If you've been living on a barren tropical paradise like a lonely castaway, you won't know what GT Live is. But, if you're a member of the enormous 2NR readership and fan club, you saw our coverage of the biggest thing to hit the import community since the D1 drift series. As the first stateside JGTC appearance, GT Live was significant enough to make legions of East Coast fans pack bags and catch flights to see what the hell was up.
But the JGTC wasn't just shipped over by your local FedEx carrier on an overnight whim. Loads of hair pulling, stressful nights and organization ensured GT Live wasn't just vaporware. If you want to know how GT Live was conceived and where it's going from here, ride along as we get the info straight from the mouth of Randy Grube. Who's Randy Grube? You get a free, single-finger salute, my friend. As head of Paramax Consulting, the guys responsible for traipsing the JGTC across the Pacific, Randy Grube is your next best friend.
2NR: As head of Paramax, are you the brainchild who brought the JGTC to the United States?RG: Basically.
2NR: How did it happen?RG: I always wanted to do something with cars but never had an opportunity. Then we had Autobacs as a client in our normal business. After about two years of working with the guys there, I realized the company could use some help with its motorsports marketing. We pitched some ideas; Autobacs liked them, and the guys suggested we come out to see a JGTC race. I was really amazed.
2NR: It was all about the race queens-miniskirts and all?RG: No, no. It was all about the cars. Actually, I went with pretty low expectations. We were working with manufacturers that believed motorsports were dead in Japan. So I went there with a negative attitude. There was nothing impressive to see at first, but then the cars started to run. It was the combination of hearing the sounds, seeing the cars and having the opportunity to be in the pit lane during practice. The cars were all lined up ready for practice, idling. It was unbelievable. The cars were what really got me.
2NR: At GT Live, it was obvious the people who went liked the cars. But 10 minutes into the race, people were ready to leave. Do you think road racing is the next big thing for this market?RG: It could be. Sixty percent of the people who came hadn't seen an actual road race. That's good because we brought people something they'd never seen before; it's bad because if you've never been to a road race before, you can't see shit. Take Gran Turismo for example: There's only two real U.S. tracks, Laguna Seca and Sears Point. Compared to those in Europe or Asia, the U.S. racetracks are crappy. I think there's a really good chance road racing will be popular. But it's a combination of getting the right type of road racing and events going-so if the racing is boring, there are other things to do. That's one of the reasons we did GT Live like we did.
2NR: Was GT Live a success in part because we were the first on the bandwagon to announce its Stateside debut in our October 2004 issue?RG: Oh yeah, it's because of 2NR. People realized your magazine sells well. When they saw you devoted pages to it, they thought it must be something. It actually did help a lot.
[Randy did in fact bring a suitcase full of October 2004 Import Tuner issues to Twin Ring Motegi. He distributed them to GT Association and race team members]
2NR: How did the race teams feel about the event?RG: It was a little bit mixed. There were some communication issues, and some of the teams weren't so happy. But there were other teams who were ecstatic, especially the teams that were closely related to the tuner industry. Amemiya had never been here before in that capacity, and didn't realize he had many fans here. Guys from magazines go to Japan to visit these guys in their shops and say, "We're going to do a story on your company; it's famous." The Japanese shop guys don't believe you, but they figure what the hell, because it's going to help sell some parts. And that's completely different from coming here and having people say, "I want to shake your hand." For Japanese people, that's a big thing, having an American come up and want to shake your hand.