major automaker in the mix, including growing interest from the South Korean brands.
So here’s the bear case for motorsports and here’s the bull case.
The bear case is simple. Driverless cars are coming. Electric cars are here. If bad times come the first thing that’ll get cut is probably motorsports. Do loud V8 race cars make sense in 2035? Will there be an audience for them? Perhaps this is the apotheosis and we don’t even realize it.
The bull case is a bit more complex. Real quick, going back to Parker. Years after our meeting we made a TV show together called Proving Grounds that aired, usually, after NASCAR races. With this lead-in we sometimes broke the top 100 cable programs on Sunday and, with F1 being run time-delayed on ESPN, we actually beat the F1 broadcast with our silly little show.
That wouldn’t happen today. F1 is suddenly very popular here and, I think, a lot of that has to do with the show Drive To Survive making automakers realize the potential value of racing.
Is it win-on-Sunday-sell-on-Monday as in the past? I don’t think so. What the modern F1 world has shown is that motorsports can be its own business. Ferrari kept selling out its cars even when the team was frustrating and kinda bad. The difference is that Ferrari sells a crap-ton of t-shirts when it wins and, via its agreement with F1, keeps pocketing cash when it doesn’t.
Red Bull is another example of a brand that exists as both a company (it makes soda, I think) and as its own racing/action sports/media organization. There are probably limits to this (IndyCar?), but Ford is showing that a coordinated and global approach to racing is probably worth doing.
Nissan Cutting Back Shifts In The United States
Nissan’s good times were in the ’90s, before the bubble burst. Then, of course, there was the early Ghosn era when the company had a bit of energy back. We all know how that ended.
The company has continued to pump out products that are interesting, including the new Nissan Kicks and maybe the new Murano (and also the new Z). At the same time, its bread-and-butter Rogue and Altima are in need of a big overhaul. As part of a pre-Honda merger streamlining, the company is cutting back Rogue production as much as it can afford to in the United States.
Nissan will offer the separation packages to workers at its vehicle assembly plants in Smyrna, Tennessee, and Canton, Mississippi, and an engine plant in Decherd, Tennessee.
Japan’s third-biggest automaker by volume will slash one of two shifts at the production line for its Rogue sports utility vehicle in Smyrna starting in April, and for the Altima sedan in Canton from September.
So far these are just voluntary layoffs, and Nissan said it wants to avoid mandatory ones.
While we’re talking about Nissan, I think one of the great injustices of the last 20 years in the automotive world is that the company’s Japanese arm convinced prosecutors to arrest American exec Greg Kelly after tricking him into coming back to Japan for a meeting. The accusation was that Kelly helped Ghosn fleece the company when, in reality, it seemed like Kelly was just doing his job.
To his credit, Kelly has fought the charges, even though it required a lot of time in jail and being stuck in Japan. Automotive News has the full story:
In March 2022, Kelly was cleared by the Tokyo District Court of financial misconduct for seven of the eight years that prosecutors and Nissan alleged it happened. He was given a suspended sentence and allowed to return to the U.S., but only after being jailed and grounded in Japan for more than three years fighting in court.
Now, Kelly, 68, may clear his name completely, pending the appeal of his sole guilty count.
“He will be found not guilty on all counts, no doubt about it,” Kelly’s criminal defense attorney Yoichi Kitamura said in a Jan. 29 interview at his office in central Tokyo. “He is in very high spirits.”
I have a lot of respect for Kelly for sticking to this and I hope he clears his name fully.
Bosch’s Profits Probably Fell By A Third
German electronics company and automotive supplier Bosch is everywhere. If you own two cars the odds are pretty good that there’s a Bosch product in at least one of them.
Bosche CEO Stefan Hurting says buckle up, because 2025 isn’t going to be that much easier. The company projected a small amount of profit growth last year, only to, per estimates, see profits actually drop by a third.
