Revenge? Nah.. couldnt happen....

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Rombles1

Care to tell this story of revenge? You have me intrigued now....

Well imagine if a multi time Bathurst winner gets signed to your team. Many years' experience in the class, in different cars and teams, and has a reputation for looking after the car, to be a points accumulator.

This driver is a good buddy of the fracnhise owner... and has run for him under other circumstances in a previous season.

This driver is also loved by the major sponsor, who had supported this driver for many seasons in different teams and marques. (Points scored if anyone remembes the sponsor's Superteam, where they were to run a Holden and a Ford in the same branding for 2 separate teams...)

So this driver rocks up for the season, on the promise of a nice shiny new car, latest model, same as the other guys in the team are running. This is the remake of a 2001 car, suitably upgraded in body and suspension, and has a new style engine under the bonnet.

Interestingly the car for this driver is in the same colours as the lead units, except for reasons not immediately clear, the car lacks the all important factory sponsorship markings of almost all the other cars of the same brand in the field.

Unfortunately there are not enough VYs in this team's fleet to give everyone a nice shiny current model. The young driver signed a couple of years ago seems to be destined to run an ageing VX that would be one of the oldest cars in the field, a car certainly the subject of some chassis realignment at the hands of various drivers through its career.

The veteran driver in question here certainly knows his craft well enough, but its one of the first outings in a VY (which the team itself didnt seem to have a handle on, given the pace of the other cars in the fleet). The driver bingles the car after making a mistake... it is a little bit hurt, and cant be fixed locally... oh well stuff happens.. and the car is out for the weekend.

But it generates some rumblings behind the scenes.

The team boss seems to have made a choice to move the cars around in the fleet. The VY once repaired at the home workshop has been reassigned to the young gun for the rest of the year, with a promise that there is a new VY in build and the cars would be swapped again when it becomes available.

So the veteran driver is running this dog eared VX, no hope of achieving the speed of the other cars in the fleet, destined instead to run at the back of the pack... and getting more and more anxious that the new VY mentioned earlier seems not to be available to him any time soon..

There is a new VY in build, and it should be coming online soon, but it seems so far away... while the VX is having the wheels driven off it, but is a model and a couple of seasons behind in development.. and is off the pace badly... making the driver look like a slowpoke... not so good for the image...

The veteran is announced to drive with the young gun in the endurance races of the year. Should be a good pairing, a blend of youth and experience. The team does well enough at Sandown and Bathurst, the young gun crashing the car trying to make up a lost lap by circumstance, and a speed disadvantage... but the veteran driver gives a good account of himself...

That moth eaten old VX runs in the enduros, at the hands of a 2005 signing, and another Supercar reject, and it runs in the top 10, on bulletproof reliability rather than anything like raw speed.

The enduro season over, its back into crash and bash mode to finish the season.

The team has a nice shiny VY in the workshop, sitting spare since just before the enduros. The veteran is under the impression that this car, or one of the other models in the fleet, will become available to him for these rounds.

Except there is said to be a shortage of engines. So the veteran is nominated to drive the old VX again. Sigh!

The veteran doesnt like this state of affairs.. and makes the team know and understand his views. And decides to leave the team. The media release about the change states it is to allow the young gun signed for 2005 to run the rest of the season.

Except the young gun is entered at the last round in the VY denied the veteran driver most of the year.

The veteran driver has offers to do lots of things in 2005. He could have codriven for the factory Holden team in the enduros again, a Ford deal was around for the same races. Carrera Cup looked interesting.

Until...

... the latest gestation of Franchise Follies came to town. Too many cars, not enough grid spots, two cars likely to miss out, and TEGA to make a choice from 4 cars as to who would be invited to compete in the grid restricted races of Pukekohe, Perth, Shanghai.

Being a person of some means, the veteran driver decides he isnt finished with this Supercar lark, and that there is an opportunity to do something for 2005 in an ownership capacity, returning to team ownership after a long absence.

A couple of teams are looked over, a Qld based Ford squad amongst others.

Two of the cars at risk of not going to the grid restricted races are from the team the veteran drove for last year. Considered opinion suggests that both of these cars arent likely to make it into the chosen two. Three of the cars are L2 franchises, one of them is a L1 franchise.

It is announced in the press that one of the two cars from the veteran driver's previous team has been picked for one of the two "wild card" slots in the grid restricted races.

And the lightbulb goes on. The deal of the century awaits.

The team owner of the single L1 franchise licence slot not yet selected to run in the grid restricted races, requires commercial funding to continue his motorsports operation in 2005. It has been self funded since inception, however it is time to explore other options.

The veteran driver asks the right questions of TEGA, and is told that if the L1 franchise licence slot is purchased, it is guaranteed a slot in the 32 car field in the grid restricted races.

What does this mean?

Well if the veteran driver buys the L1 franchise licence slot, and agrees to have the car prepped by the team selling the franchise, he automatically knocks out one of the cars prepared by his 2004 employer from these grid restricted races.

So he does it.. knowing that the sponsor for 2005 for the car knocked out will likely leave the team, or look for other teams to join instead. Not that the veteran wants the backing... there may be other motivations at work.

The team sponsor of the car knocked out makes rumblings that their deal is null and void, because the car cannot attend the 3 restricted grid races.

Is this karma?? To deliver a driver a poor car in 2004, and lose a car's ability to be entered in 2005 may be an interesting poetic justice.

Somewhat oddly, the sponsor threatening to jump finds a home on the sister car to the veteran's for one race... to help pacify them.... from a situation arguably impacted by the decisions of the veteran driver.

Imagine the smile on his face...

But thats not all kiddies... the veteran driver has also secured sponsorship from the same company that backed the 2004 drive. The veteran driver has someone else in the drivers seat at the moment, but will be back for the enduros.

It has been reported in a couple of places that the team the veteran driver ran for in 2004 is having sponsor difficulties, that the backing is only current to season's end. And that there have been approaches to the sponsor from every man and his dog about the funding....

But guess who is in the box seat? The veteran driver again. A solid, multi-level relationship with the sponsor over many many years... and backing on the team's 2005 contender arguably puts them in a very strong position to tender for the sponsorship for future years.....

So we have a team that may or may not have dudded a driver... a driver who extracted revenge by buying a team that bumped one of their cars... and building a sponsorship relationship that threatens the livelihood of that team...

Sounds very much like revenge to me....

If any of this actually happened of course