JP's Indycar Blog

A Quick Note on Tiered Engine Pricing

2012-01-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

By now I am sure you are aware of the engine lease hoo haa that has bottlenecked the final shoring up of the IndyCar grid for 2012. In short, the story goes…

To prevent the squeezing out of any one of the three manufacturers by the other two, IndyCar instituted a 40% max rule for any single engine manufacturer. This essentially meant that at worse, 20% of the field would run the least preferred engine from the three suppliers.

IndyCar told the manufacturers that the engines would be loss leaders. Teams would pay the manufacturers $690k a year for engines that in reality cost much more than that. The hit the engine manufacturers took was to be written off as a marketing expense..ie advertising spend.

In order to budget this expense, the manufacturers asked IndyCar for an estimate of field size, IndyCar guestimated 25. So mfrs assumed the largest number of these loss leader engines they would supply would be 10 per mfr.

Then things got tricky…Turns out if you wipe the slate clean and level the playing field with everyone starting over with new chassis, there were teams dying to get into IndyCar that have now taken the plunge. The field looks to have ballooned to potentially 30 entrants.

So theoretically an engine mfr could now supply up to 12 cars in the field…BUT… remember Mfrs are losing money on these engines and they have only planned to lose $X off 10 engine deals.

What’s more, one of the mfrs, Lotus does not have the physical resources to supply more than 5 or 6 cars on the grid so while they could supply up to ten if they wished…they just don’t wish to.

So now there’s gridlock…Chevy and Honda don’t want to do extra engine deals to pick up the slack because of the money they are losing and now there are teams with sponsorship deals in place that cannot get and engine deal done…

A compromise was struck that allows chevy and Honda to each provide an 11^th and 12^th engine deal, but at “Tier 2” pricing of $1m a deal so as to minimize the financial loss. Got all that? If you are still confused GO HERE.

The problem with this deal is that the teams that will be granted the 11^th and 12^th engine deals at the tier 2 pricing will be the smallest teams on the grid, the big teams signed early and got the tier 1 pricing. Doesn’t seem equitable does it. Ganassi, Penske, Andretti and KV might point out that these are the spoils of success, accomplishments of hard work. Others might view it as a barrier to competition favoring the rich over the poor.

With that as a back drop I pose one policy change for 2013. Keep the tier 1 and tier 2 pricing. Each mfr is obligated to provide up to 10 deals at tier 1 pricing, $690k per. Then any extra engines, still conforming to the 40% rule, will be offered at the Tier 2 price of $1m. Now here’s the twist. Any single team, at most, can purchase no more than 2 engine deals at tier 1 pricing. Cars 3 and 4 must be signed at tier 2 pricing.

This will mean that each mfr can supply up to 5 two car teams at tier 1 pricing, 15 teams in all. This regulation allows the little guys like SFR, Coyne and ECR in the game and but still allows the big teams to scale, just not at the sweetheart deal rate.

But will it chase off the 3^rd and 4^th entries from the bigger teams? I doubt it. Remember the most expensive car to run is the first, each additional car added to the grid essentially only adds variable costs allowing the fixed costs of running a team to be amortized over more entries. For the big teams this basically will equalize the cost of running cars three and four relative to the cost of running cars 1 and 2.

To me, this seems like a reasonable solution.

Another suggestion: As has been discussed, the mfrs are losing money on the Tier 1 deals with the loss being chalked up as advertising spend. Another variable yet to be discussed is the effectiveness of this advertising spend. How many people are exposed to the mfrs brand and product? IE what is the TV rating…how many people are in the seats? If both of these numbers rise, then the mfrs actually got more exposure than they budgeted for, in advertising lingo…Better GRP’s. Perhaps the tier 2 pricing could include an end of the year rebate back towards the $690k relative to final ratings numbers generated by the race broadcasts. If the product is good and morre people watch, the 3 and 4 cars don’t end up costing as much to the teams, because the mfrs got a better return on their involvement in the series than originally thought…

Again just a thought…

Robbing Peter to Pay Chip

2011-12-29T21:37:00.000-08:00

About 15 years ago strategic business consultants began to champion an item called the “Balanced Scorecard”. The idea was that too many businesses were so focused on short term accounting profits, that long term customer and quality metrics were being forgotten. The implication, it was feared, would be that businesses focusing only on short term profits might penny pinch or shortcut their way out of long term existence.

Strategic consultancies began to build econometric models that showed short term profit seeking led to long term shrinkage. Long term, sustainable growth was powered by the short to mid term management of customer and quality metrics. Thus was born the Balanced Scorecard. A report card for senior managers that combined profit, costing, productivity, efficiency, quality and customer metrics into a single dashboard. Being a Marketing Researcher by trade, companies I have worked for through the years have been charged with providing customer metrics for such dashboards in the form of customer sat metrics or brand health measures.

In addition to simply being a sheet of summary numbers, the scorecards were built upon simulators based on econometric models that helped senior managers allocate monetary expenditures across their business. Would money saved on quality of inputs have an effect on customer satisfaction which would ultimately lead to lower profits in the long term or would customers be ok with lower quality so along as part of the savings be passed along as a price cut? Ultimately the scorecards and models were to help guide businesses in allocating scarce resources for their ultimate financial good.

As I have posted items on this blog over the past three years, I have begun to accumulate a set of numbers that seem to me to be worthy of some sort of scorecard status: for example TV ratings goals of 1/2/6 for the Vs/ABC/500 broadcasts by 2012 or ~40% American drivers. 50% Ovals and 50% twisties. I have no time series data and thus no model to bear these numbers out as reliable goals, but I am a blogger, HEAR ME ROAR!

Another number I think is of some note is 24. 24 is a goal for two key measures of the series health. A strong IndyCar series will have 24 events, each featuring at least 24 entries each. How do we stand? Well I put this post off a few weeks awaiting final word on the schedule and to see how car counts were shaking out. Well, we know the story, we’re scraping to find a 16^th event but according to Marshal Pruett, there’s enough Irons in the fire that when all shakes out, it is not out of the realm of possibility to have somewhere between 26 and 30 fulltime cars on the grid.

Ultimately IndyCar is a two tier franchise business model. It sanctions racing events for teams to participate in. Promoters and track owners on one hand and racing teams on the other. Two sets of businesses and profit centers based around the revenue streams that IndyCar produces. Right now, it would appear that one set of these entities is doing better than the other. New teams and old teams alike are bullish about the long term potential of participating in Indycar (the loss of NHL is noted, though I do wonder if the roll up of that revered team has more to do with devaluing an asset for estate planning purposes than being a deep statement about the prospects for operating an Indycar team in the near future). On the other hand the league is searching for business models that work for new events and at almost any sort of oval in general.

Yesterday I posted a flow chart of the transfers of money that happens amongst the players on the IndyCar stage. Pressdog will be relieved to see that all sources of revenue basically came from the fan base, filtered through sponsors, promoters and TV back to the league and teams. Indeed, other than operating expenses (which all three profit centers have), only the teams had all the arrows pointing towards them, w/o any pointing away.

I like race cars, you like race cars, we all like race cars. Amazing to imagine how happy either ChampCar or the IRL would have felt about the car counts the league saw this year and could see next year. But we also like RACES and the flip side of this is the pinch on the promoters and track owners. It simply is a tough nut to crack for many of them to make money and hence, those willing to give IndyCar a try are fewer and the schedule has dwindled.

But Oddly enough if you look at the flow chart hard enough you notice that there is a big stream of money from the tracks and promoters in the form of sanctioning fees coming in at $1.5m a pop to the league. On the other hand there is a large sum of $ heading from the league to the teams in the form of TEAM money, roughly $1.2M a team for 22 entries. TEAM money is IndyCar’s version of revenue sharing designed to flatten the competitive landscape and promote fair competition. But 11 of the 22 paying slots next year are going to the Ganassi, Penske and Andretti behemoths. The little guys who would most benefit see none of it.

So if we are in a situation where we seem to have plenty of cars but barely enough events would it not make sense for IndyCar to adjust its allocation of resources? If car counts for 2012 are indeed as robust as they seem to have the potential to be, might it be good planning for the league to slow the stream of money to the set of franchisees doing relatively well and pass it along as a break to the set of franchisees that appear to be struggling?

A modest proposal for 2013. Shave $100k from each of the team allocations. Take that $2.2M and split it four ways to cut sanctioning fees in order to seed events at Phoenix, Watkins Glen, New Hampshire and Road America. The cut in TEAM allocations will cause some belt tightening at the top of the grid, but is not likely to affect car counts from those teams, as the teams most struggling to survive don’t receive TEAM $ at all. Then aggregating those funds to support events that are likely to play well on TV and into the future could well get more fans viewing races which in the long term increases sponsorship dollars for all.

It’s just a thought - Please don’t hit me Chip.

Please Review, There will Be a Quiz Tomorrow

2011-12-29T06:07:00.000-08:00

Please Review the Money Trail Below...Tomorrow's Post/Opinion will be based on a firm understanding of the cash flows diagrammed.

Notes/Assumptions that prevent this flow from getting to darn busy:

The Teams, League and Tracks each have sizeable expenses and budgets that are not chronicled here since they all have them.
I am ignoring the sale of swag by the League, Drivers and Tracks which for IndyCar is not overly substancial
Size of the arrows are not neccessarily to scale overall
Size of arrows for teams/tracks may differ across individual players. IE TCGR probably has a much differently sized and split set of Arrows compared to Conquest.

NBC Sports and the .Something Channels

2011-12-05T05:58:00.000-08:00

As the off/silly season of discontent lingers on it seems that March is soo far away that it will never get here. To pass the time we are focused on the usual offseason speculation about teams and drivers. To this we can add additional drama concerning the schedule, as it seems that this year, events have their own extended silly season. Good news about new engine manufacturers is tempered by questions of balance in the new chassis.

Another Important change is coming to IndyCar within the next month. IndyCar’s primary cable partner, Versus, will undergo a major makeover to become the NBC Sports Channel. Additional focus and brand recognition of the channel itself along with cross pollination/promotion with more prominent and popular sporting events could be a boon for IndyCar.

Something that would be even more beneficial would be if this new channel, NBC Sports, were distributed across the additional bandwidth that the Digital conversion of broadcast TV brought. If you only watch cable or satellite, you may have missed it. But if you have an HDTV ready TV or purchased a HD conversion box for your older TV set, you no longer have just five TV channels, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and FOX. You now have “Child” or .something channels. In Indy for example channel 13 is no longer just channel 13, it is now channel 13.1, 13.2 and 13.3. Additional bandwidth for local TV franchises to offer additional programming to keep pace with cable distributors.

To date, this additional bandwidth has not been used that effectively. In Indy, we have 5 of these 10 new channels devoted to either a loop of the local weather broadcast or radar (Which is REALY boring on a sunny summer day). The best application I have seen utilizing this additional Bandwidth is 6.2 which broadcasts a new local channel “Hometown Sports Network” that broadcasts local High School sports. At some point I expect that some of these channels will pick up Spanish broadcasting like Telemundo.

For this post I was scrolling through my .something channels just to see what was there…and much to my surprise on 13.3 amidst the endless streams of Informercials, I saw a promo that this was the Universal Sports channel, branded with the peacock and all. Universal sports is not new, it has bounced around my satellite services for three or so years featuring as I recall, lots of Olympic trials and cycling. While very few people know it exists, It is getting rolled into Versus to become the NBC Sports channel.

Imagine this…what if the NBC Sports channel was content that was delivered through one of the .something digital channels in every local NBC affiliate? Every household in America could potentially have access to all the programming on this newly relaunched channel…Including IndyCar. No more cable satellite provider squabbles with no more contractual black outs where providers failed to come to new contract terms. No more inclusion only on “Premium Tiers”.

Of course the obstacle here would be all the local affiliates would need to be convinced that the content on this new channel had better ad revenue potential than Skytrac Radar relative to the costs of the content. Likewise the viewers would have to know these channels existed and those accustomed to cable would have to know to attach an antenna to one of the input portals and use the TV/Video button on their remotes to move off the cable or Xbox feed to where these channels were.

I have no Idea if this is in the Launch plans for the NBC Sport channel, but what a boon it would be for IndyCar to have universal distribution for every race it broadcasts…

Pre-Race Images from Las Vegas...

2011-10-27T21:02:00.001-07:00

Can be seen HERE

5 Questions: Leaving Las Vegas Edition

2011-10-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

Closure means not forgetting, but it also means moving on. IndyCar will be faced with many questions in the Days, Months and Weeks to come. Here are Some I have been pondering without conclusive answers. (I think that some other blogger may already be using the “5 Questions” format – Sorry for the infringement.)

Las Vegas Motor Speedway…Will IndyCar Return? Certainly, the day of and shortly thereafter that answer would have been “No way in Hell”. But in the big picture, Randy Bernard has chosen to invest in Vegas as an anchor event for the close of the season. It has been well documented that a $9m sponsor would pay for a race on the strip, so I imagine if that money is found, Vegas stays but LVMS doesn’t. But what if the $ isn’t there? Do they race again at LVMS? I doubt you could excite anyone about racing on the road course at LVMS, so that leaves the oval. But is it too dangerous? If it is, then how can the league Justify Texas, Fontana or a potential return to Chicagoland? All three places have a history of the same Pack racing formula producing their own grisly IndyCar incidents which make them no different than LVMS. Next year will bring a new car, fewer of them and a driver pool sensitized to the inherent risks. Perhaps the game will have changed for the fast high banked ovals.

Will the New Car Really be Safer? I think in many ways the answer is yes. The closed rear wheels, the expanded cockpit with thicker crumple padding around the driver and other things I probably don’t know about are all good things. My concern with the new car is this. Back when Dan was testing it, one of the surprises he listed was the improved visibility in the car. If you have seen pictures of him in the car, you get what he is talking about. My concern, does greater visibility mean greater head exposure? Based on Vegas and the incident with Felipe Massa a few years back, others have commented about the need for closed cockpits. There is a concept in Economic theory called “Pareto Optimality” where in a market a scarce resource cannot be reallocated such that the loss suffered by one is not offset by the gain of the recipient sufficiently to improve the well being of the market overall. I wonder if in some ways car design is near this point, what are the “Unintended Consequences” of a closed cockpit? Can you go back and add a canopy to a design for a car that was originally engineered to be open? Is this a design point for 2015? I do think this. IMS could and should be the leader in searching for a better design for a catch fence. If you recall the “Netflix Prize” competition, Pay a million $ (plus patent royalties) for the team that produces the best computer tested design option for a new catch fence. You would have civil engineering students the world over creating virtual designs on their own dime and time. Once the winner is chosen you could do an actual build out to test and validate the design.

What Will be the Effect on the IndyCar Brand? I need to tread carefully here, but the recent mass media attention IndyCar has received over Dan’s death will have an effect on the perceptions and future of the sport. What will that be? If you ever saw the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” recall the Buddhist parable the CIA agent tells Tom Hanks at the end of the film… The incident will reinforce the perception that IndyCar is an “Extreme Sport” but what does that moniker mean exactly. Is something “Extreme” popular because it is inherently dangerous or is it that any kid with a skateboard who lives near a public park with a stairway can do something cool/stupid in front of his friends? Dale Earnhardt’s death galvanized the commitment of all those who loved Nascar and piqued the interest of many who never followed it, Others made money by selling “In Memorial” window stickers for the back of pickup trucks. The positive and negative ramifications linger still to this day. Dan’s death is now a given. If the sport is stronger and better 5 years from now, he will be proud. If people have merely exploited the tragedy for Money, it will be a Shame. For further reference Bing or Google “Smiths Lyrics Paint a Vulgar Picture”

Will Randy Bernard Stay? Damn, I hope so. Has his leadership had bumps in the road? Yes. Were many of these bumps in place before Randy? Yes. The training period is now over, the final lesson on motorsports has been taught. I’d like to see how the pupil utilizes his education. A fair read on the matter can be found at: Popoffvalve.com. Not to go all black helicopter here, but if you have seen all the slams in the mainstream press and people riling up discontent in the comment sections of other more well read blogs and forums, I sometimes wonder if someone with an agenda is seeding discontent.

Will the GoDaddy Sponsorship Stay? And if it does, who ends up in that seat? What are the dominoes that follow. Finding someone who can win races in that seat is probably easier (Vitor Meira for example) than finding someone with a big enough Q score to move the needle to make GoDaddy happy (~~the best candidate I can come up right now with is lounging around the ranch in Napolean, Ohio right now~~). I doubt that contracts in place with Dr Pepper/Snapple, Circle K or DHL would allow for a RHR or Marco shuffle into that car. Perhaps an investment is made to create a new star for the future. IDK. But this seems to be the biggest domino for the upcoming offseason.

The Long Drive Home…

2011-10-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

It’s been a week now. A week since sitting for what seemed an eternity in the stands at LVMS. Wondering if the endless wait was a horrible thing or something worse. In that time I have thought about writing this post several times, with the time not being quite right each time. I have spent the last week staring into large geological chasms of stupefying beauty where nature reveals the artistic creativity of God that has distracted me from pondering the mystery of purpose that constitutes the lives we lead. The sting of the moment is gone and as memory is a degenerative thing for me, the time to record the feelings, thoughts and memories that remain is now at hand. I appreciate your patience.

