MC: Is there a General Motors perspective on the car of the future in NASCAR?
FS: I'm not involved with it. I know what it looks like, the idea behind it all, but I have enough to do with drag racing to keep my plate full. I think it's too early to tell, it really is. It's like a lot of things, when you change the way you do business, whether it's at the manufacturer side or a series of rules and changes that come about, you can guess whether it will be good or bad, but quite frankly, I don't know.
MC: Is GM and specifically Chevy's involvement in racing on all levels secure in light of the current fiscal problems at General Motors?
FS: Like any other business you have business objectives and you have to have return on that investment and does it equate to the bottom line? We talked about win on Sunday, sell on Monday, we can prove that the work we do in racing, across all series is beneficial to us. It sells cars, trucks and parts. Now, you go back a couple years ago, Chevy was involved with the Indy Racing League. That was getting way too expensive, there wasn't enough track attendance, the television ratings were down, and we couldn't prove that it was a good investment and we got out. As long as we have the business case, and we do across every series we are in with Chevy now, we will be involved in racing.
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MC: Do you, or does Chevrolet have any opinion or concern about the involvement of Toyota in the racing series, especially NASCAR?
FS: Toyota is a fierce competitor, especially in the retail marketplace. They've got a lot of money, we can see that so they can be a formidable opponent. My concern with an operation like Toyota right now is that they have so much money that they can throw at things and that really raises the price of poker to go racing. I don't care what race series you are in, it takes a large expenditure to be semi-competitive. I don't know that the amount of money spent everywhere to go quicker, faster, quicker lap times on track equates to more fans or better TV ratings, or more vehicle sales. If we were still going 120mph in dragsters out here, we may have the same number of people in the stands, if that was competitive and they enjoyed the event. Do we need to go to 400? I don't know, people seem to like 330 (miles per hour) right now.
MC: Chevrolet has a large crate motor program. Is that also an important part of Chevrolet's sales?
FS: Absolutely. In fact we have the GM Performance Parts display trailer here. When you look at the crate engines on display, it just says Chevy everyplace. Even their print ads, if you take a look on the 572-inch big block, the valve covers say Chevrolet. It's marketed by GM Performance Parts, but it says Chevrolet for a reason and one thing about Chevy is that all our research shows that if you show a Bow-Tie to somebody, over 90% of American adults know that it represents Chevy. It's a household word, people know what the brand stands for, they know all about it, so it's just a strong brand and that's why we keep marketing it in racing.