Rant light is on....
An odd thing about marketing - it only works when those you market to want what you have to offer.
The two ends of a product life cycle look the same when standing still. They both have a small number of "buyers".
At the entry/growth end of the cycle, marketing works to expose a new idea to potential new buyers. Without this, the new idea simply dies from lack of exposure. If the product is seen as valuable, sales grows, yads yada yada, bading, bada boom, you have a success.
At the decline end of te cycle, the market has already seen the product, and has already considered it. Marketing and promoting it at this end generally will do nothing more than slow the decay. It will not bring new life to a product, as the reason its declining is that it is already well known and other values have displaced it.
The largest error made in marketing, is that when it is the hottest, at its peak, like FV was when it was putting 40-50 cars on the grid regularly, those involved relax their promotion of the product. As the apex of the lifecycle curve is fairly large, the time it takes to go from moderate growth to moderate decline is difficult to see. Its not until the arc is passed, and the ramp into decline steepens, does anyone notice a real change. Since the time it takes to respond is often too long, with too little effort, by the time anyone realizes that something needs to be done, it is far too late to repair the damage, and the decline continues.
The FV community simply got complacent at some point along the way, promotional efforts slowed then ceased, and the decline in participation was simply allowed to continue unabated.
The solution to all of this comes through constantly rebuilding and regenerating interest during the growth cycle. The only way to delay the inevitable (all products eventually reach the end of their life cycle, not matter how brilliant they are) is to constantly improve the product to meet new market demand, attract new customers, and maintain loyal customers. FV did this with the evolution of rules. This is obvious by the differences that exist between Vintage FV now and modern cars. The core platform remains in tact, while evolution kept it lively and growing. This is why it eventually filled grids as it did.
To move a product from decline back to growth is the single most difficult problem in marketing. GM and Ford are seeing that now as brands. Ironically, VW has succeeded in rebuilding itself from a declining end-of-life brand to one with robust growth. This required monumental spending and effort. Trivial, low energy, low risk approaches will not succeed, the market has far too many choices in its hands. Simpy re-marketing an old product with no significant value improvement will never work, and is not worth the money that will be spent on the effort.
The question in FV is: What is the product? The easiest error to make is to believe it is about the cars, the VW hardware they are made from. This is an easy mistake for anyone to make, since hardware is something that can be touched and felt.
The reality is, FV is founded on being affordable and accessible. That means the cars are cheap to build, easy to maintain, and are easy to find parts for. Every effort to stray from that has proven less successful - read Super Vee. Whether or not a mutation of the car today to change parts and peices is meaningful is an arguable point. In my opinion, incrementalism is not a successful process of rebuilding a declining product - as it risks confusing the real problem with hardware solutions.
The problem in FV, IMHO, is that with no promotion, the focus has been on the cars. This has created the perception that:
1.) The cars and class is obsolete (brakes, engines, suspension, etc..)
2.) The cars are made from hard to get parts
3.) Open wheel racing is dangerous
4.) The class is slow
5.) FV cars are more expensive than some of the faster classes (I had an SCCA Enterprises sales geek tell me that a FSCCA car is cheaper to run for a season than FV!)
6.) The class is dominated by a sort of old-boys network, that is hard to break into from the outside.
The only hope for rebuilding FV in any way, is to get the entire community to focus on rebuilding itself from top to bottom - and that does not mean screwing around with the hardware at all. What this means is:
1.) Making all sources of FV components, parts, cars, advise, etc... visible to the right audience - show that the parts are readily available and inexpensive.
2.) Promote that while the technology is proven, the advantages are in being simple to maintain and tune, etc...
3.) Promote the "coolness" of the class, in being different, over trying to twist it around to look like something it is not. (Look at the current growth of rat rods in hot rodding, and Harley's, both seeing huge interest, both obsolete as they can get.)
4.) Promote that yes, open wheel racing is more dangerous, thus takes real drivers. Let the panzies race their baby-bumper toys!
5.) Promote that its not how fast you go, but how competitive it is. Going fast is fun, sure, racing is more fun!
6.) Promote the actual costs of the class, from low fuel consumption, to the fact that a car can be run for decades, and still be competitive. That parts you buy today will last a looong time, compared to other classes. etc...
7.) Expose and promote the spirit of comeradery within the class - this is its GREATEST strength, and something most other classes are loosing, or have lost.
This is a package of values that can be promoted and illustrated easily. The question is, by whome? By those who profit from the class are a start. The other are those who stand to loose a great deal should the decline eventually destry the class. There are more than a few who have a pile of parts, cars, engines, transmissions, etc.... invested. If these become useless, the losses and costs will be forminable. The last group are us individual racers. If we fail to keep this class alive, for ourselves and others, we all loose.
If there is a real interest in seeing this class prosper, there has never been a more critical time to have a strong organizational body, with funding drawn from participants at every level, to focus and promote the class to customers, both old FV racers and new.
The risk here is that the value that FV provides the market is slowly being pursued by other interests. F1000 is an attempt to address a similar demand. Since the values that built FV were not hardware based, but value based, should someone create a new formula that delivers, FV will suffer. Case in point - Spec Ford. This class has grown at roughly the same pace as FV has declined.
In any case, if things are allowed to continue unabated, the writing is on the wall for contnued decay in interest and participation. This will require a real effort to put adie petty differences of finite opinion, and pulling together a unified approach to expose and promote what makes this class as great as it is, and has been.
My personal concern is that as it is within any organization facing a shift in its customers, internal argument, constant debate, and lack of cohesive positive effort, wastes effort and time at a critical moment. I have less concern over hardware issues than I have concern that a community who is so great to play with at the track, cannot seem to agree on an effort to keep the class healthy into the future. Sort of like watching a company with a great product implode from internal politics, while competitors steal market share.
I strongly believe that if the right effort were made, FV has many more years in it. Add some market growth, to intelligent adjustments in rules that do not disrupt the core product, and this class could be kept alive and well for a long while. There is never going to be a point where a low cost solution is not a value in motor sports, while karting proves that obsolete technology can be the foundation for very robust classes. Failing the right effort, I am concerned that those vested in this class are blind to how steep the tail end of a product life cycle curve can be, and how fast things can go from not-so-good to gone.
Rant switch is now off....