I am not one of the followers of the IndyCar community that is close to the participants, I am in large part a simple fan. A fan who can point to limited interactions with drivers under controlled circumstances as well as consumption of the IndyCar media product as the basis for my feelings about those drivers. My pre Vegas thoughts about Dan are summarized HERE. So I can’t honestly call Dan a friend, Acquaintance is stretching the truth. He was an Icon of the Sport I love, and as the sport grieves his loss I grieve as well.

Sunday morning began with much promise, the sun was shining, not that that is any great thing in Vegas, but the summer heat had given way to a fall warmth that would be the perfect summer day in the part of the world where I reside. Jenny and I rode the elevator down at the Golden Nugget, where we were staying courtesy of the AJ Foyt promotion. When the elevator opened and we walked from lobby of the Rush Tower out into the loading area for busses and into the parking garage we were hit by the large number of people milling about who were obviously involved with the sport as either a participant of the sporting enterprise, a sponsor or a fan. At that point the day seemed even more promising than merely the weather.

The drive to LVMS from downtown was all of a whopping 13 minutes, parking was simple and the walk to the track reasonable. We hit will call, picked up our tickets and paddock passes and then proceeded through the tunnel under the track as quickly as possible to “DisneyWorld” otherwise known as the garage and paddock. Had the camera in hand and it was going to be a great day.

The first character of the magical kingdom we came across was Simona DeSilvestro. She looked tense today. Jenny greeted and cheered her as she walked by. Our efforts couldn’t elicit a smile or a wave. This was not the Simona we had seen in the paddock times before. Today, for many, there was concern both in the air and in the pits of stomachs. From the young woman recently stung by oval tracks multiple times to veterans Tony Kanaan and Vitor Meira who seemed strangely distant this morning, we were reminded of our own concerned premonitions as well as those which had been pronounced by Alex Tagliani two weeks earlier at Kentucky.

For other drivers starting the 3^rd or 4^th race of their careers, it was a day of excitement and of promise that today would be a window of opportunity for the rest of their careers. Pippa Mann smiled and laughed with all the Autograph seekers following her on her way from the final driver meeting to her Transporter. Jay Howard walking the same path a mere 10 feet away, watched bemusedly as a pudgy guy old enough to be Pippa’s father pedaled backwards as fast as he could with his camera pointed at Pippa and his finger on the shutter the whole way. Wade Cunningham posed and made incredible hulk gestures for me all while eating a pre race sub sandwich.

There’s a fine line that separates Jay, Wade and Pippa from JR, Hinch and Ana in this sport. Championships and wins are not the criteria that determines destiny for an IndyLights driver. Wade Cunningham is one of the best IndyLights talents that IndyCar has chosen to ignore. He was going to race hard this day and we cannot blame him for that, his future career was on the line. I feel for him, the criticism he is starting to receive and the internalized grief and sorrow he must be feeling. If he had spun the same way on any other day, everyone gets out of their cars, the carbon fibre gets swept up, the cars get loaded back on the truck and hauled back to the shop for repair and life would go on as usual. It happens every race weekend.

That morning I saw JR alternately talking with John Barnes and signing autographs and posing for pictures. JR is the one driver who recognizes me. I think it dates back to that evening at in the Mid Ohio paddock during his second year in Lights when he was wandering anonymously through the paddock and I rushed up to him and excitedly asked to have my picture taken with him. He wasn’t used to that sort of attention yet and I think it stuck with him. Today I asked him to pose with me for a picture that Jenny could text the nephews. They, by association, have become fans as well and the MMS message would make their day.

I asked if I could step into the garage for some pictures, JR asked John Barnes who chuckled “Sure, after today no one will have any secrets anymore”. Before I headed for the garage and started taking pictures of the engineers checking the mapping of buttons from the driver’s wheel to the Engineering computers, I stepped back and shook JR’s hand and told him “Be safe out there today”. I hope I didn’t spook him, but in truth it is how we all feel about all the sport’s participants each and every race day. I hope they never forget that.

We arrived at our seats in the Petty terrace with about 15 minutes to spare…I think…I don’t really remember much here. It is all a blur for a while. I remember texting with a friend of mine who was in the center grandstand. The race started and I tweeted “4 laps in the field is still one massive 4 wide pack”. Then it all happened, a cloud of smoke, fireballs and a storm of race car parts exploded in front of me, playing out in what seemed to be slow motion. The moment lasted too long. The only thing I could muster and tweet was “Oh my God”. I counted cars as they pulled onto pit road. 14 unaccounted for.

We all sat and listened to IMS on the PA. I checked twitter…Often. Soon we all realized that everyone but Dan was out of their car and not in life threatening circumstances, but no word on Dan yet. From the Petty terrace we could see the helicopter warming up in front of us. We could see the canopy where the ambulance would pull in and the doors a driver would go through to the med center. No ambulance yet. It was taking a while.

I had a long lens with me, it would get pretty close to the scene down there. I decided not to use it. Somewhere between “Press” and “Fan” lies the “Blogger”. I have always considered myself and this forum to be closer to the “Fan” end of the spectrum. Real news gatherers and photographers, were on the scene and this was their Job. My job was to sit, hope and pray for Dan.

In succession the ambulance arrived at the care center and the car was brought up, shrouded in a yellow tarp. Underneath it was the outline of a car that clearly had no roll hoop. At that point I knew, no matter how this turned out, things would never be the same. I worried about Sam Schmidt having a driver suffer the same outcome he endures to this day. Realism was setting in for me, that paralysis was likely the most positive outcome the day might bring.

They wheeled Dan out on the stretcher, put him in the copter and it took off. Then we waited. Apparently rumors were flying left and right, but I heard none of them. That is a tribute to the fine people I follow on twitter, while they may have heard or guessed or suspected things, they never reported what they didn’t know to be absolutely true. You are a great group.

In my mind I waffled on whether the wait was a good or a bad thing. If he had passed, they would just tell us. If it was taking a while, then heroic efforts were underway to ensure two young boys still had a father. I was bargaining. We all were. Then I saw the 98 machine wheeled off pit road. My heart sank. The only car the Sam Schmidt team had left in the field was going home. I tweeted what I saw and then just sat and waited for the word to come. Tony Kanaan was on the big screen after the drivers meeting. The look on his face said it all.

The announcement came, the crowd let out a moan and then went silent, sitting quietly in a saddened shock. I sat in tears and we waited for the 5 laps salute. The saddest 5 laps IndyCar has ever seen. I pulled out the camera and started shooting. I got the 77 on the scoring pylon. I got the crews and league officials lined up on the white pit road line and I got the cars crossing the scoring line three by three. Most of all I distracted myself from the reality of the moment.

The crowd started to dissipate after the salute laps were completed. We sat for a while longer, there would be traffic in the lots. We had no place to go. It dawned on me at that moment, thinking back to the 500 just four months earlier, that Dan had not only done a miraculous thing on the track, winning the 500 for a team competing in only its second race, but he had also achieved a sort of elusive perfection of style and fashion. Crisp white with Orange and Gray highlights, all complimenting themselves in a manner that only Dan could have pulled off. Is it a silly thought? Sure it is, but I doubt a driver will ever look that good in a suit or a car ever again.

We staggered back to the car, the sun was catching up with me, I needed water and was beginning to get a pretty annoying headache. We sat in the rental as the rest of the crowd streamed and rolled by.

I didn’t know Dan and he didn’t know me in any meaningful way, but as Jenny and I sat there, my thoughts drifted back to a time three years earlier. At a go Kart track about 20 minutes from my home there is a high profile endurance Kart race every October. In 2008, upon hearing the list of IndyCar drivers participating in the event with the Karting regulars, we decided to go check it out. One of the participants was Dan. Where we stood was quite a bit away from the drivers having their prerace meeting, but we could spot Dan. It was hard not to. He was wearing this brand new, blank, but blindingly white driver’s suit. He couldn’t be missed. We noticed that after the meeting he was heading back to the garages, specifically, the men’s room.

Jenny and I knew better that to pester him while he was in the bathroom so we waited about 10 yards away from the door, Jenny with cell phone camera in hand. He exited the bathroom, we gave him 5 good steps and then “Smile Dan!” He did and then quipped with a grin that we at least gave him the dignity of getting out of the men’s room. Yes we were star stuck dorks at that point in our following of IndyCar – there’s no denying it.

He hopped in his Kart and the race began. It was going fairly smoothly for a while, but then not sure what led to it, but we saw a Kart sporting a driver in the shiniest white driver’s suit you’ll ever see, go off the track and into a pile of hay bales. Dan got out from under the kart and bales, got some help flipping the Kart over and then drove into the pits. Last we saw of Dan that day.

About six months later, in Milwaukee for the last well attended race at that great IndyCar track, Jenny and I were going through the autograph lines. We chose to hit Dan’s first. We got to Dan and I asked him how his Karting career was coming, he said something like it was going great and he was looking forward to doing as much of it as he could in the future. I suggested with a smile, that he be careful Karting in New Castle, I heard the hay bales there ate Englishmen alive. He laughed and said he knew of no such thing. We both laughed. Not wanting to hold the line up further we moved along, where we met a seemingly shy female Lights driver with green hair from England. I glanced back at Dan, he looked up, made Eye contact and winked.

As we sat in the car in the parking lot, I kept wanting the remind Jenny of those moments, but I couldn’t. I’d lose it.

We finally got going from the track but with the lack of fluids and headache catching up with me, we pulled off at the next exit and went looking for some water and Excedrin at the local truck stop. After checking out we glanced down the hallway towards the Pizza Hut attached to the convenience store. At the drink fountain I saw Scott Dixon. He looked shell shocked. I felt the need to do something, but what could I possibly say to the man who just lost a former teammate, who shared the same role in a risky profession with two children of his own. I can’t begin to imagine the thoughts and feelings that were weighing on Scott in that moment. I walked up patted him on the back and said something like “Scott, you guys are our heroes, take care”. I wish I had said something better, but I don’t really know what that might have been. Jenny wanted to give him a hug, but touched his arm and said something they both got a little smile out of. Perhaps leaving him alone would have been the right thing to have done, but even if we don’t know each other, on that day we were all family.

Once back downtown, we got on the parking garage in the Nugget and began the ride down. The floor below us, the elevator stopped and a man got on. Not sure if it was on his hat or his Jacket, but “Las Vegas Motor Speedway Safety Team” was embroidered. He carried a lunch cooler with him, reminded me of a Steel worker of old heading home from a long day at the mill. He saw we had been to the race, I asked him “Rough day I Imagine?” He replied “Yes it was” and looked away. We did as well. I wish I had thanked him for the work that he and his co-workers do each weekend. I like to think that heaven is a place where others will know the feelings in our hearts, not just the words we managed to utter in the moment.

Once back in the room, I took a handful of pills and laid down hoping to feel better. After an hour and a half I got up and decided to scroll through the images I had taken of the Parade laps. Posting some of those would be how the blog would mark Dan’s passing. As I scrolled though the images, I hit the back button once more and saw an image I did not expect to see. Car parts, brake and tire smoke and oil fires. I did not remember doing so, but apparently, in the moment, I had reached for my camera and sprayed the shutter. I put the camera down, nearly dropping it. Quickly DM’ed a friend and asked him what he thought I should do with the images. He said I didn’t need to do anything with them. The world will have seen enough already. The parade lap images were what the IndyCar world needed, not fireballs and carnage. Thank You Doug.

I ran downstairs and over to the Golden Gate to get a turkey sandwich at the snack counter. After eating, on my way back the lights went down on Fremont street. The light and video show of the Fremont Experience was about to start. This hour’s selection…Don McClean’s “American Pie”. Standing amongst thousands of others bemused by the electronic spectacle, I fought back tears and thought to myself that surely today was the day “The racing died”.

The next three hours are a blur of ESPN segments and insomnia. I eventually found myself again with my camera and a tripod. Walking up and down Fremont taking time lapse images of every neon sign I could find. As I staggered back to the nugget at 2 am, the street cleaners were out with their machines cleaning off one night’s hedonistic residue in preparation for the next. A trio of hookers were cruising for the evening’s last customer. No ma’am, I’m fine, moving right along.

I got up to my room and again began to look at the images on my camera. Past the 107 images of neon, Past the 24 shots of the parade laps, were 10 other images. Working from the reverse order from which they were taken, I zoomed in and examined each of them. When I got to the third one in the string, I saw a car, upside down, in the catch fence. Behind it a fireball reminiscent of a comet in the sky. At that moment I broke down and cried. There was nothing else that could be done.

Rest in Peace Dan

2011-10-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

IndyCar Oval Fans Step Up to Save Race in 2012

2011-10-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: If you are new to reading this blog, be aware that a significant number of the posts here are FAKE NEWS. This blog is to IndyCar reporting what the Onion is to CNN. Any quotes anywhere in this blog were never said by anyone, anytime or anywhere.
With that said, and by no means speaking for IndyCar or any of it's associated properties...If you think the following fake news item might well be a good idea, send a check to IndyCar designating "Save Kentucky" in the memo section. Have a fine afternoon. JP.

Threatened with the prospect of losing another two ovals for the 2012 season, IndyCar and its fans banded together to do the unthinkable … Create a Fan Sponsored Race. The IndyCar Nation 300 at Kentucky Speedway will run October 7^th, 2012 and will be a race for the fans, sponsored by the fans and Owned by the fans.

“We were in a pinch here” Said Randy Bernard CEO of IndyCar, “We had to do something different. The financials just weren’t adding up for our return to either Kentucky or New Hampshire. Track owners just weren't selling enough tickets locally to support these events. We were in a situation where we needed to find title sponsors for each race or they both were done, off the schedule.” Typically, title sponsorship runs about $300,000 for an IndyCar event.

The league resorted to the unusual business model of letting Fans monetarily support their own favorite race type as a last ditch resort. Bernard continued “I have always thought, if I had had a $20 bill for every single person that sent me an e-mail or bitched about the lack of ovals in Miller’s mailbag or Cavin’s Q&A. I’d be a rich man.”

Then IndyCar PR VP Amy Konrath had an epiphany… “You know we only need 15,000 people to give $20 each to make either one of these events happen.” Things took off from there.

“We beleive there is a market for open wheel oval racing in this country, but unfortunately it is not geographically concentrated enough to make local events viable. This funding plan is a great opportunity for all those people who say they like to watch oval racing on TV but Can't get to a track near them to see the kind of racing they like. Through Direct fan sponsorhip, Our fans directly determine the kind of racing that we as a league do. In many ways it’s like a pay per view event, in fact, the plan is less expensive than most pay per view events out there.” commented Bernard.

Heroic, fan sponsored efforts to have a say in the destiny of professional sports teams or events is nothing new. In the mid 70’s the city of Indianapolis staged a telethon on behalf of the Indiana Pacers to raise the entry fee dictated by the NBA required of franchises from the defunct ABA to join the League. Even in IndyCar racing fans voluntarily stepped up with petty cash donations to keep fan favorite Sarah Fisher running during the 2008 500.

Bernard continued “We hope to have a website up within two weeks to begin accepting Fan support for the Kentucky event. It will run through the end of the 2012 500 in May. Depending on the amount raised, multiple oval events in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Milwaukee and Chicagoland could be added to the 2012 schedule. For every $300,000 raised, we will add another oval race to the 2012 schedule. If everyone at the 500 dropped $1 in one of the collection Jars at we plan to position around IMS in May, that would be enough to get Chicagoland back on the schedule.”

Fans who donate to the sponsorship program and attend a race in person will be allowed new levels of access to the league and the drivers themselves with invitations to special hospitality tents, driver appearances and garage access. “The fans are our sponsors” Said Bernard “We are going to treat them as such”

When asked what he thought of the effort Bruton Smith, President of SMI, the company that owns Kentucky Speedway and New Hampshire Speedway offered “Gotta give it to these oval loving IndyCar fans, They are a dedicated bunch. We screw ‘em for $80 a ticket and they come back for more!”

A Note to IndyCar Bloggers and Fans...

2011-08-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

Stop the Kvetching and Peace Out ...

JP Does Sonoma…If Delta Cooperates

2011-08-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

SO I have a business trip to San Francisco next week…and it just happens that IndyCar is racing at Sonoma…Hmmmm

If Delta gets me in on time Saturday and I navigate traffic successfully I should hit the track in time for Quali’s and then Pix and perhaps an interview or two afterwards. Stay tuned for updates Saturday and Sunday night.

I am interested in seeing the crowd this year. Last year’s crowd was reported to be a healthy increase over 2009. I have a suspicion that the crowd could continue to grow. Two reasons:

First the hometown hero, JR Hildebrand, makes his return home with quite a bit more notoriety than his cameo appearance last year. JR has spent the week out and about in the Bay area promoting the race, most recently showing off the whitest legs in the paddock to the crowd at the Giants game.

Second, Ho Ping Tung … Huh? What? Ho Ping Tung? How does he move the needle? Bear with me…

I have been the holder of a mini season ticket package for the Indiana Pacers for several years and no matter how bad the Pacers had been in recent years there were three teams that would guarantee a full house. Lakers, Cavs and then the Rockets. Bryant, LeBron and Yao Ming the stars for the three teams. Yao’s army showed up in numbers for every road game the Chinese star played. Does Ho Ping Tung have an army of followers? While Ho Ping Tung is ethnically Chinese he is not from China, does this make a difference? The city with the largest Chinese community in the country might give us some clues…Of course did anyone bother to tell the local Chinese media? I have no clue.

