Next
Issue Due Out 4/29/02 - Deadline For Materials 4/19/02
SEAMO
Update
It's been several busy weeks since our last issue of the
newsletter. Among the notable developments were SEAMO's
Reading, Writing & Racing Day, and the organization
of the first annual Concept Vehicle of the Year Awards program.
Ford has also recently signed on as our newest OEM member
and website sponsor.
The weather for our Reading,
Writing & Racing program on March 7 couldn't
have been nicer. After gathering at Chateau Elan, just outside
of Atlanta, we made a short trip over to Lanier Technical
College to check out their Motorsports Vehicle Technology
(MVT) degree program. Our afternoon was spent on an all-access
tour of the Panoz maintenance, fabrication and manufacturing
facilities. The day concluded with a press conference and
dinner hosted by Exxon Mobil to announce the new Mobil1
with SuperSyn motor oil.
In upcoming event news, our jury
for the Concept Vehicle of the
Year Award program has been selected, and the
jurors are starting to receive concept vehicle packages
from many of the manufacturers. Plans call for three segment
awards: Best Car Concept, Best Truck Concept, and Best Specialty
Concept, as well as a Most Significant Concept award chosen
from the three segment winners. Public announcement of the
winners will be made during a luncheon ceremony at the Atlanta
Auto Show on April 24,2002. Stay tuned to the
page on the SEAMO website for more details as they become
available.
By
the way, the closing date for our first printed directory
will be in early May, so to make sure your contact information will be
included.
Lanier Technical College Tour
Developed during late 2000 and early 2001, Lanier Technical
College's Motorsports
Vehicle Technology (MVT)
program prepares students for entry-level positions in the
rapidly growing motorsports industry. Although the program
has a motorsports focus, the skills taught are transferrable
outside of racing. A strong emphasis is placed on operating
as part of a team, as this can be more important than many
technical skills in the high-pressure atmosphere of motorsports.
Not only does the program teach the obvious skills of fabrication,
machining and mechanics, but it also stresses the need for
proficiency in related math skills and communication ability.
The formation of Lanier's MVT program
was the result of record growth at the automotive operations
at the nearby Panoz Organization. For those who aren't familiar
with Panoz, in addition to the Chateau Elan Resort &
Winery, their holdings also include the Road Atlanta Race
Course, Panoz Auto Development, and Elan Motorsports. When
the Panoz operations expanded in 1999, the solution to finding
a ready source of trained technicians was brought about
through an alliance between the Panoz Racing School and
Lanier Technical College.
As
luck would have it, Lanier's facilities included automotive
shops and classrooms that weren't fully utilized. So, with
the combination of the facilities, the cars and equipment
from Panoz, and the course instructor Bud Hughes, the MVT
program was born. Although the Panoz fleet provided the
program's inspiration, the course was diversified to include
stock car and drag-racing exposure in addition to sports-car
and open-wheel segments in which Panoz competes.
About to graduate it first class,
the MVT program today works with industry input and sponsorship
to provide students with exposure to the latest products
and technologies. Employers from the motorsports community
also participate in the program by providing internship
opportunities and job placement.
With
four interns currently in place at the Charlotte location
of the Richard Petty Driving Experience, the managers at
Petty Enterprises find the program to be tremendously valuable.
Because acceptance in the MVT progam is conditional on passing
an interview process, the fact that interns have already
been screened to fit the needs of the industry saves the
employers a considerable amount of the "weeding out"
process. According to one manager at Petty, "We'd need
to go through (at least) 25 prospects to find one of the
caliber that Lanier is producing."
Given that nearly 70% of all major
racing team shops are located along a 300-mile section of
Interstate 85 stretching from Charlotte, NC to Northern
Florida, Lanier's students don't have far to go to find
internship opportunities and employment. In addition to
the Panoz and Petty operations, interns are also currently
placed with employers ranging from Atlanta Dragway, to a
Mercedes specialty shop, to Southern Off-Road Specialists
and Visions Street Rods.