“Despite all efforts,” the company has not been able to escape the economic realities, said Hartung. They are not satisfied. There are several reasons for the situation: The world’s largest automotive supplier is suffering from low demand for vehicles – primarily electric cars. In addition, many consumers are still holding back on purchasing devices such as cordless screwdrivers, washing machines and refrigerators.
The situation was similar for Bosch’s other mainstays: Mechanical engineering is struggling with the weak economy, and many companies are not making any investments. And the European heating market is putting pressure on the building technology sector. The result shows how great the uncertainty is among customers and consumers, said Hartung. “It is unusual that there is a lack of significant impetus in all of our sectors at the same time.” At least none of the four business areas posted red figures.
Bosch really thrived in the globalized production world I often talk about. In particular, Bosch probably isn’t excited that CEOs are complaining about having 100 different systems in their car instead of the seven that Rivian uses. Why? Because Bosch makes a lot of those systems.
Making matters more complex is the new tariff environment we might be getting into? Maybe? Probably?
Are Tariffs Against Canada And Mexico Going Into Effect Tomorrow?
I don’t know what the new administration in Washington, DC will do and, to be quite honest, I’m not always sure they do. Is a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada going to happen tomorrow? No one seems to know for sure.
Car execs and suppliers are sweating it, though many of them seem to think that it’s only going to be temporary. At least that was the feeling at a recent discussion at the Washington, D.C. Auto Show as covered by Automotive News:
“Mexico and Canada have never been good to us on trade,” Trump said, saying the tariffs would be in response to trade deficits and the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
Still, industry executives hope any new tariffs would be short-lived or phased in over time as negotiations take place in Washington, Ottawa and Mexico City. All three panelists during an afternoon policy discussion at SAE International’s Government and Industry conference here said they think Trump is likely to view tariffs primarily as a bargaining chip.
“My personal sense is that 25 percent on Canada and Mexico is going to be very difficult to do or sustain for a long period of time,” said Greg Senstrum, senior policy adviser at law and lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.
Again, who really knows? The President seems to be focused on the recent tragic plane crash in Washington, which he seems to want to blame on DEI. That could delay the tariffs which, if they went into effect, could impact all of these cars and likely more due to our complex and interconnected supply chain.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I already did David Hasselhoff’s famous performance on the Berlin Wall in 1989 so I can’t do that again. Instead, it’s the Hoff doing the “Du.”
The Big Question
Is this a golden era of motorsports? Will it get better? Will it get worse?
Tariffs:
Everybody knows that Trump secretly admires his favorite Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu (the Art of War) and even cribbed the title of his own book from him.
But: he botched his most famous quote “keep your friends crazy and enemies crazier”
I know I’m probably going to catch heck for saying this, but I think the new battery technology will have a huge effect on racing, or I hope it will. If they could create a battery with a 550 mile range and enough juice to power an automobile at racing speed for 550 miles, I think you’ll see electric racing really take off.
I’m old. Very old. We live in Kentucky, not far from Ohio. I’ve seen at least 15 racetracks closed down during my life. Mostly because of noise and encroaching suburbia. Perhaps the quietness of racing EVs would put an end to this trend? I know the power, and acceleration of these cars is unreal. I’m looking forward to the future!
I think some of the investment in racing also stems from the same reason manufacturers are bringing back legacy names like Renault 4 and 5, or Ford Capri: It’s a history and a halo that cheap Chinese cars can’t match. They’re betting that “Race on Sunday, sell on Monday” helps offset the advantage the Chinese brands have of cheap prices.
I think you’re 100% correct, but I think they’re making a bad bet against the Chinese. No one raced Kias or Hyundais, yet they caught on and sold like hotcakes.
Henry Ford rolling over in his grave rn. But for real this is awesome, the resurgence of interest in performance cars and has been really fun especially since I’m just young enough to have only caught the tail end of the last boom in the late 90s-00s. Sadly this does have sort of a manic ships going down might as well party vibe. I’m not anti innovation or EV but I’m struggling to see EV race cars seriously replacing ICE-time will tell.