So yeah this is a pretty lame post. Despite the available material, I just haven’t really been feeling that worked up or opinionated about anything as of late. There was going to be another tidbit here, but frankly it is worthy of an entire post sometime when I have a little more enthusiasm.

Enjoy the race this weekend and make sure you have plenty of beverages on hand, George Phillips suggests watching Sonoma makes him thirsty.

Looking for a Precedent...

2011-08-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

I tweeted this earlier tonight but tweets are fickle things w/o lasting permanence if you weren’t paying attention. Please answer this question for me:

In a basketball game: a referee makes a mistake and inadvertently blows his whistle, after the whistle, an offensive player takes a dribble and then hits a shot. Does the shot count???

In Football, the play is in progress, the a defender attempts to tackle the ball carrier, the referee thinking the ball carrier’s knee has hit the ground blows the whistle and calls the play dead. When in fact the ball carrier’s knee doesn’t hit the ground and a split second later fumbles the ball which is picked up by the defensive team. After 20 minutes of replay review, Who’s ball is it?

Pretty clearly we are breaking new ground here, so the best I can do is follow precedents set by other sports who have similar situations arise…All due respect to NHL and Oriol Servia, This is Ryan Hunter Reay’s race.

2012 IndyCar to Feature New PART System to Enhance Competition

2011-08-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

On Monday and Tuesday of this week the long awaited 2012 IndyCar turned its first laps on the track at Mid Ohio. Amidst the hubbub over the looks, the sounds and the racing potential of the new vehicle another significant feature was overlooked by many commentators. The 2012 car will feature the revolutionary Position Adjusted Racing Turbo System. The PART system is designed to adjust the boost settings for each car based on its relative position on track. The second place car will run at 5 HP more than the first place car, the third place car 10 HP more than first place and so forth on down the line. Based on the scoring for each previous lap the PART system will update the boost allowed to each car reflecting the most current position for each car. Expectations are that the additional HP boost for trailing cars will increase the number of overtaking opportunities at places like Mid Ohio or Sonoma and vastly increase the competitiveness of racing overall.

Asked about how the system was operating during its first test, Technical director for the 2012 car program Tony Cottman was quoted as saying “Yes it seemed to be working very well during our test. We had some concerns as the electronics involved rely on an electronic stream of data from our timing and scoring system. Some people have reported having issues with that stream in the past. We have observed no problems so far, we can’t wait to get two cars on the track to test the system further”

When asked why the PART system was developed, Cottman responded, “We really want to think about the enjoyment of our fans as being vital to improving the sport. We have repetitively heard that fans find passes made on track to be entertaining. Our first effort at engineering additional passing into races, the Non Defense rule, has been met with only lukewarm reaction from fans”.

Perceptions of the competitiveness of racing as a sport seem to be a concern in many circles. It seems that in the age of digitally enhanced car chases in action movies and race based video games, racing fans are no longer content to simply watch the fastest car and driver combination race off to victory.

The first series to dabble with rule changes to enhance racing competition was nascar. In the 80's Nascar began a policy of “Competition Yellers” to insure that if the lead car was about to lap a popular and marketable driver with a nice sponsorship package, a yellow was dropped in order to clean hot dog wrappers off the track and allow the other cars to bunch up behind the lead car again.

Champcar and later IndyCar were next to tinker with competition by introducing technology aimed at increasing competition during races. Multiple compounds of racing tires and a various versions of a “Push to Pass” system that allows drivers to temporarily increase the horsepower of their cars by pushing a button on their steering wheel have been utilized by the league. Additionally, the non defense rule introduced by the league makes it illegal for car a leading car to defend any racing line other than the preferred racing line.

These changes ultimately did not disturb the balance of power on the track as after the Competition Yeller, the fastest car was still allowed to drive away after the drop of the green flag and the soft compound tires and P2P’s were doled out in equal shares across competitors. This level handed approach to increasing passing was blown out of the water earlier this year when Formula one introduced it’s new Drag Reduction System. The DRS shifts the balance of power towards the trailing car by allowing it to reduce the drag created its rear wing down long straightaways, allowing the trailing car to accelerate to much quicker speeds than the leading car.

The DRS has reintroduced the concept of “Passing” back into F1 after its disappearance following the arrival of Micheal Schumacher during the early 90’s. Many fans have raved about the effect the DRS has had on the show “Wow! I saw a car go past another car! I’ve never seen such a thing before!” Said an excited Sean Clayton.

But not all fans are impressed. “It’s horrible! It’s not racing” said a distraught John Pembrokeshire. “It’s like the second car was shot out of a bloody cannon and just went buggering on by the poor wanker who was leading”

It remains to see how IndyCar fans will react to the redistribution of horsepower to cars that had previously under performed. Well known skeptic, curmudgeon and opponent of change, George Phillips was quoted as saying “It sounds like Socialism to me”.

Cottman was more optimistic when asked how he thought fans would react to the 20^th place car running at 100 more horsepower than the leader, “I think when our fans see these new cars rolling into turn 1 at Long Beach with the new PART system, they will be really excited at what they see.”

The Forgotten American

2011-07-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

Other than the words “Tony George” it is perhaps the most polarizing topic in IndyCar racing today, the number of Americans in the IndyCar series. The number is up this year, but a defection is looming as are the retirements of some of the 500 one off drivers.

For many of the remaining domestic IndyCar fans and the international contingent that follows the series, the count of Americans is not a blip on their radar and it represents an aspect of American Culture they don’t completely grasp or share. But for the fans that the League insists it is targeting to regain: Racing fans it has lost over the past 15 years, it is a significant issue. On a Friday night go to any short dirt track running sprint cars, modifides or late models or try the local drag strip and ask the throngs of ticket buying fans the question “Why don’t you watch IndyCar?” the first answer always given is always the same. “There aren’t enough Americans”. It is issue number 1 to regrowing the sport if your core acquisition targets are endemic racing fans.

I have commented on the issue before, I tend to fall in line with many of the current IndyCar fans…it doesn’t really matter that much in a general sense. It is only in the implication for popularity, ticket sales, ratings and ultimately business that the issue concerns me. My opinion is this, if your core markets are The US, Brazil and Canada, then 2/3 of your drivers must come from those countries in order to be marketably viable in those locales. The other Third? I don’t care where they are from as long as the talent is more pronounced than the checkbooks are deep. It is hard to be world class if the world is not part of your pool of competitors.

If you have any doubt what locally grown drivers can do for race attendence or TV ratings, we need to look no further than the most recent race in Toronto. Race attendence was up to it's highest level since reunification. Even more, the ratings on TSN were the highest for an IndyCar race in nearly 15 years. 1.2 Million Canadians tuned in to watch a recently relevant Alex Tagliani and the hometown debut of James Hinchliffe. Canadians turned out and tuned in en-masse to see the largest number of Canadians ever in an IICS race. Home grown talent matters in Canada and it matters here in the US also.

Though he would probably never come out and admit it is a critical concern, Randy Bernard must understand the issue. With a glimpse through the driver roster in Indy Lights I think you will find evidence that it is an issue he has tried to address. While the number of full time Americans is small, 1 to be exact, additional sprinklings of American influence is seen in every race. What’s more, until this past summer, many of these drivers probably weren’t on IndyCar’s radar, nor was IndyCar on theirs.

A scholarship was created to find the USAC champion Bryan Clauson seat time for the oval part of the Lights Season. Connor Daly was persuaded to keep at least a toe in the IndyCar water as he pursues his F1 dreams. A key player in nascar’s diversity program, Chase Austin, was introduced to Willy T Ribbs and a new lights team was created. From a year in European GP3, Josef Newgarten returned home to try his hand in an American Open Wheel series. It may not equate to having Coach K knock on the door of a 6’ 10” 16 year old with ball skills, but I think Randy has been on the recruiting trail. The names listed above represent his first recruiting class. His next is to be revealed over the next month and will make their debuts in Vegas.

As a group, I think they have solid potential. Most need more than this year to be ready for the big cars. Newgarten and Daly have made their presence known with victories. Josef looks to be the series champion at this juncture and will have Road to Indy $ in hand to look for a ride in the IICS proper next year. Clauson has kept it clean and has been top five in all three races he has run. Austin is climbing the highest mountain, his racing to date is in cars as different to an IndyCar than anything thing out there sans a dragster and he is driving for a new team that still doesn’t know where all the parts fit on the car. Nonetheless, Chase has kept it clean and pointed in the right direction.

But there are other Americans that should not be forgotten…Drivers for whom Randy should rekindle an interest in the sport and make potential sponsor support visits on their account. I can name a handful, but for me one stands out a little more than the rest.

On Opening Day in May I was wandering through Gasoline Alley and I caught a strange logo on the back of a fleece jacket. A1GP apparel is quite the rare sight anywhere these days as the international off season series went defunct a year and a half ago. In the Jacket – Jonathan Summerton. A credible and deserving driver, a member of the Handful mentioned above. But in this case he was a reminder. The second reminder came later that day. It was a short session for the IndyCar teams, but in Virginia the Grand Am Series was racing and as the results came in and IndyCar drivers began to tweet about it. My thoughts went to “I wonder How John Edwards did today?” What was unfortunate…I don’t think Edwards was even racing that day.

A lot of hoo haa surrounds the Mazda Road to Indy ladder system and well it should, it is a vital tool for IndyCar to organically grow Drivers, owners and team members. From 2007 – 2009 Edwards competed in the Mazda sponsored and powered development series, but back then it had ceased being the Road to ChampCar and was not yet the Road to Indy. It was simply the Road to Nowhere. In 2007 at the age of 16 Edwards competed in the Formula Atlantics series, he finished 9th in the standings. Some older but more familiar names participated with him. Raphael Matos was the series champ, The Canadian dynamic duo of Wickens and Hinchcliffe finished 3^rd and 4^th. Jr Hildebrand placed 7^th and Simona DeSilvestro 19^th.

In 2008 with no funding, Edwards, still only 17 stepped down to Star Mazda, missed the first race and then dominated the rest of the season, becoming it’s champion and earning a scholarship ride back in Formula Atlantics for the next year. Formula Atlantics limped through the 2009 season and never answered the call for the 2010 season. 2009 was dominated by Edwards, Summerton and Desilvestro each claiming 4 victories apiece. The season is primarily remembered for the exploits of Simona. But when Simona received an assisted DNF at Laguna Seca in the season Finale, Edwards was the champion.

But as the champion of a defunct series, he had nowhere to go. Mazda paired him with 2009 Star Mazda Champ Adam Christodoulou in one of its factory GT cars in the Rolex series for 2010. The pair won at Lime Rock and unfortunately for the life of me I cannot find where they finished overall in the championship.

In 2011, that ride lasted for the 24 Hours of Daytona only. After sitting several races out, Edwards is now schlepping around the middle of the field for a non factory mazda team. It’s the racer’s story told 1000 times over: Plenty of talent, no cash, no opportunity. Many fans have liked drivers who fit this description. Jonathan Summerton, Joey Miller, Jonathan Bomarito, Joey Hand, Andy Lally or Frankie Muniz all Americans with more talent than cash or sponsorship.

At the end of May, Mike Kelley, President of Izod Declared that Simona DeSilvestro would be the face of the Izod brand in racing going forward, many speculate that means she will replace Ryan Briscoe at Penske next year. Way too early to ponder any of the dominoes, but if Entergy looses its driver to Penske and Izod, I wonder if the Nuclear/Entergy Brass will remember that Edwards won an Atlantics Championship with their name on the side of car?

Born in Louisville, now living in Cincinnati, The youngest ever winner of a formula open wheel car race in America, Red Bull Driver Search winner, Star Mazda Champion and Formula Atlantics Champion. Everything it would seem that Randy Bernard and IndyCar could want or desire in a young American driver.

If you turn in to a Grand Am race and see a Mazda RX7 with Sahlen’s (yeah the cold cut people) on the side of it, that could be Edwards. I wonder if his dream of driving an open wheel car still remains? Does he remember the IndyCar series? I don’t know, but it does seem the IndyCar series has forgotten him.

Tenderloins on the Menu at Spago

2011-07-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

About 5 years ago a friend of mine decided to open a restaurant. She wanted to bring fine dining to Rushville. If you know Rushville, then you know that the citizens of Rush county aren’t known for their sophisticated pallet. The local chamber of commerce thought it might help lure new industry to the area, so they egged her on and she opened up in the Big, abandoned building that used to house a family restaurant on the south side of town.

The menu was fancy…a variety of pasta selections the locals could not pronounce, round white things called scallops that weren’t potatoes and finely seasoned and marinated steaks. Initially locals flocked the restaurant, but upon reviewing the menu, were at a loss to find something they were familiar with or could afford. Eventually people recognized the word “Steak” and would order one of the four cuts off the menu. When they were served, back to the kitchen they went. Medium in Rush county doesn’t involve Pink flesh or blood in the juice. Well done means crusty layers of ash on the outside of the steak. People ordering the Tuscan Ribeye were heard saying “What the hell is this green crap (pesto) on my steak? Take it back and cook it decent and bring me some ketchup for it too”

Business diminished quickly. There were a handful of people in Rush county that appreciated the menu and made regular visits, but the building had a big footprint and the restaurant needed more than 20 tables on a Saturday night to keep the kitchen busy, waitresses tipped and bills paid. After some agonizing over what to do, my friend decided to change the menu up. With the building she had inherited the recipes from the Family Restaurant that been there for 50 years before closing 5 years earlier. It had been famous for Pork Tenderloins and Fried Chicken. So those items were added.

BOOM. The lunch crowd doubled, Friday and Saturday evenings it was hard to get a seat. It looked like the restaurant might just make it. But my friend was discouraged, she had opened the restaurant to bring healthy cuisine and fine dining to Rushville, not simply be a place for massive portions of greasy fatty home cookin’. The dream was compromised and over time her interest waned. She found other pursuits to focus her passion on and began to spend less time in the restaurant. The employees were left to run the shop on a regular basis. Corners were cut, money disappeared, food and service quality dipped and soon the customers weren’t returning. After three years in business, the doors were closed and locked.

“What the hell does this have to do with racing?” you ask. Nothing directly, but based off what we saw in Texas and Toronto, we can draw some symbolic comparisons.

I admit, I was entertained by the race in Toronto. Was it the greatest example of skilled racing to be found, no. But entertaining with a number of compelling story lines coming out of the event.

During the race and then soon after the “Purists of the Sport” let loose on blogs and twitter with all available guns. “it was truly difficult to comprehend how low the quality of competition had sunk”, “Needless to say it was an embarrassment to the sport as a whole” and “I feel like I need a shower after attempting to watch the Festival of FUBAR masquerading as a race in Toronto today.” Were some of the blog reactions to the race. Twitterers were drawing comparisons to the skilled and talented drivers competing at Lime Rock in the ALMS race at the same time.

Then on Monday, a funny thing happened… the initial overnight ratings came out…and they were good. The Purists were appalled, “We finally get a decent rating and put on a show that scared them all off”. I wanted to talk about the rating but I didn’t understand it well enough to comment. Was this rating the result of momentum built from a stellar oval race two weeks before in Iowa, or were people watching the race, enjoying it and then texting or calling their friends to watch it as well? If the rating was strong to start and then diminished through the broadcast it was the former, if the number improved as the broadcast went on, then it was the latter.

The final number was released today. A .5, the second largest rating ever for IndyCar on Versus and It was higher than the overnight and it increased through the broadcast. More people liked what they saw and encouraged others to join than turned off offended by the “low driving skill Level”. Apparently what the purist demands in motorsport is less popular than Fubar. It should be noted that the ALMS race that purists were raving about, was not covered on live on TV, it had to be streamed over the internet. Not Only did no TV exec want to PAY for the ALMS content, but the ALMS itself doesn’t have the sponsorship funding in place to BUY live time from a network. Apparently the number of purists in America for the sport aren’t in large enough supply to fund a series that meets the taste of the racing purist.

So the choice is to spicen up the menu and serve some tenderloins and fried chicken or close the doors and go home. It is also funny that the most watched race ever on Versus this year was Texas, the two step with the game show in between, because it also brought with it a firestorm of criticism about sanctity vs spectacle. IndyCar “Had gotten drunk and put a Lampshade on its head”.

The message here I would suggest is this, Not everyone is like YOU. Not everyone has the same tastes in racing as YOU. There’s not enough of YOU to support budgets for the kind of racing YOU like to see. So if you want to see racing with a sustainable future, you may need to adapt to meeting the tastes of the people who aren’t watching the sport currently.

What kind of racing might that be? Well I firmly believe that this year’s Iowa race with the high speed knife fight between Marco Andretti and Tony Kanaan or the 1993 New Hampshire race featuring the duel between Nigel Mansell, Paul Tracy and Emerson Fitipaldi is as good as oval racing gets anywhere. As for road racing, I suspect most Americans expect to see something akin to the car chase scenes from A Bourne film. So if that means on occasion we turn into a race and Toronto breaks out, don’t have a conniption, it would seem that someone somewhere really digs what is happening and their eyeballs draw with them sponsors that will help fund the Iowa/Milwaukee’s and (hopefully) Watkins Glens/Road America’s of the schedule.