For those students who want to go
beyond the Associate Degree program, Lanier has coordinated
its program with the Motorsports Engineering program at
Clemson. In fact, Clemson was so impressed with Lanier's
program that engineering students from Clemson will be allowed
to attend Lanier for hands-on experience.
Panoz Facilities
Tour After
a brief stop at Road Atlanta for a tour of the driving school
facilities, some "hot laps" and some hot lunch,
we then moved on to a surprise tour of the Panoz racing
and manufacturing shops. Although many fabrication and preparation
facilities in the motorsports world are more secretive and
secure than the CIA, we spent the afternoon on an all-access
tour with Steve Jenner from the Panoz Racing School.
Our
first stop for the afternoon was at the preparation and
maintenance facilities for Panoz' Le Mans Prototype team.
From a look at the single road-legal Panoz GT "supercar"
that is the required price of entry into the rarefied sport
of prototype racing, to its limited production GTS racing
off-spring, we then got in-depth with the cars and team
members that make up the company's Le Mans Prototype (LMP)
effort.
The Panoz LMP cars make exstensive
use of carbon fiber composite structural and body components
to keep weight to a minimum. A front-engine, rear-transaxle
configuration is used to help balance the car's overall
weight distribution. Underneath its aerodynamic skin, the
car is made up of three substructures: the engine and front
suspension, the driver's compartment, and the transaxle
with the rear suspension attached.
Because of stiff competition in prototype
racing, most of the car's components are purpose-built for
each team. Panoz has the advantage of building these components
in-house, under one roof, rather that relying on suppliers
that may be halfway across the globe. While the Panoz cars
may use a gearset similar to those found in other racecars,
the gearboxes themselves are continually refined for weight
reduction, balance, and endurance.
All of this is hidden once the car's
aerodynamic carbon fiber skin is attached. Given the high
race speeds and the narrow margins between winning and losing
in prototype racing, meticulously detailed scale models
of the cars are tested in rolling-road wind-tunnels to coax
every last bit of speed out of a body design. On top of
it all is a new patriotic red, white and blue livery scheme
for this year's racing season.
From the prep shop, we drove a short
distance to the Elan Motorsports Group facility where most
of the parts, components and systems for the various Panoz
cars are designed and built. Unlike many racing operations
that purchase off-the-shelf components, or have them built
by subcontractors, the Elan Group is able to design and
manufacture nearly every part of its race cars, and even
some for its production cars, within its own facilities.
The
company's Elan Power Products division builds and manages
Ford-based racing engines for its own teams and operations,
as well as for other teams in various racing segments. In-house
design, manufacturing, inspection and dynomometer facilities
cover all aspects of preparation and maintenance.
With extensive use of hand-laid carbon
fiber components and panels in its racing cars, and more
than a few composite structures in its production cars,
Panoz draws on another of its divisions, Elan Composites,
to manufacture the lightweight components to exacting specifications.
On this part of the tour, we were able to meet with one
of the Lanier Tech interns while he explained the process
of creating the carbon fiber components.
Another member of the Elan Motorsports
Group, G Force Technologies, has gained a world-wide reputation
for supplying both racecar chassis and composite manufacturing,
working with teams around the world in series including
Formula One, sportscars and touring cars.
The company's facility at the Elan
Motorsports headquarters in Georgia concentrates on building
complete cars for the IRL open-wheel racing series, while
a facility in the UK handles operations for the European
based series. Here again, the in-house access to design,
machining, fabrication and manufacturing facilities allows
the company to fully control every aspect of vehicle construction.
Our
final stop on the tour took us to Panoz Auto Development,
the production-vehicle end of the Panoz empire. This original
division got its start by producing the Panoz Roadster,
which could be viewed as the key that opened the "pandora's
toolbox" of the company's current automotive and racing
operations. After several years of critical acclaim and
successful sales, the Roadster was shelved, temporarily
we're told, to begin production of the latest Panoz creation,
the Esperante.