“People don’t always know when they’re living in a golden era….” Very true. And the vehicle development that comes from an OEM’s involvement in racing flows into our daily drivers and is a good thing.
Having the benefit of the long view, in 1970-71 I remember the feeling of sadness believing that we were at the end of the muscle car era. Yes, there were some domestic hits over the next 10-20 years like the SD-455 Trans Am, the Buick Grand National, various Ford performance products, but the daily drivers were fairly impotent. Back then, I thought it was all done and over as an enthusiast.
And now, 50+ years later, we have ICE cars that are better in every safety, performance, emissions, and fuel economy aspect than their older siblings. I do believe we are at the nexus of ICE/hybrid/EV technology being the future, and I also believe we will have even better non-ICE performance cars that we can’t even imagine today.
Seize the day, live in the moment, and perform random acts of kindness knowing that these are the good old days!
Re: Tariffs. I remember watching The Big Short and the 2 guys are laughing about how rich they’re going to get when the economy crashes. And the Brad Pitt character says, “every one percent unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die.”
So I know people like say, “haha YEAH, Trump’s supporters are gonna LEARN how WRONG they are when they can’t afford to buy EGGS for their KIDS’ BREAKFASTS!” And I engaged in that a bit during Trump 1.0. But (1) no, people don’t learn. And (2) it makes me sad to think of people suffering. People suffer if federal grant money stops flowing. People suffer when tariffs significantly increase the cost of goods. People suffer when the FAA isn’t adequately funded to ensure safe flights. And it’s really sad.
Anyhoozle, I went to the Indy 500 last year and was surprised that I had a great time, when I don’t follow racing at all. So yeah. Totally a golden era. Two thumbs up from this girl.
Ah the Hoff, does it count if it didn’t chart in the US?
In the smaller leagues folks are getting innovative, I follow a youtube channel that participated in a 24 hours Lemons race with team that had a converted Datsun pickup with swappable batteries that they fast charged while the truck was on the track, they got the battery swaps down to a couple minutes, like watching a Nascar team doing tires.
That’s what racing is supposed to be anyways, innovative, I know a certain one JUST switched from carburetors 4 years ago so that’s not universal, but I feel should be the point.
Also exploding ball of fire that slams against the track wall for the fans enjoyment, EVs can do that way better.
I watched an interview with Hasselhoff years ago talking about his music career (primarily) and how big he had gotten in Germany. He really wanted to break into the US market since that was just the measure for success in the music business.
So, he got a bunch of investors together and they all put together some huge, live pay-per-view concert to kick off the big US tour. Remember pay-per-view? No? Probably for the best.
Anyway, it might be the biggest example of unfortunate timing the universe has ever seen because at the start of his pay-per-view concert, OJ decided to run in his white Bronco and the entire viewing public across the US was glued to the screen “The Juice” run from the cops at 20 miles per hour.
Yeah I’d read about that too, that really sucked.
Motorsports is an activity that I hope keeps using combustion engines forever. The sound of engines revving is one of the appeals. Who wants to watch cars silently racing around? Not me, and I drive an EV!
Somebody needs to tell Trump that there are other cards in the foreign policy deck than the ‘Tariff’ card. I get that his intent is to get Canada and Mexico to split the costs in securing the border. But threatening both sides with economic turmoil shouldn’t have been the first card he played.
Racing is definitely in a golden age currently. As a kid the whole reason I persuaded my folks to get cable is because I knew ESPN was chock full of racing. As awesome for motorsport as ESPN was back then, it is simply so easy to seek out as much racing as you can stand nowadays, between streaming services and most of the junior series worldwide being available on YouTube.
It helps that we finally have unified rules in sportscar racing again, F1 has a steward that’s interested in engaging the sport with its fans, and IndyCar seems to finally be hitting its stride again.