Truthfully, Long Beach could be Toronto as well – short, tight, bumpy urban concrete canyon, but since LB is early in the year and everyone sans the second car at Coyne is still in the title hunt, LB participants are on their best behavior. By the time Toronto rolls around, championship bubbles have burst for most and drivers are racing for individual wins and podiums. In Toronto, desperation carries the day and that desperation breaks up the follow the leader seen in LB.

Oddly enough after our friend changed the menu at her restaurant, we went even more than we had before. We could now get a dinner with a $60 bill or a $25 one depending on our mood and budget. Will the team owners lament the compromises made and close up shop and go home? I doubt it, they want the league to be successful not just their dream of pure racing.

SO I guess the question is for you…can you live with some fried Chicken and Tenderloins in order to keep racing in business or will you pine away until more people buy in to the “Purer” aspects of the sport…the engine's sound, entry and momentum through the curves or the racecraft of a successful “non competition enhanced” pass.

For me I know there is a limit for me, it involves competition yellows, tandem drafts and animated ducks and rodents. Randy’s not there yet, but I am sure Eddie may tell him how to get there…

App Happy in IndyCar Land

2011-07-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

IndyCar the tech savvy, social media pioneering racing league continues to expand the use of modern social platforms to reach customers in new ways. Launched this year, the official IndyCar app for Android distributed through Verizon has been very popular with fans of the sport. The app allows users to access timing and scoring info and a bevy of multimedia content wherever and whenever they want. Fans such as Ima Corngrower at the most recent race at Iowa Speedway raved at how it enhanced their racing experience. “Sometimes, it gets confusing to know who is in the lead, who’s pitted and who is a lap down, the timing and scoring is real blessing”

Not to be outdone by the league, Individual drivers are also developing apps for their fanbases to download to their mobile phones. The first driver to make such a service available was Pippa Mann. The Pippa app, is offered as a standard part of the Nov.us celebrity social media service. The app allows Pippa’s fans to access biographical and multimedia information from Pippa’s website more conveniently than through a normal mobile browser. The app also consolidates all Pippa’s social media messages from Facebook, twitter and Nov.us into a single stream.

But the Pippa App doesn’t plan to stop there and simply be a feed director, the Pippa II app due out at the end of the month plans to integrate additional hardware functionality of the user’s own phone to create a true interactive Fan experience. “I’m really excited about the Shoe Sister functionality” said Mann. “It will allow my fan girls and Pressdog, to take a picture of a shoe they are considering buying or wearing and then the app will provide commentary in my voice offering my honest thoughts about the fashionability of the shoe and what kind of outfits it would look smart with. It will help all my fans keep up with Pippa Style!”

Another driver who has recently released an App is James Hinchcliff. The custom built Hinchtown app has the customary feed redirects, but also features a Tim Horton’s Proximity alarm. Whenever the app senses that the user is within a specified distance of Hinch’s favorite donut shop an alarm featuring Hincliffe’s voice will sound “Mmmmm Tim Horton’s EH?”

“It’s really simple how it works” said renowned app designer David Craske. “If the GPS functionality of the user’s phone is turned on, the app takes the Longitude and Latitude readings from the phone and using stored coordinates for Tim Horton’s locations, calculates the Euclidean distance the user is from each store in the Tim Horton’s chain. If a calculated distance for one of the stores is below a user set threshold, the alarm sounds.”

Taking the GPS enabled functionality even further, two independent development teams, one for Marco Andretti and the other for Tomas Schekter, are vying to be the first drivers to feature the “Hotties I’ve Had” feature in their apps. The HIH functionality will feature two apps, one for the Hotties, that allows the GPS in her phone to act like a beacon, tracking her ever changing location and then the Fan app that will calculate the fan’s distance from the hotties. When in range, the fan app will offer up commentary from Marco or Tomas about their liaisons with the in range Hottie.

Fortunately, not all driver apps are quite so Big Brother – ish in nature, many are ingeniously functional. The AJ Foyt app for instance transforms the user’s mobile device into a blunt force object that can be used to pound on objects such as cranky race engines, laptop computers, Luyendyks and Robin Miller’s head. The Danica app will allow users to access both a semi nude Pictorial collage of Danica and over 1,000 of her favorite cookie recipes.

Even Bloggers have gotten in on the App Development frenzy. The Oilpressure.com app allows its users to access an impressive historical racing database. With it the user can access 35 paragraph summaries of every single lap in every single open wheel championship race ever run. More eventful laps will have longer summaries of course, but the user merely needs to provide lap#, track and year and the app does the rest. Using the Phone’s camera capability the Oilpressure.com app will allow users to take a picture the race surface of any track and will conduct and asphalt matching scan to identify the track and exact location on the track that the user is standing.

The JPIndyCar app features the JRHildeFan functionality that renders the app user invisible whenever he is within 100 feet of JR Hildebrand, assisting the user in circumventing various restraining orders that may have been issued against them.

“It’s an exciting new time” says Social PR Maven and Visionary Pat Caporali. “And as always, IndyCar is leading the way.”

What Makes an Event?

2011-06-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

SO Jenny (Mrs JP to you), Pressdog and myself were standing around at the Iowa tweetup (expect a punchline soon?) talking about how Pressdog does such a great job each year pulling off a successful event at Iowa Speedway… We all chuckled at the Idea that Bill was to be commended for the event’s success. It was nice to have a successful oval event to laugh about.

But what was sad was this. During the chat, Bill was wearing his Chicagoland Ticket lanyard, Jenny was wearing her Kentucky Speedway Lanyard and I my Milwaukee Mile Lanyard. Standing at the most successful oval event outside Indianapolis (Texas is slipping and when you compare the size of the markets…) we were all representing another event that we each cared about. Unfortunately each of those events was in a different stage of death. Chicagoland – Gone. Milwaukee – back from the dead but seemingly with a round trip ticket. Kentucky – Deadman walking.

There are particular circumstances that contribute to each’s situation, no need to hash them over here, but the conversation turned to “What Makes Iowa so successful?” We never really put a finger on it. But It has the three bases of any successful event covered.

First – A title Sponsor. Suppose good title sponsor comes in at around $300k. That is equal to 10,000 $30 tickets. What’s more, this is prime the pump money. It gets there before the event and provides the upfront budget to advertise and promote the event in order to get fans in the seats. The title sponsor themselves will often promote the event themselves which is free advertising for the league and event.
Second – Opportunities for corporate revenue. At Ovals, this means suites. At Temp Circuits it means hospitality areas (either way it is an opportunity for businesses to wine and dine their B2B clients or reward their employees). It can also mean booth or exhibit space to market to the captive consumers at the event. It can even include massive blocks of tickets distributed to loyal customers of a company (think all those fans through the years who went to races because Philip Morris was thanking them for smoking). But no matter the product being sold to corporate entities, it is a very important source of revenue for an event in that it comes in big chunks, not $100 at a time but $5000 at a time for example.
Third – Fans. The easiest part of the equation for most of us to understand is usually the only one that casual observers consider when they gauge an event to be a success. The fans in some quantity must be present or it will be difficult to maintain a locally based event sponsor on a versus broadcast. If a majority of your corporate revenue is based on exhibit or booth space then it is also vital to making those opportunities return positive ROI to the corporate entities that invest in them.

Overall a successful event breaks down like this…35,000 fans in a reasonably thought out and stratified ticket scheme will cover the league sanctioning fee for staging the event. The revenue from corporate sources covers the expenses in operating and promoting the event. A title sponsor is the profit that makes the whole extravaganza worth pursuing for the promoter.

Let’s think about the last two races for a moment…

Milwaukee – Not title promoter…No upfront money to get out there and market tickets or the event with. No Luxury boxes, no hospitality areas and no foresight to harness the rest of the state fairgrounds property to create corporate revenue. And finally what we saw on TV…no fans. It is sad, but this wasn’t even close to ever having a chance…The only glimmer of hope going forward would be a title sponsor coming on board within the next 60 days. If one arrives, I have some additional thoughts HERE.

Iowa – Iowa Corn as the sponsor, Plenty of luxury boxes, most of the booth and tent space in the fan village sold inside and outside the main gate and of course the necessary 35,000 fans that make the rest of the pieces of the financial ROI puzzle work.

You can apply this same kind of analysis to each of the events yet to come this season to gauge its overall health.

I have no Idea how ~~Pressdog~~, the Iowa Speedway staff does it each year but they are to be commended, they are quite the success story on the IndyCar schedule. Perhaps the presidents of the other oval tracks IndyCar races on need to make a visit to Des Moines and take some notes. This little independent gets it done. Something that can’t be said at the other independent ovals or even the ones owned by the big boys at SMI and ISC.

Caption This!

2011-06-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

For the first round of Images from Iowa this weekend CLICK HERE .

In the mean time - Caption the following Picture below in the comments section for a chance to win the rare and elusive Rodrigo Barbosa Hero Card!!!

Saving Milwaukee … Again.

2011-06-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know its been a while…Prepping to go on a two week vacation when you are short staffed at the day job is a time consuming situation. Anyway, in my absence lots of controversy, the overly concerned about everything crowd has contorted themselves for two weeks now over the events of Texas and Milwaukee, Not much to ad here other than to point out that the sun came up today in Iowa and it looks to be a beautiful day.

I do want to spend a moment however to talk about Milwaukee the event. Two years ago we were in the crowd with 35k of our closest cheesehead friends and had one of our best racing weekends shared together. Due to a scheduling conflict we coundn’t do Milwaukee this year and are doing a second dip in Iowa instead. What I saw from Milwaukee on TV looked horrible, not the racing, but the crowd and the environment. I thought I would offer suggestions on the subject.

Thinking about the racing season so far…24hrs of Daytona, Sebring, St Pete, Long Beach, Lemans…what do all these races have in common????….Wait for it….FERRIS WHEELS. Does anyone else see the irony in the frequent incidence of Ferris wheels at racing events only to have an event at an actual fairground feature no ferris wheel?

Kevin Lee and Curt Cavin have lamented the conundrum of how you make oval events run in facilities built in the middle of nowhere have the festive entertaining atmosphere of the city street festivals in St Pete and Long Beach. The problem with the event creation and promotion of Milwaukee is that it is treated as if it occurred at an oval facility 45 minutes from town in the middle of nowhere…when in fact it is held on the state fairgrounds in the residential heart of a mid sized city possessing a proud cultural heritage.

Milwaukee, like Long Beach and St Pete should be an EVENT that features a race. Not all of this can happen overnight, but if you have a race at a fairgrounds, go ahead and have a carnival ride company set up shop on the Midway for the weekend, have a Long Beach style exhibition hall in one of the 4h buildings have a BBQ or fried beer and cheese contest in the lot outside turns 1 and 2. THROW A STINKING PARTY. The racing overload formula that works in Iowa a week later may not be the best plan given the riches of access to people Milwaukee has.

Of course you might retort…why not have the race during the actual State Fair? Well, that has happened before but my read is that the Fair board is not so keen on that idea these days.

Given the abysmal crowd from this past year, the expo hall will have to wait until year three once you have shown you can draw a crowd. SO here’s what year two might look like…

Friday, All Day General admission for $10. Allows access to the midway and all the barbeque and fried Ding Dong vendors. During the evening run your USF2000 race, Star Mazda Race and Lights race, with all seating being GA. Schools out, kids smell carnivals from 20 miles away and it would be a night of good family entertainment that would be a good marketing asset for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday, Have the festivities open again all day, have the lower half of the bleachers be GA with premium pricing up high. Have an antique car or motorcycle show in one of the Livestock barns. Do your Indy Quals and run your Usac events.
Sunday, GA gets you access to the hoo haa and into the infield grass. Reserved tickets elsewhere. Do Lights (again) and then the big boys and have every one headed home by 5.

In the following years you can set up an expo hall and charge companies booth space to access the crowd of captive people you have attracted to the facility (who needs Luxury boxes when you have booth space and a captive audience?)

One final thing before I back up and head to Iowa speedway. The web site this year sucked. The Ticket options Sucked even more. The only options were single day tickets and a $500 dollar luxury package that featured a limo and strippers or something…What the hell? I would advise the promoters to browse the Mid Ohio or Long Beach sites and check out the Weekend packages or the Ticket and Pit Pass combinations…many people like these reasonably priced all inclusive options.

On the promoter...I thought that this event was to be promoted by the league itself…apparently with Vegas looming, it was one too many things on the Leagues plate. I hope Randy sizes the current promoter, listens to their plans for next year and if it doesn’t seem buttoned up, give Green Savoree a call.

With the rumors of Chicagoland and Road America in play, it all may be for not. But I would suggest that Milwaukee in June, RA in August and CL in Sept is viable spacing for all these events to coexist.

Off down I 80 to Newton!

Fearless Midnight Prognosticating...

2011-05-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

Well, time to blogger up and prognosticate…I feel distinctly different things with different parts of my body:

Heart – Alex Tagliani – So far everything has gone golden for Alex and well it should. Amidst the hubbub over the DHL ride buy this year were references to it happening before, most recently two years ago when Bruno Junquiera was pulled in favor of Alex. A year later, Alex had formed his own team, Fazzt racing and come May he had not forgotten what had transpired the year before. Alex offered Bruno a ride for the month of May and Bruno put the second Fazzt car into the show. He didn’t have to do it but he did, it was the decent thing to do. We didn’t know how much of a favor that was until later. Fazzt racing spent the final stages of last year limping from event to event, just barely finding the finances to hit the track. Heading into this year we discovered the true extent of the financial situation when Fazzt was sold to Sam Schmidt Motosports. The previous May, Alex didn’t have money to do the right thing, but he did it anyway. If Karma has a favorite it will be Tagliani.

Head – Scott Dixon - The cynic in me says that race day will be hotter than it has been all month, the teams with the DATA to mine and find a setup will make the changes before all the one off and short season teams. Lap One, Turn One Dixie has it hooked up, runs away and dishes out a heavy dose of Buzz Kill. I hope that isn’t what happens, not for Scott’s detriment, but for the betterment of the sport.

My Gut – Rows 2 and 4 rock the show, taking all three podium spots. A lot of cars that have historically been fast, drivers have been fast but as combinations they are just unknown. And I Fear Not the Unknown!

Townsend Bell – Bell has run this event well. Fourth place two years ago and a drive through penalty a year ago from flirting with another strong finish last year. The Schmidt cars are fast. The question mark? A pit crew that is well versed to running a lights car. The IndyCar…not so much. Can that group put together 7 clean spots? Time will tell.

Will Power – Never has won an oval, but in Will’s case “never” simple means “not yet”. Enough Said.

Dan Wheldon – Once a winner, twice a runner up this is Dan’s track and the ride isn’t over yet. The BHA team was an afterthought last year, but with the shared technical program with the Schmidt program this year and one of the best drivers on the course this combination is a force to be reckoned with.

Takuma Sato – Quietly solid all month, Takuma has shown improvement on the ovals in his time in IndyCar and has had a clean spring. Will flirt with the top 5 spots. His success would be a great story and source of inspiration for his countrymen. If you are at the Track Sunday, make sure you stop by the “With You Japan” tent in Pagoda Plaza and give a little to those that have suffered so much.

Vitor Meira – Hard to be objective…I am a Vitor fan. If there’s a Ballsy pass to be made late in the show, Vitor is the man. His car is now getting all the attention in the Foyt Garage and will benefit from that. The Foyt team has been much improved this year and ovals are usually a strength for them.

JR Hildebrand – Fanboy profile #2 – This car has the speed, we’ve seen it the past three years. This month has seemed comfortable for JR and the team. It just seems like there is a little something left in the tank. They have played things close to the vest in order to not push too far and make a mistake that would set them back. On Sunday, throw caution to the wind. If there is any more left, we’ll see it.

My Picks:

Bell – Winner

Meira – Second

Hildebrand – Third.

Biggest mover? Always look to see if there’s a fast guy in the last row and go there since that person has the most opportunity to move up. Ryan Hunter Reay…

Rookie of the Year…If Hildebrand places third…No contest.

Mrs JP’s Pick – Wheldon.

JP’s beverage of the race? Diet SunDrop. I get the sense that the People at Dr Pepper got sucked into DHL’s mess. I will pack plenty of Diet SunDrop and toast that sweet looking paint scheme that has
graced us so far this year, if in more subdued tones tomorrow. DrPepper et al THANKS for Supporting our sport!

The Power of Research...Part II

2011-05-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

so if you bumped into me at Carb day today, you might have noticed I was a bit of a zombie...Up to 3:30 lastnight getting that one last thing done for the day job before i took today off... read it here....

http://blog.insightexpress.com/2011/05/happy-birthday-indy-500-brands-invited/

Burned Hands, Autographs, Popemobiles and the Future of IndyCar

2011-05-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

Drama filled day at Bump Day, Gutted for Ryan Hunter Reay, Thrilled for the last row members and basking in the illumination of an epiphany.