The
Esperante is a sleek, hand-built, two-seat sportscar, that
is not only price-competitive with many of its mass-produced
counterparts, but due to its use of selected Ford internal
systems and drivetrain components, it's serviceable at virtually
every Ford dealer in North America.
Like its racing siblings, the Esperante
makes exstensive use of leading-edge materials and construction
techniques. Because of the car's limited production volume,
hand-laid composite structures end up being less costly
than producing the same part from metal, especially once
the tooling costs for either process are factored in.
While the Esperante does make more
use of outsourced components than it's racing siblings,
it still receives the same degree of inspection and testing
that makes for successful ventures on the racing side of
the business. Where some limited production or hand-built
automobiles tend to be a little "rough" in normally
unseen areas, the Esperante's elegance is more than skin
deep. Many of the internal components and substructures
in the Esperante seem to have been designed "smarter"
than what one might expect. In some places this reduces
weight or improves fit and finish, while in other places
it takes complexity out of the assembly process.
Even a veteran of factory tours and
racing operations would find the Panoz facilities to be
impressive. From race course facilities, to one-of-a-kind
prototypes, to fleets of racecars, to hand-built, limited
production sportscars, the operations we toured were first-rate,
and covered the entire spectrum of automotive interests.
Thanks to the Panoz team for their time and hospitality.
OEM
Welcome
A warm SEAMO welcome to our latest OEM members from Ford.
Anne Booker is Ford's
Southeast Regional Communications Manager. Ford has also
signed on as the newest of the SEAMO website sponsors. The
company's press website at
provides access to releases, hi-res photos, contact info
and other features. A password is required for access to
some of the site's features, so go ahead and register today.
Member
Profile - Carmen
Pang - Auto Interiors
Carmen Pang, editor-in-chief of Atlanta-based Auto Interiors
(formerly Automotive & Transportation Interiors), joined
the staff in February 1997 as associate editor. As the resident
in-house electronics expert, she has covered a variety of
topics including the business of telematics, electronics
integration, voice technology, as well as other interiors
issues such as interior design, supply chain management,
branding and e-commerce.
Carmen has a rich background in journalism.
Prior to joining Auto Interiors, Carmen was a free-lance
writer and translator/interpreter, primarily for business-to-business
publications. She was an Atlanta bureau reporter for Tokyo's
Asahi Shimbun, assigned to the 1996 Olympics. Carmen also
edited for Timepieces, a publication of Global Sources,
Hong Kong, and worked as Special Correspondent for Asia
Television Broadcasting, Hong Kong, where she scouted for
fun places to go in Tokyo. Carmen's articles have also appeared
in Atlanta-based Business To Business Magazine.
Carmen is currently a member of the
Society of Automotive Engineers, the Automotive Press Association,
the South East Automotive Media Organization and the Magazine
Association of Georgia. Carmen's achievements include multiple
editorial excellence awards presented by the American Society
of Business Press Editors, the Magazine Association of Georgia,
and the International Automotive Media Conference.
Member
Profile - Elke Martin - The Brandware Group SEAMO
member Elke Martin co-founded The Brandware Group, a brand
strategy and development firm, in May 2000 with partner
Dave Krysiek. She heads up the company's public relations
boutique, BrandwarePR, which works for clients like CarsDirect.com,
Callaway Cars, Saab and Autodata Solutions.
It's
no surprise that many of Brandware's clients have deep roots
in the automotive industry--Elke, Dave and the rest of the
Brandware team have decades of client-side experience working
for companies like Mercedes-Benz, Saab Automobile AB, Saturn,
Edmunds.com, AutoWeek, General Motors, the American Automobile
Association, and Petersen Publishing (E-Map).
