Posted by Yehoram on February 27, 2000 at 17:16:16:
In Reply to: Share Price posted by Shawn on February 26, 2000 at 10:15:49:
We do market Soligen abilities heavily within our customer base, and the Daytona 500 story is a great example. It was news 2 years ago because an unprecedented turn around of a new design made GM teams very successful. It was the first time that several winning cars on the Daytona race had Soligen made manifolds. Since than, we have made and continue to make the intake manifolds for GM Motorsports.
However, the teams can if they wish buy parts in the aftermarket as long as they are certified by NASCAR, and we, or even GM may not know which part was assembled on what car. Also, the drivers, as well as other parameters in the race cars (like fenders or non engine components) highly affect the results of each race.
Last year GM was lucky again as 4 of the first 5 cars to cross the winning line first were of GM. We believe that all had Soligen manifolds in them, and that gave me and Soligen team a sense of pride. We shared it with you shareholders. To my best knowledge, GM Motorsports is very happy with our engine components and especially these intake manifolds. We have made a number of them last year, and I believe that we will make more this year and so long. It is no longer consider "news" and repeating it may not be considered marketing.
Our side to the story was not winning the race, but supplying GM motorsports a development paradigm shift. It was so substantial, that GM Motorsports agreed to go the extra mile and ask their corporate to approve the release of this story. We have since taken this example further on. At GM we tell other engineers the story in details, and elsewhere we talk about the concept. It was made possible after a major effort to get GM approval to quote them and tell the story.
We released it to the public, since Daytona 500 is well known and we wanted to let our shareholder know that we are involved in major programs at the Big 3. This message does not require to be repeated every year. We do continue to mention our customers for repeat business in our SEC filings.
This year Ford teams swiped the Daytona 500 race. In the post race the media stated some drag differences and the cars were taken to a wind tunnel for further questioning. This is a very competitive market and I am sure that GM will make any effort to get the lead back. It means that we may be called upon to turn new designs of engine components faster.
We don't just "sit back and wait". We market our success, but without hype.
Yehoram