Someone wrote
> Its a good deal for them to see a pack of 50 neons and
> only give money to the top few.
Just to be fair, that depended on the event. Sure, Chrysler (like Honda,
Mazda, Toyota, etc.) just paid the top finishers at Pros and such. But
the Neon Super Solo paid out to 34th place ($250 each at that level).
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that Chrysler didn't benefit
financially, and that a whole lot of people drove Neons who might not
have otherwise. But I personally don't think there's anything wrong with
that. Chrysler is a business, not a charity. No one held a gun to
anyone's head and said, "You must drive a Neon."
Someone else said:
>Selectively: Not for the Solo @ Nats but right before the Runoffs. This
>wasn't simply a business decision, this was a message. Unfortunatly,
Neon
>racers are getting caught in the corporate war games between SCCA and
DC.
And when SCCA is not listening to their repeated arguments that trunk
kits are unfair, what did you expect them to do? Keep paying and hope
that SCCA eventually decides to do something? Yes, it was before
Runoffs, and yes, that clearly sucks for the Chrysler competitors who
would have taken home contingency checks. I wouldn't be surprised if
those competitors made more noise to SCCA under this plan than they would
have if the contingencies were yanked in the off-season.
And besides, what did those competitors lose? Not "what anticipated
winnings did they fail to receive," but "what did they already have in
their pocket that they lost"? Do you think it would have been more
"fair" in some way to have yanked the contingencies before Solo II
Nationals? The Solo II rules are not the problem. Trunk kits are
explicitly banned in Solo II stock classes.
Yes, the timing was a marketing decision. Yes, it clearly created some
ill feelings. Did Chrysler have the "right" to do it? Sure! After all,
it is their money.
mlc
'91 MR2 NA
Driving a Toyota, so no real dog in this fight, but thinking that
Chrysler is getting criticism they don't deserve.
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