Brandware's clients range from OEM
and Tier I suppliers to emerging companies and Fortune 500
players. In addition to comprehensive PR services, Brandware
also provides brand and marketing research services to clients
like XM Satellite Radio, DuPont, Master Lock, Karastan,
Community America Bank and many others.
Way back when, Elke had good intentions
of writing Pulitzer prize winning prose. Journalism degree
in hand, she pointed her '68 Javelin west after a stint
in Michigan and landed in Los Angeles. While she didn't
win the Pulitzer (yet), she did get a chance to learn how
to ride motorcycles and launch magazines at Petersen Publishing,
where she became Managing Editor of Dirt Rider. Since then,
she's shifted gears to the public relations side, most recently
as general manager of corporate communications at Mercedes-Benz
in Montvale, NJ. Prior to that, she was director of corporate
communications at Saab in Norcross, GA.
Elke, a native of Stuttgart, Germany,
divides her time between northeastern New Jersey and Atlanta,
GA, where her husband Bob, a former motorcycle racer and
automotive industry veteran, is head of service and parts
for Italian motorcycle OEM subsidiary, Aprilia USA.
Media Tech
In
spite of the pervasive use of electronic files for the communication
and production of automotive industry news, there is still
quite a bit of confusion regarding which formats to use
when sending an image or document file. As part of my work
with another media group, I coordinated the development
of an extensive set of . Here are just a few highlights
of what you'll find in the report located in the Press &
PR Resources section of the Truck Writers of North America
(TWNA) website:
*Don't
send an image unless it has been requested.
*Better yet, provide a URL where the image can be downloaded.
*Web images at 72dpi are not useable for print.
*Print images need to be 300dpi at the finished size for
magazine use.
*If you must use the .jpg format, use the high quality/low
compression setting.
*Preferred image formats are .tif for photos and .eps
for line art.
*Don't send press releases in .doc format.
*Send document files as "Text Only" or "Generic
Word Processor Text."
*When sending releases to a large group, use Bcc: instead
of To: for addressing.
*If you must use MS Outlook, download and install security
patches frequently.
*And finally, DON'T OPEN UNKNOWN ATTACHMENTS!!!
On The Lighter Side
ESSENTIAL WORD ADDITIONS FOR
TODAY'S WORKFORCE...
BLAMESTORMING:
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was
missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
SEAGULL MANAGER:
A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on
everything, and then leaves.
PRAIRIE DOGGING:
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube
farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see
what's going on.
MOUSE POTATO:
The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
SITCOMs (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage):
What yuppies turn into when they have children and one
of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
STRESS PUPPY:
A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and
whiny.
SWIPED OUT:
An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because
the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
XEROX SUBSIDY:
Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
ASSMOSIS:
The process by which some people seem to absorb success
and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than
working hard.
IRRITAINMENT:
Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but
you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J.
trials were a prime example. Bill Clinton's shameful video
Grand Jury testimony is another.
PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE:
The fine art of whacking the heck out of an electronic
device to get it to work again.
VULCAN NERVE PINCH:
The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate
keys for certain commands. For instance, the arm reboot
for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing
the Control Key, the Command Key, the Return Key, and
the Power On key. For Windows it's Ctrl, Alt, Delete simultaneously.
YUPPIE FOOD STAMPS:
The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere.
Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal..."We
each owe $8, but all anybody's got are yuppie food stamps."
SALMON DAY:
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream
only to get screwed and die in the end.
ADMINISPHERE:
The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above
the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere
are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the
problems they were designed to solve.
404:
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error
message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document
could not be located."
GENERICA:
Features of the American landscape that are exactly the
same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints,
strip malls, subdivisions.
OHNOSECOND:
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that
you've just made a BIG mistake.
WOOFYS:
Well Off Older Folks
Contact
Info & Links
Here's how to join SEAMO, be added to or removed from the
mailing list, submit news items or photos for upcoming newsletters,
or just make your opinion known.
