PWC GT manager Morgan looks in from other side

New Pirelli World Challenge GT class manager Rob Morgan has seen racing from every perspective

Pirelli World Challenge's hiring of new class managers earlier this year in preparation for the imminent 2017 season is a clear indication of what series management views as its role in the motorsports world – a business that must keep its customers happy.

"It's a growth factor," says WC Vision President and CEO Greg Gill. "The series had a history of being a cult-of-one type of leadership; that was the impression that a lot of customers gave us. Today, with more than 130 competitors registered, you're looking at a lot of people who need to be serviced. We did a beta test of this concept in July with Jim Jordan. He was able to show the value. All indications are that it has been very well received by the competitors."

So the series followed that with class managers for GT and GTS, Rob Morgan and Jack Baldwin. Both are former racers in their respective classes as well as team owners, and they've seen it all.

"It's a different side of the fence," says Morgan, the new GT class manager. "But, really, it's very similar to what all my experiences are. I've been a driver – I've been a paying driver and I've been a paid driver for a short amount of time. I've had factory sponsorships. I went out with TruSpeed and built not only the customer side of the business, but the pro side of the business. I feel like I've got a pretty good feeling to what it takes and I feel like I can talk to competitors, and people can understand that I know what they're feeling, what they're talking about, because I feel like I've done it all."

Morgan started his racing career in the IMSA Firestone Firehawk Series as his father, Charles, was racing in the Camel Lights prototypes. He raced a Ferrari 333SP prototype in IMSA, won a GTS-1 class championship at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1996, and raced NASCAR trucks while owning a team. He started a customer Porsche tuning and racing shop, TruSpeed, and went racing in World Challenge. He had some success as a driver, but his biggest achievement was winning the 2011 GT title with Patrick Long. Then he sold TruSpeed to Tyler Tadivic and took a break. When he came to Long Beach last year, it was his first time in a World Challenge paddock in four years, and he was looking for something to do and told Gill as much. They had enough common ideas that it made sense for Morgan to be the GT class manager.

"One big thing, and this is where Greg and I really hit it off, is he and I look at the people in the paddock as customers. A lot of these guys that are doing sports car racing, they don't have to do sports car racing. They'd be just fine without it. So we want to do our best to treat them like customers, take care of them and listen to their feedback. I'm just trying to do what I was doing at TruSpeed – trying to get butts in seats and get people to the racetrack, and tell them why we're better than the other guys."

Morgan's narrative largely centers on the affordability of Pirelli World Challenge, claiming the budget for a season of World Challenge is equivalent to the budget of Daytona and Sebring alone for a GT3 endurance team.

"I've been reaching out to a couple of different people," he says. "I'm pretty sure I was the one that reached out to [Magnus Racing's] John Potter. I've known Andy [Lally] for a number of years, and I went to the last two World Challenge races just to know what's going on. At the end of the weekend, I saw Andy; at the time, he was still running with John. I asked him to do an introduction, I said I want to get him over here. He's a good guy and they spend a lot of money to go racing and he does it the right way. [Lally] set it up, it opened the door and it put he and Greg together." Magnus Racing will be running a two-car Audi R8 team for Potter in GTA and Pierre Kaffer in GT. Spencer Pumpelly will join the team for the SprintX rounds to team with Kaffer.

Morgan says he believes that fans will see some one-offs with teams in other series giving World Challenge a try. With the GT3 formula also the rule in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD class, and GTS/GT4 cars also racing in IMSA's Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, there's a lot of potential for crossover.

"We haven't had much pushback on SprintX, which is coming from what the SRO and Stephane Ratel are doing with their format in Europe. I like it, it's interesting. I've only been to one race, at Laguna [Seca], and that's one of the best races I've ever seen. I was standing in Turn 3, and I got goosebumps. All the pros getting in the cars [in the middle of the race under caution] and they're about to get the green flag and they're going to battle. I think it's like anything new – people don't like change. And as a series, we'll learn more as we go along. But I think for long term it's a good direction," Morgan says.

Morgan has some ideas that he's discussed with Gill that are too early in their gestation to talk about, but he says one of the areas he intends to look at is keeping GT as affordable as possible.

"What scares me is where the costs are going with the cars, and how expensive they are to run. I know one of the issues is the number of street races we run and some of the gentleman racers that have these cars are a little nervous to bring them out, just because of the walls," he says.

And speaking of gentlemen racers and up-and-comers, one of the areas that Morgan will have to attend to is GT Cup, which is welcoming Ferrari Challenge and Lamborghini Super Trofeo cars to the fold to join the 911 GT Cup car for all rounds. Entries were lagging last year, and they're even worse for the opening round of 2017 at St. Petersburg, where one Ferrari and one Porsche are registered. Balancing the different cars will still be competition director
Marcus Haselgrove's arena, but Morgan will have to figure out how to attract more racers if the class is to succeed.

On the other hand, GT remains solid from where it was in 2016, losing some competitors and gaining others – and remaining the most diverse GT3-based series worldwide – while GTA seems to be on the upswing. That's not to say Morgan's job will be easy, as competitors will find things to be unhappy about. But if racers are treated like customers as everyone in series management says is their aim, then the grumbling might not last long if competitors feel that their concerns are heard.