Today was a fun day for me. I spent much of the day with my Nephew, a Dale Jr, nascar fan. Much of it was spent wandering through a wet Gasoline alley trying to share whatever knowledge I knew that might perk an interest for him. We talked about fuel injection and turbo chargers, how P2P works now, how it will next year, how the engine is part of the cars structure. We saw Paul Tracy’s crew make a change in the gearbox before their final run, saw Will Power’s car broken into a tub and rear suspension, w/ no engine in between. He’s more mechanically inclined than I am and I hoped I wouldn’t run out of material before the afternoon was done.

First trip through we saw Simona Desilvestro out signing autographs. I told him how she had second degree burns on her hands after a wicked accident on Thursday. We saw her hands and the bandages. We saw the same hands sign autograph after autograph, even at a time when there was concern whether she would need to zip up the Nomex, hop back in the old warhorse tub and bang out 4 laps fighting through the pain the whole way.

We saw the clouds and wandered over to the paddock to take advantage of a covered seating space while we watched Ana and Graham make their runs. I found the replay of Simona’s accident on YouTube and he expressed the same surprise he had a year earlier watching Mike Conway’s accident “The driver lived?”

I explained that during the landing of Simona’s car, the roll bar was destroyed taking out the fueling point to the fuel cell with it splashing fuel on and soaking gloves that caught fire, scorching the flesh underneath. After the rain we went back to Gasoline Alley and Simona was out signing autographs again and again for all takers. Even after a second round of rain we headed back to Gasoline Alley and passed the HVM garages and yes, there was Simona, Signing autographs again.

The track was beginning to dry and one very notable driver had yet to qualify. We looked down that row of garages and we saw the throngs loitering around. Then we saw the tow vehicle coming with the team loaded on and the bright green car in tow behind. I said, “Let’s wait here, she’ll be coming by soon” I could tell my Nephew was interested…this was someone he Knew before hearing me drone on indefinitely today. Then it rolled our way…something completely unanticipated…I uttered out (and later tweeted) the first thing that came to mind…”It’s a F-ing Pope Mobile!” I looked over to my nephew, and the moment had fizzled. We weren’t expecting much perhaps a smile and a wave, but what we got was an insult.

A golf cart with an engineered enclosure to insure that the passenger inside could completely avoid interaction with the masses that define her place in the world and ultimately pay her wages. It is probably worthy of a debate, is she the “Girl in the bubble” or the “Woman Above it all” but at the end of the day the demarcation between star and fans was real and tangible.

To me this is a two sided tale of how stardom is made. Are stars made by talented individuals giving back to the people that make their occupation possible or are they the artificial creation of cynical brand managers and soul-less spin doctors?

Bob Kravitz of the IndyStar made his once a year trip to the speedway to write his after the matter has been decided column about how IndyCar must do everything it can to keep Danica in the fold. Educated fans know the truth, she’s gone. But the retort “she’s the only one that moves the needle” is always thrown about.

What moves the needle is simple…it’s fans who LOVE drivers. Perhaps I am nostalgically naïve, but while Fans Loving a driver may be had in short lived mass media created in 30 second commercial bursts, in the long term it has more permanence when it is built brick by brick, interaction by interaction. One autograph signed with a bandaged and burned hand will not only gain the fan who walks away with the autograph but also the 20 people they tell about the experience.

One of these strategies has staying power, one doesn’t, one is expensive and the other just requires commitment and a little humility. If I were a team PR rep I would make sure my driver spent as much time as possible interacting with and touching fans. With drivers committed to their fans and a fan base built this way, IndyCar will find itself and its future. I just hope everyone is on the same page...

Fast Friday Images...

2011-05-20T21:50:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm Lazy...Don't want to take the time to load them up in two places so go HERE....

The Power of Research...

2011-05-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

Go Here....

Opening Day...A Few Pictures...

2011-05-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

Weather Friday night made for a wet day at the Acre on Saturday, it's too muddy to plant, Soooo...Let's head to the track! Didn't catch much action on the track, but puttered around the Garages for a couple hours and here's some of what we saw.... (Better Quality Images Here)

JP's Month of May Schedule...

2011-05-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

Obviously if some additional weekend opportunities present themselves....But I have a couple business trips during the week, and if you notice the little Icon to the right...due to the excessively wet spring to date, planting on the Acre is way behind schedule and I need to dedicate at least one day a weekend to it.

I plan to be out and about on the following days at the speedway...

Fast Friday
Depending on weather ...Bump day or Pole day (preference right now - Bump day)
Carb Day
The Night before at IRP or whatever the heck they are calling it now
Raceday.

I tend to be a bit of a social hermit, but I am generally friendly, so if you see me or someone like me say hello!

Stay tuned here and on twitter...Some really cool stuff is going to be coming out of my work/blog feed...you will all want to stay tuned...

Man Beheaded in Turn 3 Hot Sauce Incident

2011-05-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

Tragedy struck this afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a spectator in the turn three infield was beheaded by a Brickyard Burger loaded with a critical mass of Cholula Hot Sauce. Frank McIlhenney a resident of Ashland, WI, was in town for the 100^th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. A crowd of stunned onlookers gathered to gawk at the headless body still twitching from the lingering Jalapeno impulses.

The day had started out on a much happier note for McIlhenney as he was named the Cholula Fan of the Day after visiting the Cholula facebook page http://facebook.com/Cholula. McIlhenney was recognized in front of millions of IMS fans as the fan of the day, presented with a 6’ tall gold bottle containing 15 gallons of Cholula Original Hot sauce and had his face immortalized on the side of the Borg Warner Trophy.

“He was so happy” said the recently widowed Penny McIlhenney. “I could tell as he posed with the giant bottle of hot sauce. He enjoyed his first Pole Dog with a little of the Original Cholula sauce on it. He said it was the best one ever, the spiciness brought out flavors in the dog he had never tasted before. But then he started to experiment, on his second Pole Dog he added some of the Chilli Lime variety in addition to the original. There was a crazed look in his eye, when he got to eating his Brickyard Burger. We couldn’t stop him: First a splash of Original, then a dab of the Chilli Lime, then a dash of the Chipotle, then he reached for the Chilli Garlic. I Screamed no baby, NOT THE CHILLI GARLIC, No Baby. But he wouldn’t listen. He started eating and his face was filled with a strange fascination as it turned from yellow, to orange to bright red and then his head just blew up. It was horrible, just like the Aliens in Mars Attacks!”

Mrs McIlhenney overcome with grief, was unable to talk to the press further. Shortly thereafter a fight broke out between opportunistic onlookers attempting to claim ownership of the giant trophy bottle of hot sauce.

Cholula is a mainstay at Izod Indycar races. “Cholula has been a part of the Grand Prix of Long Beach for more than 10 years now without serious incident” said Esteban Lomez, President of Cholula. We hand out free bottles to everyone in attendance at Long Beach and the fans enjoy Cholula responsibly. The Indy Fans are so accustomed to bland food that when Cholula brings the taste of their food alive they go overboard.

Wednesday Rants: Volume 2

2011-05-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on…

Brazil

It rained, get over it…So it rained two years in a row…The weather was clear in St Pete this year, but I remember rain two of the past three years with last year’s race bouncing to Monday no different than what happened Sao Paulo did this past weekend. If I have a gripe as to the weekend it is that the race probably never should have been started. Surely someone could have looked at a weather radar and seen the monsoon on the way and had the sense to either not have started or at least dropped the red flag earlier.

Let’s not dance around the elephant in the room. There are many people who simply don’t want to race outside North America and the States in particular. ESPN has provided Eddie Gossage space to write a blog and on Monday it featured a post questioning: If IndyCar races in Brazil, will anyone know it or see it?

Photo From The Economist

Let’s talk some numbers here…IndyCar has been running around a .3 rating on the Versus broadcasts which translates into around 400,000 actual viewers on the Television. Kevin Lee reported tonight that 15,000,000 eyeballs were on the Band broadcast in Brazil. Now US eyeballs are probably worth a bit more in monetary terms for an advertiser due to the difference in disposable income between the two countries. So let’s say based on GDP #’s that One US eyeball is worth 4 Brazilian eyeballs. That means that in US equivalents the Brazilian market is 3,750,000 eyeballs…compared to 400,000 US eyeballs. The Brazilian television market is worth 10X as much to an advertiser as is the Domestic IndyCar television market.

What Brazil does for IndyCar and its teams is makes a marginal ROI decision featuring only the US TV Market turn into a complete No Brainer when the US and Brazilian TV markets are Bundled as a package. Unlike Europe where there is a very different Branding landscape than in the US, many of the players in Brazil are either American companies with divisions in Brazil or global companies with presences in both. So selling sponsorship packages for a single company with a footprint, like Nestle or Chevrolet or Honda, in both countries becomes easier if two sizeable markets are a part of the viewership package.

A second Brazilian race makes sense in that it helps to grow viewership in Brazil for all IndyCar races in Brazil. The past couple of years, Sao Paulo and Indy were broadcast on Band Proper, garnering 8 digit audiences, then once the 500 came and went, IndyCar bounced to the Band Sports cable channel where the viewership dropped off tremendously. The second race late in the season means that the season kicks off early with a Brazilian date, has the 500 in between and then closes with a date during the championship run (that doesn’t throw a time zone wrench into the picture like Motegi does). Along with the involvement of Itaipava, what that does is to keep IndyCar on the main BAND channel and the 15M Brazilian eyeballs engaged the whole season long. More Value for the Sponsor that operates in both markets.

The Sao Paulo race is very well attended, after Indy, it is in the running with Texas and Long Beach as the next most well attended event. This is where I have a bone to pick with Mr Gossage. He does a good job selling IndyCar down in DFW and is to be commended as a partner. TMS is one of several SMI tracks, and at this point his parent company has yet to deliver for IndyCar. More People attended the race in Brazil this year than attended the Kentucky race over the course of the past 3 years combined. Last year I sat next to a man with his grandkids who asked me what car Kyle Busch was in, I had to break the news to him that Kyle was in the trucks the night before. Turns out a ticket agent at the Kentucky speedway assured him that morning that Busch was in the Saturday night’s race. Last Thursday I got an e-mail from Kentucky Speedway letting me know that the Sao Paulo race was on ABC Sunday at three.

IndyCar is partnering with SMI and has new dates at New Hampshire and Vegas. I hope the company Mr Gossage works for can deliver crowds at those events or perhaps the question should be…If IndyCar races at an SMI track and there is no one there to see it, did it actually happen? What say you Mssrs Gossage and Smith?

China

On principal, NO.

But, there is a story I think that once was attributed to Will Rodgers. But Mr Rodgers was at a dinner with several stuffy, well to do women. He decided to have some fun with them and asked “Would you sleep with a man for a million dollars?” The women giggled and postured and came to the conclusion of course they would, it was a lot of money. The he proceeded to ask them, “How about $50?” To which one of the women responded with shock “What do you do you think I am, a prostitute?” Rodgers responded “We’ve already established that, we’re just haggling about the price now”.

That’s the rub here. How much money is involved? I guess if they back the money truck up with $50m, IndyCar will be packing the planes as quickly as they can. Please do it some weekend early in the year when no one is paying attention anyway – like the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.

On Blogger night on trackside last fall, I mentioned a vision of what the series could be. The Pan American series. A series that delivers a common marketing platform to the three largest economies in the Western Hemisphere: The US, Brazil and Canada. That trio features three of the top ten largest Economies in the world featuring: the largest Economy in the world, the second fastest growing economy in the world and, well, Canada, cuz’ we wouldn’t want Step or Meesh to feel left out. Ultimately the only events that would make the series schedule would be races in those three countries. If an aspirational season grew to 24 events, 18 would be domestic and 6 elsewhere.

Currently we are looking at a 2012 that will feature two Brazilian dates and two Canadian dates. As the series schedule grows the next stop might well be in French Canada. Of course the issue in Canada currently is the piss poor commitment to IndyCar that TSN has shown. Perhaps a presenting sponsor (like Itaipava with Band in Brazil) could be found that would Insure live broadcasts for our Canadian friends. Then the Sixth date (if China Doesn’t happen and Motegi does go away) could be a third stop in Brazil, perhaps done the same trip as SP. The wildcard might be if Mexico reclaims their country from the drug lords. Mexico City has an established history of open wheel racing.

Anyway, I am rambling and you are bored.

Trump got axed and I do want to follow up the opinion from yesterday: How cool would it be to announce Alex Zanardi as the First official member of the Vegas 5 as he drove the pacecar at the 500…

Look for some reality based snark that could win you a prize of some sort over the weekend….

Wednesday Rants, Volume 1

2011-05-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

The Owners and Aero kits…

As with pretty much everyone else on the face of the earth: The owner’s are selfish and crazy, bring on the Aero kits in 2012.

But still…the thought lingers…Why is this going on? Realistically even if the owners do have a fundamental difference with the league over the kits, they had to know before taking the vote and a stance against the kits, that Bernard would eventually go public and they were going be on the wrong side of a PR beating. SO why do this?

MyThought's are this, for the beefy teams, the 15-0-1 vote had nothing to do with aero kits in 2012 or 2013 (for the ankle biters it may still be) but for the Penske’s, Ganassi's and Andretti’s of the world, siding with the smaller teams on this issue was a way of posturing for a benefit further down the road. A collective “We are united and got each other’s back” for something bigger…But what?

My theory…2015. It has been said several places that the expectation is that this formula will have a three year life span. My thought is that the posturing today is to plant the seeds for the owners to have more input into the when and how the next generation of car is created. With how the Iconic committee was formed and then input obtained, I suspect the owners feel like they were completely left out of the process.

In theory, they had an owner, Gil DeFerren who was charged with getting their input, which is great, but there is a difference between the functions of input and review in a decision making process. Their input went into the design, but it is clear they had no opportunity to provide commentary on and review the decision that was finally made. Throw in the fact that their representative in the process is now on the sidelines of the sport, they may feel like the 13 colonies answering to a parliament in which they had no representation.

One thing that has come from this that has me, as a fan very optimistic. The Fan’s voice matters. It seems we are destined to see League vs Team; League vs Driver or Team vs Driver conflicts break out and be resolved by appealing to a higher power, namely the fans. Now on three occasions: Lucky Dog, Elimination of Double file restarts (the John Barnes tweet) and now Aero kits, as a conflict has arisen, one side has chosen to throw it to the fans to see where the public opinion falls and the decisions (assuming there are Aero kits in 2012) have always fallen in line with the outcry of the fans. In essence, we have been serving as the Supreme Court of sorts, a final arbiter of conflict resolution. Enjoy the power friends… Not sure if there is another sport where your voice carries such sway as it does right now in IndyCar.

Trump

The whole Dump Trump campaign has built a head of steam in recent weeks as Mr Trump decided that he was going to pitch a gimme over to the obsessed denialists and give their Obama birth theories a supporting believer with national prominence. Many more these days are doubting that he should be driving the pace car this year.

For the record, I think Trump is a pompous nutball, I am a moderate Republican and frankly if he somehow wins the nomination for 2012 I might be in quite the quandary come election day (expect a single write in for Dick Lugar) But I have also been publically ambivalent about him driving the pace car. Celebrities driving the pace car is nothing new so landing one who’s television show is seen by 8M viewers an episode makes him a more than viable candidate based on historical precedent.

But with that ambivalence came an expectation that there’s more behind the curtain. That there is some plan that Trump’s pace car appearance brings with it either the placement of an IndyCar driver like Simona DeSilvestro on the next season of Celebrity Apprentice or Trump Casinos stepping up to be involved with some sponsorship angle with the League and the Vegas race or both. Money and exposure are both items the league desperately needs right now and if Trump brought both, then allowing him the same privilege previously shared by the former Mrs Mellencamp and Josh Duhamel is a non starter and I have said so.

At this point, out of disgust, I follow politics so infrequently, I don't feel like I know enough to judge whether his birther alignment is so aggregious as to outweigh the benefits of his celebrity and wealth after the 500. I just hope Jewel sings the national anthem again.

As it stands now however, this is shaping up to be a mess. If Trump has fallen in love with the idea of driving the pace car, he may not take a snub of removal quietly and I would imagine that his supporters nationally would be offended and turned off to the Indy 500 completely. At the end of the day, their eyes would have tracked as nicely in a Neilson rating as much as anyone else’s. If Trump is removed from Pace Car duties, I hope all the people who have signed up for the Dump Trump facebook page or particpated in the twitter war at least do the Speedway the courtesy of Buying a ticket.

I miss the days when people could disagree on politics but still respect the dignity and humanity of the people expressing their opinions. But hate is the popular new social ethos in this country and it is practiced by both end of the political spectrum in equally as vile of doses. This country is a much less relevant and noble character in the book of history as long as dualistic McCarthy-ism carries the day.

So if no Trump, Who.

The elephant in the room is this, many people want Foyt behind the wheel, but they disguise this motive by saying a “former driver”.

Pressdog makes a valid point that the problem with choosing one driver to drive the car for the 100^th anniversary is to say that the others aren’t as worthy. So an honor for Foyt is a snub for Unser, Mears, and Andretti. I would add this to the argument, if you can go through 100 years of history and conclusively identify a single person above all others, then that does not say much for the depth of greatness participating in the event. If an event like the 500 truly has the history of greatness we all want to attach to it, then it should contain a list of arguably inseparable icons as long as the list of Super Heroes that reside in the DC Comics Hall of Justice.