I do wonder though how long the OEMs will justify pouring money into it. It’s great for marketing and who doesn’t want to have fun once in a while, as a company. But eventually there will be a diminishing justifiable return on it; it’s going to be hard to convince the accountants that it drives product. Personally, I wish there wasn’t so much emphasis on road relevance. Look at the NHRA where there is exactly zero. Eventually even F1 will evolve to where there’s little remaining road relevance, and when it comes time to let that go, what happens to the OEM investment? Race series can survive on race specialist engine builders (Mechachrome for example), but at a much smaller scale, I’d guess.
In summation, I’d say if you have any interest in it at all, find a series you like and spend time on it, the more eyes on it the more likely it is to stick around.
Ha, I remember trying to talk my parents into getting satellite TV so we could get the Speed channel-basically the only reason I cared about it at the time.
This is 100% a golden era of motorsport. As someone who bought Autosport on the newsstand the last time there was a golden era there is so much exciting racing going on it’s difficult to believe, and I don’t even NASCAR. I think it will only go down from here. It really depends on what Porsche does to optimize the regs ;).
As far as tariffs on Mexico and Canada and whoever else: Nothing this administration does to plumb new depths of stupidity shocks me.
“Driverless cars are coming”, yeah ok haha.
Clearly Matt is not one to short Tesla stock.
I mean, we might see deregulation to the point that driverless cars ARE coming, but that doesn’t mean they will be safe.
I don’t follow motorsports all that well, but the fact that you can go see stock cars, electric formula racing, gas formula racing, drag racing, drifting, rally, etc. does feel like we’re in a pretty great time.
I do wonder about the future. I see EV racing becoming larger and some others becoming limited because of engine noise and environmental concerns. I can see rally becoming rarer because of more development and more concern for the areas that are left. Drag racing, if noise or pollution concerns move us to EVs, may no longer exist, or at least won’t likely be as interesting.
I don’t know how long this particular era will last, but it does seem we’re spoiled for options and probably should take advantage while we can.
Electric Supercross would be excellent. You can run them in closed stadiums without getting CO poisening, and although i do love engine noise, when you have 20+ 450cc dirtbikes all running at once the noise gets all blended together and is nothing like watching it outdoors where the bikes are more spread apart for the most part.
Ooh, I would probably get into Supercross if that were an option. That would be pretty awesome!
I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of demand for a driverless racing series. By that point, you may as well just load specs into a racing simulator and broadcast a simulated race based entirely on specs and programming. It’d be kind of like an E-sport, but without human input.
Interesting thought, because my brain is 180 degrees from yours. I marvel at engineering, especially when it’s done to excess in something like drag racing. The problem for me is that I’m not really a “fan” of the sport. If it’s on TV, I’ll watch some, but never more than a casual watch every so often.
For those that do follow the sport, I’d imagine it wouldn’t be so different to watch EV drag racing (at least at the highest level). Sure the engine noise and feel is gone, but you’ve got 3-4 seconds of the car going down the strip at stupid acceleration. You can easily get that from an EV, and from the outside, I don’t think you’re missing much if anything in the competition. Sure, there’s no more missed shifts, but that ought to make the action closer.
Its very different. Like every motorsport, when you are there, you FEEL it, not just see it. You cannot feel EVs going by. The noise is truly integral to the sport for many many fans.
Yeh seconded-the sound, feeling the vibrations in your chest, is something TV doesn’t transmit and I just don’t see EVs replacing.
Other than Lockleaf’s comment about the whole experience, I think there are two things:
Drag racing is as much consistency as pure speed. I guess that could change, but I think the problem with EV drag racing is that it feels like the cars should be pretty consistent. Maybe I’m overestimating the effect of dial-in, and I’m almost certainly underestimating the sport’s ability to adapt the rules to new situations.
Second, I think the engineering becomes less interesting with an EV, but that might just be me. It’s all fast motor, good aero, and low weight. Since it’s short bursts, they could use small batteries and big motors. The engineering in current drag races has to involve transmission, engine, and fuel. And, if you travel, you need to adjust those things to elevation and other factors, as well. EVs don’t have to worry about the fuel-air mix changing when they’re in Colorado instead of sea level.