Next
Issue Due Out 4/29/02 - Deadline For Materials 4/19/02
Send
your comments, complaints, newsletter submissions or mailing
list updates to:
South
East Automotive Media Organization
4429 Back Creek Church Road
Charlotte, NC 28213-5251
As
luck would have it, Lanier's facilities included automotive
shops and classrooms that weren't fully utilized. So, with
the combination of the facilities, the cars and equipment
from Panoz, and the course instructor Bud Hughes, the MVT
program was born. Although the Panoz fleet provided the
program's inspiration, the course was diversified to include
stock car and drag-racing exposure in addition to sports-car
and open-wheel segments in which Panoz competes.
With
four interns currently in place at the Charlotte location
of the Richard Petty Driving Experience, the managers at
Petty Enterprises find the program to be tremendously valuable.
Because acceptance in the MVT progam is conditional on passing
an interview process, the fact that interns have already
been screened to fit the needs of the industry saves the
employers a considerable amount of the "weeding out"
process. According to one manager at Petty, "We'd need
to go through (at least) 25 prospects to find one of the
caliber that Lanier is producing."
After
a brief stop at Road Atlanta for a tour of the driving school
facilities, some "hot laps" and some hot lunch,
we then moved on to a surprise tour of the Panoz racing
and manufacturing shops. Although many fabrication and preparation
facilities in the motorsports world are more secretive and
secure than the CIA, we spent the afternoon on an all-access
tour with Steve Jenner from the Panoz Racing School. 
Our
first stop for the afternoon was at the preparation and
maintenance facilities for Panoz' Le Mans Prototype team.
From a look at the single road-legal Panoz GT "supercar"
that is the required price of entry into the rarefied sport
of prototype racing, to its limited production GTS racing
off-spring, we then got in-depth with the cars and team
members that make up the company's Le Mans Prototype (LMP)
effort.
Because of stiff competition in prototype
racing, most of the car's components are purpose-built for
each team. Panoz has the advantage of building these components
in-house, under one roof, rather that relying on suppliers
that may be halfway across the globe. While the Panoz cars
may use a gearset similar to those found in other racecars,
the gearboxes themselves are continually refined for weight
reduction, balance, and endurance. 
All of this is hidden once the car's
aerodynamic carbon fiber skin is attached. Given the high
race speeds and the narrow margins between winning and losing
in prototype racing, meticulously detailed scale models
of the cars are tested in rolling-road wind-tunnels to coax
every last bit of speed out of a body design. On top of
it all is a new patriotic red, white and blue livery scheme
for this year's racing season.
The
company's Elan Power Products division builds and manages
Ford-based racing engines for its own teams and operations,
as well as for other teams in various racing segments. In-house
design, manufacturing, inspection and dynomometer facilities
cover all aspects of preparation and maintenance.
Another member of the Elan Motorsports
Group, G Force Technologies, has gained a world-wide reputation
for supplying both racecar chassis and composite manufacturing,
working with teams around the world in series including
Formula One, sportscars and touring cars. 
Our
final stop on the tour took us to Panoz Auto Development,
the production-vehicle end of the Panoz empire. This original
division got its start by producing the Panoz Roadster,
which could be viewed as the key that opened the "pandora's
toolbox" of the company's current automotive and racing
operations. After several years of critical acclaim and
successful sales, the Roadster was shelved, temporarily
we're told, to begin production of the latest Panoz creation,
the Esperante.
The
Esperante is a sleek, hand-built, two-seat sportscar, that
is not only price-competitive with many of its mass-produced
counterparts, but due to its use of selected Ford internal
systems and drivetrain components, it's serviceable at virtually
every Ford dealer in North America. 
SEAMO
member Elke Martin co-founded The Brandware Group, a brand
strategy and development firm, in May 2000 with partner
Dave Krysiek. She heads up the company's public relations
boutique, BrandwarePR, which works for clients like CarsDirect.com,
Callaway Cars, Saab and Autodata Solutions.