If a decision cannot be made from a list of recognized titans, then perhaps the honor of driving the pace car for this unique event could be defined not so much as a reaffirmation of greatness but perhaps as an affirmation of greatness to someone denied the opportunity of competing on that grand stage.

Tragic circumstances, both in a political and personal sense, kept Alex Zanardi from ever racing in the 500, but the indications are, based on both his accomplishments in the sport and by those who filled his shoes, that Zanardi would have excelled at Indy if he had ever been given the chance. I would rather see the greats extend an honor to accept another into their ranks than for a spitting match over their personal standing within the group commence.

More Rants on Friday.

Advertising 101 for Race Fans, Lesson 3: Neilson Ratings

2011-04-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

A lot of discussion has taken place recently concerning the Neilson ratings that the league has garnered in recent races and more importantly in recent years. The news generally has not been good and many passionate fans of the league, but novices in the world of advertising and media measurement have taken the stance to thrash the ratings, stating that “They are a flawed methodology and wrong” or “They are no longer pertinent or important anymore”

I thought I would take some space to discuss the ratings and how they are constructed. Neilson is the primary supplier of television ratings in the US. There are other providers in other countries such as TNS in Europe, but to this day Neilson is the sole significant provider here. In radio, Arbitron is the primary provider for listener information. On the web: Comscore and Neilson’s Net Ratings provide browsing consumption data. These three sources of data represent examples of what is referred to as syndicated research. Syndicated Research is where the providing company collects a single data set for the purpose of selling it to many clients, which is different than primary research that creates a specific research project for the specific needs of a single client (for the record, I work in primary research).

Neilson provides two numbers, the ratings, which is the share of all televisions tuned to a show when it is on and then the share that indicates the percentage of televisions actually on that were tuned to the show. The latter is a larger number than the former. The ratings are used to compute an audience size and measure how many people were reached by the ads running during that show, this number is all about the ads. The share number is used by networks to determine who is “winning” in a particular time slot since the number of TV’s actually on changes from time slot to time slot. In theory, take the ratings number, divide it by 100, multiply it times the number of Households, then times the average members per household and you get the number of people watching the show.

Originally back in the day, Data collection for the Neilson ratings consisted of 1000 randomly sample households from across the US, sampled to be representative of all households in the US (as compared and balanced back to the census) filling out weekly paper “viewing” diaries. The 1000 study participants were continually recruited and replaced.

As the television market fragmented from the 4 channels on the air to the 100’s of cable channels we have today are vying for the same general number of eyeballs, the ratings numbers began to become smaller and smaller for the shows being measured. As a result, the methodology had to change as well. Now the Neilson ratings are collected with a static sample of 25000 participants. The additional respondents help reliably measure shows with the smaller audiences observed since fragmentation. In addition to the increased sample size, the data collection has evolved from being pencil and paper to an electronic box that sits in the homes of the families that participate in the study. The box has a coax cable to the TV on one side and a telephone cable on the other that transmits data directly to Neilson on the other.

The first criticism of the Neilson ratings that casual people have is the same that people have towards any sort of information estimated by sampling techniques. “It’s not measuring everyone, so how can it be right?” Unfortunately, basic education of probability and statistics is not seen as being as important to a math and science education as are physics and chemistry, which is too bad. The Central Limit Theorem, the central tenet upon which nearly all of statistics is based is as vital as the Law of Gravity is to the physical sciences. Unfortunately, it is not as likely to taken on faith by science novices as the Law Of Gravity since is it not as intuitive nor is it so obvious in common day life. But it is every bit as true.

An intuitive example of how it works. Suppose that the average height of men in the country was 70” (5’ 10”). Only (say) 10% of men are 6’5” or over. Now Suppose you measured a sample of 10 men, how likely is it that you would find an average height of 6’5” or higher? Well if the probability of finding a single male that tall or higher was .1 then the probability of finding two is .1 x .1 = .01 (Independent probabilities are multiplicative). Further the probability of a randomly drawn sample of 10 men being that tall is .1¹⁰ = a really small number.

Let’s take this to a less extreme example, suppose there is a .48 chance that a man is more than 5’11” tall, then what is the probability that a sample of 400 men will average 5’11” or higher given the population truth that men average 5’10”? Given the example above, that would mean the probability is .48⁴⁰⁰ = again a really small number. Point is, drawing a single observation far removed from the mean height or rating might be easy, but drawing a LARGE group that is far removed from the true census statistic is very unlikely unless there is a flaw in how you drawing your sample. Which means if you are measuring the average height of men, don’t hang out in the locker room of an NBA team.

So if Neilson is collecting 25,000 they are pretty well covered not only for measuring the total audience, but also for specific regions, demo’s and shows. Their 25k is balanced to census statistics across several demographics and within specific census regions. As much due diligence as could be expected by industry standards.

The next major gripe race fans seem to have about the ratings deals with the recording of races by viewers for future viewing. Fans say that so many people DVR that the real number of people who watch the race is higher than the ratings because the ratings don’t include these people. The first thing I would point out here is that the recording of races is not new. There is new technology being used now that wasn’t available 10 years ago, but even 20 years ago VCRs were commonplace in households and the recording of broadcasts nearly as frequent as today. So if the ratings trend for IndyCar is down, recording of events can’t be the culprit.

But the philosophical question remains, should delayed recorded viewing of a show be counted in the ratings number? To answer this we have to go back to who is ultimately pays the bills…The advertisers. Neilson ratings exist so that Media (TV) companies can justify their advertising rates to the advertisers who buy the ad space. So follow the money and at the end of the trail you find advertisers and sponsors.

Advertisers have always been clear here. NO! recorded viewing does not count. The problem with recorded views is that it is generally assumed that people who watch a delay, fast forward past the commercials that have been paid for by the advertisers. Therefore, that portion of the viewing audience delivered by the network provides no ROI for the advertiser footing the bill. At the end of the day, nobody, and most importantly the advertisers, really cares who watches the shows or game themselves, only that the commercials are being viewed. Your retort? What about people who get up and take a pee during a commercial? Well then if you come up with a methodology that gets around that, then the company I work for would love to talk to you, but no one has come up with one yet.

If you need more affirmation that the Neilson ratings are an accurate measure of the size of a television audience who are being exposed to ads in an IndyCar broadcast, consider this. Essentially, Neilson ratings measure three audiences: Those who watch over the air; those who watch on cable and finally those who watch via satellite. For the over the air audience, Neilson ratings are the only source for viewership data, but for cable and satellite, there is another way to measure viewership. If you have a cable box, satellite modem or Tivo/DVR with a telephone line plugged into it, then you are not only getting a feed from the distribution company but what you watch is going back up stream to the satellite/cable company and being tracked, they know what you are watching and they are creating massive databases to store it and mine it forever (creepy huh?). This data collected by cable and satellite companies is referred to as “Set Top” data and is incredibly accurate…Guess what…when the Neilson panel is screened to exclude the broadcast viewers, the ratings trend very well with the set top data.

Many will say that soon everyone will stream TV and the Neilson ratings will go away. I won’t debate that there won’t be a growing audience for streaming audiences, but it will be quite a while a large enough a cultural shift takes place to remove over air and cable audiences. Part of it is technology. Not all the country has cable access, so what makes us think that those same portions of the country will have ample internet bandwidth to stream anytime soon? Even those with access to a wireless internet provider, there are usually “Fair Access” policies that limit how much data is delivered to a single customer during a given day. A three hour race streaming on-line is a BUNCH of data and is sure to hit the fair access policy limits.

Ultimately, on-line streams will simply be another distribution channel for people to select from, joining over the air, cable and satellite. It is not realistic to expect that the media companies will share ratings info with each other so a third party measurement system will be required for the future streaming audience as well. Remember who I said provided on-line audience measurement? One company you have probably forgotten about by now and a familiar name. Neilson is prepared for that day as well.

I hope this has helped to demystify the Neilson ratings a bit. I could probably go on but it getting late, Good Day Sirs.

Wanna fix the Ratings? Then Fix the TV Product.

2011-04-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

There is a type of study in the marketing research industry called an Ethnography study and despite the similarity between Latin root influences, they have very little to do with Willy T Ribbs. Typically an Ethnography study looks to understand how consumers of a product or category interact with the product as they use it. The goal being if you understand how your product is used or consumed, then you can design it better for those purposes. Methodologies for these studies are more diverse than any type of marketing research I can think of, ranging from having study participants e-mail recipes, texting camera pictures of the product as it is being used or consumed, to having a person follow a participant around and actually watch a subject interact with the product (David, does any of this sound familiar?)

After having married into two nascar families (not at the same time mind you, the first experience didn’t end so well) and having bought a house from another, I feel like I have collected enough data to publish some information from an ethnographic study of nascar viewing consumption and broadcast interactions and draw inferences from it that has pertinence to IndyCar as well.

Sunday morning starts off with the pre-race show and opinions about them are split. The wicked and evil of the world have these shows on as background noise as they go about their sinful ways Sunday morning, sleeping in late then farting around the house as they cook breakfast. The good, righteous and saved of the world don’t watch them because they are at church. Instead, the good and righteous of the world get their nascar fluff on espn during the week while secretly fantasizing about getting Mrs Briscoe naked and doing impure things to her which is why they have to go to church on Sundays so they can feel better about themselves.

Then the race starts, and all eyes are glued to the tele looking for the first lap melee. Soon, after a couple tries at it, the race settles down into cars going around in circles at which point Y2k attention spans start to wander. The older types start to doze on the couch and begin to snore. Those under 18 wander off to another TV, one with a game console hooked up and begin to play games, occasionally racing related, more often however these games relate to gratuitous simulations of mortal violence. Sometimes, if the weather is just right, they go out and play basketball.

The 25 – 35 crowd is a little different, they tend to be more mobile and will have hopped into their pickup trucks and migrated to the lair of another herd member where they are joined by other members of the herd. The herd congregation spot is usually the lair of the herd leader and it is often a basement or detached garage which is stocked with the following items: A TV with the race on, a fridge full of Coor’s light and a pool table or a computer with a porn site loaded up – sometimes both (as was the case during the open house where I first looked at the property that is my current residence. FYI if you are selling a house and are holding an open house, it means get the hell off the property, not just out of the house. Going out to the detached garage, getting drunk while watching Tony go round in circles usually is detrimental to your chances of selling said house Bubba) But I Digress. In this environment, after the race starts and the cars are generally going around in circles, viewers tend to migrate to the fridge then either the pool table or porn loaded computer.

Then with about 30 laps to go something inexplicable happens, some instinctual alarm goes off in the psyche of all these racing enthusiasts. They heed an inner call to return to the television set, nascar throws a yellow to bunch up the field and then the excitement begins anew until the checkered finally drops.

The gist? Nascar events generally are marked by two race stages that are compelling and engaging to the consumer: the start and the finish. The 2 hours in between are a disposable, filler portion of the broadcast that rarely engages the consumer.

A flaw with the Neilson methodology that determines audience ratings or the set top data the satellite and cable companies collect to provide similar data, is that if the viewers leave the TV on to go do something else, the measurement methodologies still record that something is being “watched”. Ratings do not show the dip in attentiveness that actually happens. Credit Fox for recognizing this and calling out nascar to shorten up their races after making the same discoveries.

In some of the discussion that has ensued relating to the first 60 laps of Long Beach, it would appear that certain IndyCar fans have the belief that IndyCar is different, that the entire 5 hour broadcast window is or must be compelling must see TV and are outraged that a League vs drivers disagreement over double wide restarts robbed them of having a full rich 2.5 hour race experience. Honestly during the middle portions of the race Sunday, I went outside fed the Ducks, spray painted some wooden easter eggs for a friend’s child and spent the rest of the time twittering. Mrs JP attacked a 5” thick piece of Polyfoam with a 12” bread knife and hand crafted a replacement cushion for the love seat. Other than Mike Conway muffing a pit stop, we didn’t miss much.

Audience “engagement” problems that plague nascar are issues with IndyCar as well. I suspect that at some level this engagement issue is what has driven the attendance trends at IndyCar events. Long Beach and St Pete draw well because when the race gets boring, there is more to do. There’s plenty of Tecate girls clad in skin tight shiny blue spandex to purchase $8.75 beers from…and flirt with or gawk at. At Nashville or Chicagoland when drivers are doing laps 50 – 150 trying to save fuel and stay out of trouble, attendees have nothing to do but sit in their seats and get bored. Even if the finish is great, they go home thinking that they could have saved the $60 and watched the final 20 laps at home. Indy is different than the average oval in that there is always Turn 3 infield and hence more like Long beach than Chicagoland.

Big time racing has settled into an event with the format of: start, finish and a 2 hour scheduled nap in between. The race strategy is pretty predictable for these events. If you have agood car and lead, the run way and hide Will, save fuel if you can. If you got a good car and are near the front, keep your nose clean and make your run late after the last pit stop Dario. If you have a good car and start further back, then Tony start punking the also rans in the back but don’t expect the TV to notice until you have moved up at least 10 spots. If you got a lousy car JR, hope you can figure it out and hope you can fix it in order to make a run late, otherwise, let Helio and Viso gain you some positions. The point is, double wide restarts or not, unless you are named Helio Castroneves, there is no incentive to do anything stupid early or in the middle for the cars the TV has the camera on. The format encourages predicable boring race strategies, exacerbating the problem.

Diehard fans are probably outraged at this point talking about how people should appreciate the finer nuances of pit strategy, fuel conservation and tire management. But the casual fan is like the Honey Badger, they don’t care, frankly they don’t give a shit. I have asked a number of casual sports fan friends of mine what they hope to see in a race and it almost always comes down to three things: The big one; A late pass for the lead; and someone they’ve heard of winning the race. In reality this is all SportsCenter has taught them to expect, so when they see an hour and a half of race “filler” that seems to serve no purpose they move on and if they find Tiger on a run or derrick Rose en Fuego, they don’t come back.

Racing events on television need to be blown up and recreated and re-imagined as to provide more must see content. The filler must be flushed. Probably no other racing series has a better format for television than USAC or WOO sprint events. Heat Races, followed by more heat races followed by a Final race for all the marbles. Sprint car racing triples the green flag starts and checkered flag finishes and disposes of the disposable in between. SO why, you ask, are these events not the hottest thing on TV? Simple, Two things: Going around in circles and Dirt. Nascar and Supercross have shown you can get away with one or the other and be successful, but combine the two and you have something that mainstream America will never see as more than a primitive slop exhibition put on by uneducated hicks.

Sorry if I offend you, I am not here to make friends today…

This same basic format works quite well for sports other than auto racing. The recent revelation of the winter Olympic games has not been the inclusion of new extreme sports for the teenies in the audience. The new crack for Olympic viewers is Short track speed skating. If you are familiar with the sport then you know – it is organized just like a sprint or midget race. Heats with about half the participants of each heat moving on until there are 4 skaters left for all the marbles. Every heat is important and has tangible consequences.

You want to create made for TV racing events that will draw in new viewers and grow the ratings number? Then drop this into a 5 hour IndyCar broadcast window: Two heat races where the field is split into balanced groups based on odd and even placements from qualifying. Run 25 laps on ovals and 10 on road circuits, no pit stops, pay a small loading of championship points. Then roll out the lights cars and let them have their moment, perhaps shorten their event a little. Then finally, roll out the top 10 from each of the qualification races and run a race long enough to mandate a fueling pit stop, make tires degrade quickly enough that teams and drivers contemplate extra stops to gain an advantage. On a road course roll out a new compound that was not available in practice, quals or the heats. Challenge drivers, teams and engineers to adapt or be left behind.

An event like this makes every lap relevant and important, there are no “Fuel saving” or “keep your nose clean” laps anymore. Drivers race every lap hard. Fans watch the whole event because everything presented to them has tangible consequences that even a novice fan understands.

Radical? Yes, but as long as the .27 ratings continue, the closer we get to pulling the plug on IndyCar. Every race? No, traditional long form endurance runs like Indy can still be part of the schedule as they provide variety from week to week. A new idea? Nope, I imagine the Texas two step in June is a trial balloon for something like this and I would imagine league and network researchers will be comparing the minute by minute ratings for this event to other events in order to see how engaged the audience stays.

At this point despite what everyone else might suggest, new cars, more Americans more underdogs aren’t going to save this thing. Redesigning your on air product to be consistently more engaging to the viewer is the only thing that will…

2012 Bonus Objectives for Randy Bernard

2011-04-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

Randy,

As you may recall your compensation package is based on two components: A guaranteed component which was covered in your offer letter and an At Risk / Bonus portion based on yearly performance objectives determined from year to year. 2010 and 2011 were development years for the league and your objectives reflected that fact. 2012 is expected to be a growth year for the IndyCar series and your objectives will reflect those expectations. Your performance will be measured against a series of numeric objectives listed below:

30 Fully sponsored full time participants car driver combinations should compete for 28 qualifying spots for most regular series dates.

40 Participants should compete for 33 starting spots within the Indianapolis 500

1.0 or Greater should be the average Neilson rating for the races broadcast on the NBC Universal Sports channel.

