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Since ‘spin’ entered our political vocabulary, marketers seem to have concluded that ever more outlandish claims can be made by candidates, sports promoters, and businesses.
There is a point, however, when spin becomes falsehood, with the potential to do more long-term damage than provide short term gain.
Those are the thoughts I had while watching The Leading Edge – Episode 1, the launch of an American Le Mans Series news and features video segment that will run on its web site. When I heard from my back row seat at the annual State of the Series address at Petit Le Mans last fall that the Panoz organization was launching an in-house video production unit, two questions occurred to me. First, wouldn’t it be smart in this economy to focus on one’s core business? And second, isn’t it the very definition of hubris for an organization whose television presentations of its own events are charitably described as mediocre to go into the video production business?
Unfortunately, suspicions are confirmed in regard to the latter: The Leading Edge looks like a communications project of a Hall County eighth grade English class, and not one that would have earned an ‘A.’
It’s what is said in this amateur video that’s so jarring, though. Those few who can get through the overly-dramatic background music (this is a couple of middle-aged guys talking about a minor racing series, not a documentary on the D-day landings in Normandy) can’t help but end the experience shaking their heads.
Scott Elkins’ opening two and a half minutes says little of substance. It trots out the buzz words of our age, “change,” “structure,” “reactive,” “relationship.” I was reminded of the popular game Buzz Word Bingo. I learned it will be possible for P2 cars to compete for overall wins in the coming year. That remains to be seen, though regardless of anything the series is doing, good teams and good drivers tend to win, and the best of both are in P2. It also begs the question, “Why, having achieved exactly that in 2007 and 2008, did the Series throw it away?” Some of the GT Challenge cars will be faster (no idea if the drivers of those cars will be able to take advantage, of course). There will still be four classes. Impressive, isn’t it.
Scott Atherton takes over two and a half minutes into the seven-minute video, and immediately makes one of those statements that anyone one in his right mind would edit out of the final version:
“When you think about the 2009 season, you know, I think it started out under the darkest cloud that certainly the United States has ever seen in terms of the economy.”
I know that Mr. Atherton is a relatively young man, and he likely hasn’t studied a great deal of history or economics, but even casual knowledge would prohibit that sentence. In that period of US history called ‘The Great Depression,’ by 1933, 11,000 of 25,000 banks had failed (140 failed in 2009). U.S. GDP fell around 30% between 1929 and 1932 (the 2009 drop was about 4%). In 1933, 25% of all workers and 37% of all nonfarm workers were unemployed (it’s just touching 10% now; including ‘discouraged workers,’ about 17%).
If that was the end of it, we wouldn’t have cause to be very critical; it may make Mr. Atherton seem a bit dim, but it’s not substantive in terms of presenting the story of the American Le Mans Series. Unfortunately, that’s just around the corner. He continues, “Throughout the (2009) season, though, I think we in many cases defied gravity, you know, with races that were attracting even bigger crowds than we’d had in previous years.”
Full stop. There’s a difference between spin, which is interpreting facts in a way beneficial to your cause, and changing the facts to suit your message. There’s another word for that. From the American Le Mans Series own records, only one race in 2009 drew a larger crowd than in 2008, and that was Long Beach, not an event that the Series can fairly count as representative solely of its own performance. Even if it could make that claim, there is no way the record supports Mr. Atherton’s statement.
For the first time in years, the Series launched its season with a smaller gate at Sebring. That drop of 8,000 (5%)* was followed by a break-even St. Pete and the 5,000 improvement at Long Beach. If Atherton hadn’t been speaking in the plural, perhaps he could claim he was referring to the Southern California event.
Then it was downhill. Utah, which has never drawn many, drew 12 ½% less. Lime Rock and Mid-Ohio were two more that broke even. Starting at Road America, however, the record is disturbing, not just because crowds were smaller, but because they were double digits worse, ending the year on a worrisome downward-sloping trend line.
Road America – down 5,000 (11%) to 40,000
Mosport – down 9,000 (10 ½%) to 76,000
Petit Le Mans – down 11,000 (10%) to 102,000
Laguna Seca – down 11,000 (16 ½%) to 56,000
I wish that was the extent of the sophistry in this sad seven minutes, but it is not. It’s just the most egregious.
Atherton tells us what he undoubtedly believes, and what the organization’s marketing unfortunately validates, "The mission we have as a series – which is, you know, pursuing new alternative fuel development, innovation, allowing manufacturers to showcase technologies that transfer directly from racetrack to road car – all of those things remained intact."
If that's the ALMS's mission (and they seem to think it is), then congratulations! Mission accomplished! But I was under the impression that the American Le Mans Series exists to stage sports car races. Isn’t that what it should then promote? Having created rules that allow manufacturers to field innovative alternate-fuel machinery, shouldn’t the promotion of those technologies be carried by those same manufacturers? If they did, wouldn’t that leverage the Series media visibility? For the Series, my belief is the simple message to fans isn’t green racing but rather good racing, and the latter, done well, will get them to the tracks. (Nicely explained by Tony Dowe, writing about the Series' television productions, here.) Not done well will get the results above, and worse in the coming season. That is what should most worry American Le Mans Series promoters and tracks.
This video alone is not by any means cause for drastic action. But it is important because it represents the best face of the Series, the best it can do now for a marketing message. There is little there that will bring a participant onto a grid or a fan into a track.
This is only the most recent in a long line of mixed messages, failed policies, and poor implementation. I'm not surprised the Series’ constituents – manufacturers, teams, promoters, and tracks – expressed deep concern at Laguna Seca. Those same constituents have good reason to demand change at next week’s conference in Phoenix.
*All attendance figures are event totals. |
American Le Mans Series 