But I am probably underestimating the engineering that could go into EVs. Maybe it would still be really cool. It could definitely make the times shorter and the speeds higher. And maybe people would find that more fun. But I don’t think it could ever be the same as drag racing as we know it.
I agree with it a lot of those ideas. I would enjoy seeing how the engineering evolves if they were to go EV, but it would absolutely lose something without those insane engines making those sounds and feels!
wait, will there be tariffs on fentanyl?
/s…just to be clear.
We almost had tariffs on cocaine!
My daughter just came back from a trip to Colombia. She sent me a video of them on a boat tour going by Pablo Escobar’s bombed out home.
She’s a real crime kinda girl.
It is important for our government to protect US makers of fentanyl, I guess.
tRump will simply wait until the other guy blinks. Sometimes it has worked. This time, he never has to blink. Ever. He has no stake here.
IMSA is really firing on all cylinders right now (lol) and I’m here for it. I think IndyCar is finally finding themselves with some direction moving forward too thanks to a big investment from Fox Sports. F1 is coming off an exciting year and we’ve got Bathurst going on…I love it!
I’ve been an IndyCar fan for decades, and I remember CART being bigger than NASCAR in many areas prior to the Split (guess which branch I sided with). I think Fox going all in on IndyCar is the biggest thing to happen to the series since the reunification. I’m hoping this elevates IndyCar back to the level it deserves.
Totally agree, the Fox deal is huge. IndyCar is by far my favorite series, I hope they can take full advantage of the new deal to elevate the series back to where it belongs. I think Penske has been a good steady hand for the series, but Fox can really push things to the next level. They finally put a date on a freaking new car which is years overdue, so that’s another positive for the series as well.
Nobody rides horses anymore but there’s still horse racing and people who watch it. Maybe it won’t go away.
But I can picture a car race with driverless cars and 3 hour pit stops. It won’t matter because all the fans will be watching AI generated videos through their brain implants.
Maybe horse racing is the model to follow for long term motorsports viability.
Instead of a single 3 hour race, you break it up into 12 15-minute races to maximize gambling opportunities. The sports books would throw advertising money at any major racing organization that adopts that format.
I think this is called drag racing and its already a thing.
“Major racing organization” would exclude the NHRA in 2025
I’ve had this thought-but there is a big difference IMO-ICE cars need fuel and fuel requires infrastructure in a way that raising horses doesn’t.
I am curious to see where the synth fuels thing goes but I can’t help but wonder if as fuel infrastructure disappears with EV cars growing in popularity does all fuel become prohibitively expensive. Which might be fine for top tier series like F1 but how do young drivers get into racing if synth fuel is like $20/gallon or something.
Will Ford racing cars really sell more SUVs?
I don’t think so.
As one of our resident Canadians, I wish my southern neighbours the best of luck with the incoming cost increases.
Wait, theyre just going to pass down the cost increases to consumers?!? I thought this was America!
It’s a golden age of LMDh, that’s for damn sure. In a year or two there’ll be, what. 9 different manufacturers? That’s amazing when only a few years the top level of IMSA and WEC was Toyota and… no else who could hold a candle to them. I’m really looking forward to the next couple seasons and beyond.
Moving on to other topics, in the back of my mind, I’m kinda hoping Canada and Mexico call Trump’s bluff. But I also feel like Trump is pig-headed enough to go through with it if they do. I’m conflicted.
As a Canadian I’m pretty worried about the tariffs. I also hope that our government responds with very targeted and high tariffs that aim directly for his largest supports. The ensuing meltdown would be both funny and scary.
I was disappointed that Colombia capitulated so fast to Trump. I was looking forward to Starbucks have a corporate melt down over coffee tarrifs.
I read an article that suggested they didn’t really capitulate – Colombia got everything it wanted and avoided tariffs.
“If this is how you treat your friends…”
Du
Du hasst
Du hasst
Du hasst Mich
Du hast Mich gefragt und Ich hab “Don’t hassle the Hoff” gesagt!
–Michael Reiter