2.0 or Greater Should be the average Neilson rating for the broadcast races other than the Indianapolis 500.

5.0 Should be the minimum Neilson rating for the Indianapolis 500

1.2M Fans should attend the 20 IndyCar series races during the 2012 season.

At Long Last...

2011-04-02T21:55:00.000-07:00

I have to admit...I was getting nervous...everyone else was basking in the glow but not me. For about three weeks now I would head to the mailbox in anticipation and.... nothing. One day I flipped through the mail and got a newsletter from Mid Ohio, a nice reminder of something to enjoy later in the summer. The sense of urgency to get up at 7 am Drive to the race course, , walk the 3/4 of a mile to set out our lawn chairs in the morning dew and stake our claim in the esses with 15k beloved commrades enjoying the scent of ethanol ... a fraternal brotherhood of speed...

But that nice little reminder of things to come wasn't what I had been hoping for, the object of my obsession had not yet arrived.

A week or so later, a plain little white envelope was in the mail, it seemed thick and a little stiff. I opened it and I smiled...Tickets to the Iowa USAC race on Friday night and the IndyCar race Saturday. Memories came rushing back from last year's race, the best oval race of the year. The suspense of the stalker and the stalked, a green flag pass after the last pit stop and a different team in victory lane. An outstanding afternoon of racing. But still not the fix I was looking for.

Another week and I heard from a friend who made his arrangements a full month after me had his little blue envelope of joy...and I admit I REALLY started to get nervous. Another week and nervousness turned to despair...despair to hysteria...What was I going to do...Paul Tracy was going to the be there, Townshend Bell too even Dan Wheldon had a date for Memorial Day weekend...But not me.

Sure, there would be Iowa followed by six nights in Glacier the week afterwards. There would be the whole three day orgy of speed at Mid Ohio, the family outing to Kentucky that has become a yearly tradition. Heck there would be Vegas, $5million challenge followed by a week long excursion to Grand, Zion and Bryce Canyons. LOTS of good racing. Lots of good times...But would the racing year be so full, sweet or complete if IT never came??

Of course not...

Had lunch with the nephews today. One asked, where are we sitting this year? I tried to not look nervous or let on that anything was up. I said "Same basic place as last year, just one row lower...It's a BIG year, seats are going to be harder to come by." "Cool" was the response. Their anticipation was making me even more nervous now. George had suggested I call the ticket office. He was right, Monday I would take care of this, put myself out of my misery.

So ... Imagine my Joy today ... Coming home from lunch ... Checking the mailbox ... seeing the hint of blue underneath the coop electric bill ... rushing inside to find a sharp knife ... cutting carefully ... seeing the green "lot 2" pass ... a moment spent trying to figure out what the hell a "Staind" was ... but then seeing them ... 4 Pictures of Dario with the words "100th Anniversary International 500 Mile Sweepstakes" above him... And Finally ... All was right with the World.

After Six months of....

2011-03-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

Pandering Drivers in need of PR skills, Whiney bloggers who think the league should super serve their whims, archaic fans asking the same stupid questions over and over, Graham Rahal acting dopey, Flip Flopping CEO's who would rather float trial balloons and than do proactive research and Pressdog snarking about the red and white cars...Let's F___ing Race....

In case you need something to get you in the mood...

Tune in Sunday at 12:30 to ABC Watch the Grand Prix of St Petersburg. Know someone with a Neilson box in their house? Invite yourself over and watch the race there...

26 – The Number that Makes Qualifying Must See TV

2011-03-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

So there was a triumvirate of angst inducing news out of IndyCar in the past couple weeks. No more streaming practice or races, something called a Lucky Dog and then the capping of fields at 26. All these got the faithful roused up and the number of blog postings up heading into the first test at Barber today. I don’t feel like I know enough about the dollars and cents for the first to comment, though I feel for some of our friends in distant places who may go raceless now. I have already commented on the second. But as for the last one on the list, and the one that happened chronologically first, I didn’t really think much about until today.

Despite a howl from many that capping the fields at 26 is “bad for a league seeking sponsors” I really can’t share that opinion. My first thought hearing the news was “There’s part two of the Milka go home strategy”. I mean how can you claim to have the “Fastest Drivers in the World” if anyone who can buy a seat gets to play? Jack Welch, the CEO who ran GE for many years was known for policies such as whacking the bottom 10% of the sales force even in good years. It keeps everyone hungry and on their toes. If you recall the comments Randy Bernard had concerning races and promoters from a year ago, it is clear he buys into that philosophy. So why should it be different for drivers? If you want to make sure that Paul Tracy gets a ride over Francesco Dracone, this is a means to that end.

But I didn’t feel compelled to comment about this until today when I realized just how brilliant, above the philosophical considerations, of an idea it really is. I had the epiphany during my 90 minute wait at the doctor’s office today while following twitter. Will @isitmayyet pondered the question of how will they decide who is bounced for road courses. Since times are dependent on session, someone who runs in a damp session would be at a disadvantage to someone posting a time before the drops started to fall. Simultaneously will and I pondered “What if in addition to the fast six, there was a slow six as well?” It struck me at how dramatic the event could be to see guys busting out hot ones just to MAKE the field for the race.

For a road course after the initial two sessions, the top six from each of two sessions advance into a round of twelve from which six emerge to run for the poll. Until now those left behind from the initial sessions were slotted by time and went home for the day. BUT what if all those cars were grouped into a large group, ran again with the top six qualifying in slots 13 – 18. Then whomever was left went out one last time to fill the remaining 8 slots? Suppose there were 10 drivers…as time ticks away on the clock for that final session …Pretty compelling TV, no??

That’s the point here. Make qualifying in and of itself a must see event for the fans. Those who argue that sending people home means sending sponsors home might think about it this way. For cars 27 and 28, really at a road course, just how much exposure were those cars and their sponsors going to get in the race? Short of putting the car into the wall with cameras focusing on the carnage, not much. But with additional sessions to place and qualify the remainder of the field, and particularly for the 3 – 4 cars at the bottom, air time for the sponsor increases exponentially.

SO I suppose the question becomes from the sponsor’s perspective, is no exposure on a relatively more watched broadcast better than a large dose of exposure on a less watched broadcast? And who’s to say that the change which would create REAL UNMANUFACTURED DRAMA doesn’t actually take ratings for qualifying shows to new levels?

So that would be how it works on road courses but what about ovals? Right now it can’t get much more boring than each car going out, giving BB two good ones and then everyone going back to the busses to order pizza and play spin the bottle with Milka.

Well one of the most compelling days in the month of May is Bump day, when the final field of 33 is set and the rest go home. I don’t see anyone whining about how the field being limited to 33 is detrimental to the sport (somewhere off in the distance Meesbeer tingles with angst). What if there were bumping for the regular ovals as well? Here’s how it might work. Every car gets up to three qualifying attempts, but they can only be used if the car is NOT currently in the field. You rule out the silliness of pulling a qualified car from the field, so if you are #10, you stay #10. But if #26 becomes #27, he can go back out to reclaim his spot in the field. If that car gets back in then the new #27, can do the same…until everyone on the outside looking in has burned up their three attempts and then the field is set.

You wind up giving everyone a little taste for the bump day drama at indy. Each time one of these slower cars goes back out to try to get back into the show…More airtime for the sponsor.

IMO, this GREATLY improves the product for the qualification broadcasts and has the potential to increase Saturday crowds at the venues. It has a formula for growth built into the TV event. If on one Sunday, someone tunes in and their favorite driver is not in the show, you bet the next Saturday that fan is tuning into quals to hopefully see that it does not happen again. A race weekend should now have three pretty good made for TV gigs for the league to promote and for fans to watch: IndyCar Quals, IndyLights race and the IndyCar race itself. And the more fans watching any of these events will draw more sponsors to the sport.

Brilliant.

Free Ad Impressions for the Returning Sponsor

2011-03-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

The Dangers of Compounding Effects

2011-03-09T21:04:00.000-08:00

I saw a movie several years ago, forgot the title, but it was made by HBO and aired on HBO. It was comedic look at the development of the of the Army’s Bradley Fighting vehicle. As I recall the Army was in need of a new troop transport vehicle that could deliver a squad of infantry to the front, quickly, while offering a certain amount of protection where upon arrival the squad would dismount the vehicle quickly and take positions soon thereafter. Essentially what they needed was a Halftrack for those WWII buffs out there.

The movie was presented from the point of view of the Air Force officer who was overseeing the Army effort (memory is a bit sketchy as to why the Air Force was needed here but the officer was played by Carey Elwes). Initial plans were drawn up that met the Army specs and it was presented to top brass which then hemhawed around and decided that something more than a machine gun was needed on top of the vehicle to really “Scare the enemy”, so the plans were redrawn and re-engineered to include a mid caliber cannon. The new plans were presented to the top brass again where it was decided that “Wow with that big gun on the vehicle, the enemy might decide to shoot at it” so more armor was needed to protect the troops inside who were now a target because of the Gun on top of the vehicle they were riding in. Plans were redrawn again with more armor and re-presented again to top brass that decided, with all the extra armor, the vehicle was now too slow, therefore it needed a bigger engine so it would be faster. Yep, back to the drawing board, this time there wasn’t enough fuel on board to go necessary distances and back to the drawing board. This played out repeatedly with several more iterations that I will not bore you with, but in the end the Army got their vehicle and it could be said that the final product essentially was either a big armored car or a light tank with enough jump seats to seat HALF a squad and it is a point of contention as to how effective it was in service. BUT, one thing is not debatable, it that it wound up way over budget, costing hundreds of millions more to create produce than it was supposed to.

That is the risk of Compounding Effects.

Similar things happen within the medical field as well. Grandma has an ailment, the Dr has two drugs to choose from, both have potential side effects. Dr assigns drug #1 and patient is relieved of the initial ailment but now suffers from the side effects. Since the initial ailment is gone, no thought is given to trying the other drug with the hope that it will have the same therapeutic effect w/o the side effects. Instead, the Dr starts prescribing drugs to treat the side effects of the first drug and of course those drugs also have side effects that then require more drugs, and soon Grandma is taking 15 different drugs, is pretty doped up and comatose, has blown through her pension money, is broke and is now living in a Medicare run nursing home being molested by perverted orderlies.

The IndyCar brass are now flirting with the dangers of Compounding Effects. IndyCar starts and restarts have been very poor in recent years. Cars accelerating on the back half of the race course anticipating a green flag have stretched out fields and reduced the opportunity for passing that a restart might otherwise have offered.

One solution is simply hold off dropping the green flag until all cars are on the front stretch of the track and then allowing them to go green. Which has been instituted. But not content to stop there, IndyCar has now decided that it needs Double file restarts to make absolutely sure that at least some passing occurs on restarts. But then all the “Elite” drivers decided that they were afraid of re starting next to some of the also rans since they feared being crashed out by incompetent drivers. SO then the decision was made to have the lead lap cars filter to the front and the lapped cars to the back on restarts. Then came the outrage that a car not on the lead lap, only trailing a couple lead cars, was now in the impossible position of never being able to get its lap back. SO now we heard today that IndyCar is adopting the “lucky dog” rule to let the first car not on the lead lap to get its lap back. (the perils of Compounding Effects? I ask…)

Soon a mob of angry IndyCar bloggers wearing bathrobes and slippers (their usual attire) assembled outside IMS administrative offices at 16^th and Georgetown and began to throw rotten eggs and eat cold pizza. Oh the humanity!

As @shagers points out. Why can’t we just try fixing the restarts by dropping the flag in the right place and see if that does the trick first?? Otherwise, the next thing that will come up from the compounding logic will be that since the cars are so close together on restarts, they need fenders to make sure the wheels don’t touch…

In all practicality, what the rule will accomplish is that more often than not, the 21rst fastest car now gets to cycle back around to the harass the 20^th Fastest car without having to concern themselves with the 22nd fastest car. Will @isismayyet suggests that this will get the 21rst car some additional camera time for its sponsor, but is it good exposure? “Now the XYZ car gets a free handout because it sucks less than the other sucky cars” great brand exposure …if you can get it.

@onelapdown mentioned today that really only the red and white teams stand to benefit here. The place where this rule will be a game changer for those teams will be when one of the fastest cars in the field makes either a pit mistake, either with a long stop or getting penalized for some sort of infraction. With the lucky dog, penalties now lose their teeth. Mistakes no longer carry CONSEQUENCES. Some of the great stories in the history of the 500 now lose their ability to compel because the odds were not so stacked against the team and the feat of coming back from adversity was not so great.

I am of the opinion that if the Lucky Dog stays (which should not be written in stone otherwise risking the ire of many of the leagues current fans) that it should be optional for the car entitled to it. But if the option is used, then the car is docked 3 pts from those scored for the race. If you review the points paying structure, 3 points will all but deter any cars from 18^th place on down will ever use it. Cars from 10 to 17 will have to have a strong dose of optimism to use it and meaning that only teams that think they can really move up the standings or win, would use it. But by using it, the penalty would still bite and mistakes would have consequences. The moment that it took for the team to decide not to use it would give the sponsors Will’s additional air time and the whole decision to “Go for Two” or not will throw a little intrigue into the broadcast.

To me, one of the lessons of the split was this. That IndyCar couldn’t succeed by out nascar-ing nascar and Cart could not succeed by out F1-ing F1. IndyCar needs to find its own solutions to problems and not simply copy the rule book from another series. At the end of the day I simply ask, can’t we simply drop the damn green flag when it is supposed to be dropped and let the drama play out from there?

The Sunday America Rediscovered IndyCar?

2011-03-03T19:46:00.000-08:00

Editor's note, This evening the NFL labor discussions were extended another 24 hours, but read on you'll get the point...

The Izod IndyCar series has a winning poker hand and now it waits. It now waits so see how big the pot gets.

That really is the situation the series has been in since the announcement of the Las Vegas sweepstakes. Since its announcement everyone has been talking about the series that many forgot existed. It has IndyCar fans interested and it has nascar drivers, media and fans talking. Heck, Lance Armstrong just retweeted an offer from MaxPappis about splitting the prize with the Livestrong foundation to his 2.8 MILLION followers…This buzz in and of itself is a win for the league and unless they screw up the distribution of the 80k free tickets or one of the interloping drivers makes a mistake that costs a contender the title, the whole enterprise is will be a plus.

Now the question becomes what other good fortune might help this event have even greater impact?

The first place to start will be the drivers that come. I personally think Roger and Chip have agreed already to have at least one of their cup drivers available that weekend. Roger took extraordinary measures to bring Chevrolet back in the fold, it seems like a much smaller thing for him to say to Kurt or Brad, “Get on the Plane”. To all those who cry “Practice”, “Experience” etc… Remember the Penske shop is in Charlotte, down the road and around the corner from Charlotte Motor speedway which bears a strong resemblance to LVMS.

We also heard today that Chip is planning a driver swap, Jamie McMurray in an IndyCar at Barber and Scott Dixon in the Stock Car at Talledega, “For show”. Suppose Chip will ask Jamie when he gets out of the car “So, what did you think?” Throw in Brian Clausson and three driver slots are penciled in and now the waiting game begins to see if the league can do better than a former Cup champ, Daytona Champ and the reigning USAC champ. The driver list is a win, the question becomes how much of one?

Then if things break right…

Some history first. February 18, 1979…The Presidents day blizzard was paralyzing most the east and Midwestern parts of the country. Football was over and lots of bored, home bound TV viewers began to scan their 3 available channels for something to watch…and they found it. On that day, the very first live broadcast of any race in America was taking place, The Daytona 500 was airing live on CBS. Until that day even Indy was tape delayed. What’s more, the race was a good one and then on the final lap, Cale Yarborough attempted a sling ship pass on Donnie Allison who forced Cale into the grass where he lost control and took out Allison. Richard Petty went on to win but no one much noticed because Donnie Allison’s brother showed up to the wreck and a fight broke out between the Allisons and Yarborough. All who were watching were captivated, and nascar almost overnight went from being a regional southern sport to one of national prominence. All because the weather, the race and the Hoo haa all broke right.

At this point, if this Post get posted something VERY important to the sport landscape of the country has occurred. The clock will have struck midnight and the NFL lockout will have begun. “Surely” you say “they have six more months to get this sorted out”. but honestly, the real posturing has just begun. The first deadline has come and gone and there won’t be any reason to rush to a settlement. The union will decertify and an anti-trust lawsuit will be filed. It will get ugly and it may get harder to reconcile after blood has boiled.

If there is a delay in the football season games won’t start immediately, schedules have to be set, training camps have to occur preseason games have to get played and even if the lockout ended mid September, there would be no real games until after October 16…

Which happens to be the date of…The IndyCar finale at Las Vegas. And if it were raining across large portions of the country bored sports fans will begin to start flipping channels, No College football, No Nascar (they run Sat night), No basketball, no Baseball (because they choose to play their playoff games after midnight for most the country) so what might these action thirsty fans find on ABC that Sunday afternoon???

IndyCar has a winning hand – now the waiting begins to see how big the jackpot gets…

A Quick Thought About on Air Talent…

2011-03-01T20:19:00.000-08:00

About six weeks ago a rumor went around that Versus was mixing up its on air talent for the upcoming IndyCar season. At that time, the rumor had Lindy Thackson scrambling with Dan Wheldon to find a chair when the music stopped. At the time several Bloggers took up Lindy’s cause, George at oilpressure.com was perhaps the most eloquent voice on the subject. I offered the following comment to George’s post:

“As for Lindy, again I don’t see an immediate reason why she needs to be replaced, but truthfully we don’t know the options or the motives for considering such a move. Suppose the person they are considering to replace her with is Kevin Lee? Take a crack at taking a stand on that one. Then too, if the goal is to grow the audience, it may be a better growth strategy to have someone on staff that tells the audience that NBC considers this to be a top shelf series and event, by placing someone with broader than racing name recognition there.”

Late last week word rumbled through the same rumor mill that Lindy had been spared, but as it turns out Kevin Lee really was joining the Versus team in the Pits. As with IndyCar rides themselves, if someone is coming, it must mean someone is going, and as we found out the person without a seat was the tanned grizzled veteran of the pit crew Jack Arute. I like Jack as a pit reporter, unfortunately his role last season morphed into something quite different and frankly at times a little weird. Whether it was the alternating sweaty vs dry shirts at Motegi, the Cheese grater or the over the top “Bring out the Gimp” moment that featured a helmet, a chain and a bowling ball all connected to Jack’s head, while somewhat amusing, these bits were mostly strange. I think Kevin’s joining the team symbolizes a return to basics with a focus on strong “in the Moment” brand pit reporting.

Most people who are really involved with following IndyCar racing know who Kevin Lee is and I think most of us are very happy that he is getting this opportunity. George wrote a fine biography about Kevin in a post about the Trackside show. I think Kevin resonates with so many of us because he grew up a westsider, a Ben Davis grad (his only prominent flaw) and he knows what the 500 means to his fan base, because it means the same to him as well.

I was watching the end of the Phoenix nascar race Sunday and despite the critiques from many IndyCar fans about revisionist history and creative spins that come from the nascar on air personalities one thing is clear about all of them. They LOVE their sport. That enthusiasm comes through the television screen and an audience can sense that.

Hopefully as the line ups evolve for the IndyCar broadcasting partners, this basic enthusiasm for the sport will be a factor taken into account for hiring decisions. In George’s post about Lindy I also offered this comment.

“I don’t see a particular reason anyone on the versus team needs to be replaced immediately, though I would suggest the lights races next year would be and excellent opportunity to groom a replacement for Bob in the future. They need to be thinking about that. In a year or two, Bob could move over the the narration role that Brent Mussberger has for the 500 with a younger more vigorous play by play guy taking the mic during the race. (I thought about blogging on this subject and off the top of my head the best I could do was Chris Denari of Butler BB, Pacer BB and IMS radio fame.”

I still think Denari would be an outstanding replacement for Bob if the day comes where it makes sense for Bob to move to a more stately position. Likewise, should the situation change at the network broadcast partner in the next couple of years, Chris would be a great fit there as well. He’s a Hoosier, he gets the race and what it means to its fans.

And Finally, as it seems there might be some openings now or in the future at IMS radio, I thought I’d put my two cents in here as well. A place @IMSRadio needs to be found for Greg Rakestraw. Greg is a southern Indiana guy, who went to school at the University of Indianapolis and while there starred as a collegiate tennis legend. After graduation he landed at Clear Channel communications and was involved with sports at 1260. From there he went on to host an over achieving afternoon talk radio show at 950, the littlest brother of the three all sports stations in Indy.

In Fact, since Greg left 950 for his new role at Hometown Sports, the ride home time slot has been pretty bleak listening for a racing fan. The 1070 guy is a nascar guy who spends way too much time talking about what actress was naked in which movies and has turned the 1070 website into a hot or not site for stripper-tute head shots. The 1260 guy does nothing but interview baseball types on how great his son will be in the big leagues one day. And now 950 just sort of sounds like a high school station.

Sorry. I went off on a bit of a rant.

Getting back to the point. Greg always made a point to cover IndyCar as part of his show and has an enthusiasm for the sport. Getting Greg on IMS radio would be restocking the shelf with talent that cares about IndyCar racing above and beyond the paycheck. He gets it because he gets US. I believe that On Air talent that can convey an enthusiasm for the sport because they feel it themselves, is part of the formula that will help the sport grow.

My Five and Why…

2011-02-22T18:07:00.000-08:00

OK so you know the deal…IndyCar and a $5m bonus for any mercenary who can win the season finale @Vegas. After an initial twitter buzz about all the nascar drivers who may or may not do this, then dire pessimism about nascar teams that would never let their guys go turncoat to a list of Former IndyCar passer throughs and has-beens has been hashed over all day, we still have several months to ponder who the participants will be. (man that was an ugly sentence…)

Something important to remember here, that the five to be selected will be selected based on an Advisory Committee. IndyCar will choose those five from a list of interested parties. Despite money, IndyCar fan wishes or the wishes of the drivers themselves, IndyCar will choose who IndyCar wants to be racing. So who will they choose?

Let’s take a second to talk about the purpose of this event. It is all about Product Sampling. This whole gig is an investment in giving out the crack hoping people come back for more. IndyCar wants Fans, in the seats and on the tube sampling this product as it runs on ABC. Since Vegas is a high banked 1.5 mile oval there is more than a small chance that the track will yield a Texas/Chicagoland/Kentucky race: entertaining for the novice and likely to bring newbies back for more…

As for the fans in the seats, there will be up to 80K tickets available. Now in reality, how many people who see a race at Mid Ohio are going to go to Vegas to see this even if they have a free ticket? Let’s see there’s a plane ticket, hotel ticket and the issue of vacation time availability that will eliminate most fans. Even myself, I will be going, but I will be Buying tix to get a good seat. If I am shelling out $ for the rest of this deal, I’m not ruining the rest of the outlay only for GenAd seats in row 1.

So who’s getting all these free tix? Well, my hunch is that there will be a “Get Your Free Vegas Tix here” booth at the only event that is within day trip range of Vegas. Long Beach. The ticket giveaway is all about getting the Long Beach crowd out to see an Oval with the hopes they will: Perhaps come back to Vegas the next year on their own dime, Certainly might watch other races on TV the following year and even more…Get these people hooked on Oval racing so that in 2012, you have a base of people already predisposed to having an interest in buying a Ticket to an October 1, 2012 date at Fontana. Yep the F-word again.

As for getting TV fans to sample the product, Drivers will be selected by the league depending on the eyeballs that are likely to follow that driver to the TV set the day of the race. Remember the principles covered in our last Advertising 101 post. Not all fans are equal. More fans are not always better particularly if they are named bubba, eat beef jerkey and live in a trailer. Drivers who bring the most “appealing” eyeballs to the TV set will receive priority. One final lesson – from marketing and advertising is needed – What it means to create a portfolio that maximizes reach.

So who do I think is coming? First, a blanket statement about who is not coming. Anyone who has been here (Champcar or IndyCar) before in a meaningful way will be staying home. No Sam, No JPM, No Bruno J, No Scott Sharp you get the picture.

Here’s my five (previously tweeted this afternoon with a slight change) and why…

Kimi Raikonen – Former F1 World champion, now turned world rally challenge driver is a natural. He gave up F1 because of the politics, openly teases IndyCar fans by name droping it on his website and can finance the deal himself with it being rationalized as a Measured Bet. It will probably will cost hmm – let’s say $250k to finance this one off race. If he wins that is a 20 to 1 return on his investment. Given the Nigel Mansell experience, Any former F1 world champ will look at the Current 25 driver IndyCar field and surmise that he probably has a better than 1 in 20 chance to win… SO to Kimi, this looks to be a good bet to improve his pocketbook and a chance to Party and GET TRASHED in Vegas afterwards. From the league’s POV, F1 fans in America skew High Net worth, gotta love those people watching your product. Kimi is a shoe-in.

Bryan Clauson – As much as IndyCar fans have man crushes on Randy Bernard, Randy has a man crush on The reigning USAC champion. Bryan will have spent the Lights season using his light scholarship to learn this side of the sport. And Technically he would NOT be an IndyCar Series driver. It would not be a big stretch for Schmidt Motorsports to put a car on the grid in Vegas, particularly if they could use the opportunity to wine and dine potential investors or sponsor prospects for a Full Time IICS gig in 2012 for the team and or Clauson. IICS is cross pollinating with USAC at Iowa and Milwaukee this year and sprint car fans should be one of the easiest conversions to the IICS, since it is reestablishing a relationship not creating one. Those Midwestern and western fans can help grow the overall TV number and help sell tickets at any of the Midwestern tracks.

Simon Pagenot, Marino Franchitti or David Brabham – As we discussed last week, Sports Car Fans skew in the upper income brackets and those are nice eyeballs to have in your viewership audience. As for the Highcroft drivers, they are currently stomping the pavement looking for work, and Highcroft itself has fallen on hard times, only running 3 ILMS races this year. They could borrow a car from one of the IICS teams, spend some time working with it, service it with their own crew and use this race, much as Schmidt Racing would do, to build momentum and sponsorship interest for an IICS run in 2012. As for Franchitti – Dario has always said he wanted to race sports cars with his brother one day, it would an interesting story to see the brothers race in Dario’s stomping grounds.

Travis Pastrana – The four time Rally America Champion and X game competitor skews in the other direction that the league would want – Young and Male. While Travis has begun to go down a nascar path, this kind of money would still mean something to him. Another possibility that fits in this slot would be a formula Drift Driver. As I speak, Spike and Doug are Twitter bantering about the prospects of Tanner Faust in the mix here. Either way, same important demo reached.

Finally – You had to figure nascar figured in somewhere right?

Trevor Bayne – This of course would seem to be the dream guy from nascar at this point. No Cup Chase Commitments or considerations and he’s currently riding a wave of fame from the Daytona Victory. The nationwide series race that weekend is on the 14^th, two days before the Vegas Finale. Of course there is the issue of Trevor being a Ford Driver contracted to RFR, one of the big three nascar teams who would have very little interest in seeing their driver participate in some that had the potential to detract from Cup. But If Randy and Bruton could make a case that the exposure would help Trevor get sponsored next year and the overall cross pollination of racers being good for ALL forms of motorsport, they could be onto something. Otherwise, Kurt Busch, Jamie McMurray or Keselowski (but NOT JPM or Sam Hornish) someone will be on the outside of the cup chase looking in and the owners here would have no qualms at all making the call to field an extra IndyCar for one of their cup drivers.

So there’s my five, carefully selected to draw desirable eyeballs to the product. Hopefully, Randy will have the riches of Options I have here sitting at the Kitchen table.

Advertising for IndyCar Nation 101: Lesson 2

2011-02-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

Lesson 2 – Targeting

So you have decided to make and sell widgets and you have either a concept or prototype that you have done some Marketing Research on and the data tells you that concept acceptors (people who like your widget) skew to being Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses. What that means is that your concept may have had a purchase intent score of 5% responding (Probably Purchase/Definitely Purchase) for a general US representative audience, but when you isolate Left Handed male Squirrels who wear Glasses, that specific demographic had a 80% Probably Purchase/Definitely Purchase) score. This example is very exaggerated compared to real life, but it simplifies the discussion.

What this really means is that if you can find a Left Handed male squirrel who wears glasses you are like to be successful interesting him in your widget. There may be some other random people who will also buy your product but your Core Market consists of Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses.

Now you need to figure out how to find these consumers and advertise to them. This task may be made more difficult by the fact that Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses represent 2% of the US population. You could decide to simply advertise to a wide audience and trust that the Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses will see your ad and buy your product. SO you decide to place an ad with the broadcast that reaches the largest number of people, the Super Bowl. The media company (ie the network) comes back and says, that will be $3M please, and you are now in a pickle because you budgeted your advertising budget for the entire year to be around $250k.

This seemed easy – how can you fail, it’s the SUPER BOWL. Problem is that of the people who are watching your product, only 2% of them (the Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses) would ever be interested in your widget, the other 98% couldn’t care less. You are in essence wasting 98% of the ad impressions you would be paying for with a Super Bowl ad which means you are grossly over paying for the impressions that do matter. Homework question – so what kind of product would be best served by advertising on the Super Bowl?

As you contemplate your hopeless situation a salesman from Nutty Communications representing the Forestry Network suggests that you should advertise on his network. Your first response is that he must be crazy, only 2.5% of the population ever watch that network and that of that 2.5%, 0nly 2% would be in the target demo group. Your ad might reach 3 Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses in total. The rep then says, No no, The Forestry Network itself skews to an audience made up of Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses. In fact 75% of their audience are Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses. In the end most (not all) of the population of Left handed male squirrels who wear glasses watch The Forestry Network. The Network aligns nearly perfectly with your targeted audience. A media buy here, is going to be very efficient as it wastes very few impressions and is much more likely to fit your limited budget.

Ultimately that is the dance between advertiser and media publisher, the advertiser is trying to find media that best matches the targeted demo’s or attitudes that are likely to be interested in his product and the media publisher is trying to sell space to advertisers whose products are fits for his space. If there is a moral hazard here, it is with the publisher or media property owner who has inventory (slots to run ads or side pods to fill) but not enough advertisers who fit the “best fit” description may sell the space simply to unload it even if the advertiser is not a good match. The advertiser needs to do their research on the media property in question.

In the old days of 4 tv stations per market, size mattered most for audience ratings, individual shows may have skewed, but the overall rating was the most important thing. In the current environment of media fragmentation (billions of channels) and efficiency (limiting the % of wasted impressions) Skew matters nearly as much as total audience. If a media property skews towards matching a product category whose producer’s have advertising budget to spend, it may be a gold mine even if it never cranks out more and a single Nielson ratings point. In fact there are networks created for no other reason than to serve specific advertiser needs, the Home Improvement channel is one such example.

One additional thing to consider here is the range appeal of the advertiser’s product and its unit margin. This essentially gets us to an understanding of what the advertising budget is likely to be for that advertiser. That budget determines where the advertiser is going to be shopping for media: A $3M superbowl ad or a $1000, surplus inventory placement.

I have commented on the skews and sizes of audience for different motor racing properties in the past. Nascar has the widest appeal, but comes with the highest price point ($22M a car). Sports cars has the most severe, yet advantageous skew towards a very High Net worth audience and both have made it work to their advantage. IndyCar has been stuck in between not skewing enough to draw ultra premium brands to the fold, but not broad enough to be a portfolio tool for a broad based product advertiser. It has been my impression that in the Past IRL leadership had the goal of increasing the skew, but current leadership, Randy Bernard, is making growing the overall number his #1 goal.

It certainly is a change in strategy, one worthy of some commentary, but Its late, I’m tired and this was really meant to be an informative piece, not an opinion piece. I’ll leave that to you as a home work essay to work on. Have a good evening and keep counting down the days, the smell of ethanol will be upon us soon.

Advertising for IndyCar Nation 101: Lesson 1

2011-02-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

An interesting debate began to wage earlier today when Paul at More Front Wing publically pondered at his site whether $9M would be better spent on three Super Bowl ads or Sponsoring a couple cars in the IICS. Then on twitter broke out a flurry of tweets about situational pondering whether this was better than that and whether bigger was better and what exactly happened back in the Chevy tent back in the day and then someone bum rushed the scene with their new buzzword ROI and all hell broke loose.

The most famous quote in advertising goes like this “I know that 80% of my advertising budget is wasted, the problem is I don’t know which 80% it is…” and even though that was said over 80 years ago it is a truth that remains. I personally think that rule applies to Super Bowl advertising as well as it does IndyCar sponsorship. But I am not really interested in joining the fight as far as who is right who is wrong nor what is a waste and what isn’t (but in the end I do, Hypocrite!). I have some exerience here and I just thought I’d spend a few posts talking about some key concepts and then perhaps you all can decide what you think about the effectiveness of various marketing investments the next time a new sponsorship package is announced or the big game is played. And word to the wise - I got sleepy and wandered quite a bit at the end of this first installment....I'll try to do better next time.

Lesson 1 – The Purchase Funnel.

Back when advertising and marketing research began, it was initially populated by a posse of seemingly out of work Psychological researchers. At the time Psychology seemed to posit that rationality carried sway in people’s lives and that every decision made was the result of some overly painful rational decision chain that governed personal behavior. When it came to a consumer’s decision to purchase a product the decision was mapped out into a series of cognitive consideration levels, hence the Purchase Funnel was created. Since the advent of neuroscience, pretty much most everything that was ever thought about decision processes pre 1980’s has been debunked, rationality tossed to the curb and now subconscious Emotions rule the day in psychology and advertising. But the Purchase funnel remains and provides a workable, if occasionally flawed, guide to understanding human decision making and how marketing and advertising can strategically target portions of the decision chain.

Step 1 – Awareness. No one will buy a brand if they are completely unaware of its existence. The first step than any brand must do to sell anything is make sure that consumers know they exist and are an option for fulfilling a need the consumer may have.

Step 2 – Consideration. Consumers may have a list of brands that they know offer products or services for needs they are aiming to fulfill, But they will only consider a subset of these brands to actually purchase from. This trimming of options is based on whatever information they have available to them about each brand. Marketing messages, WOM, prior trial or external reviews.

Step 3 – Trial. Consumers take their consideration list and make a selection as to which brand or product they will actually purchase. The relative value of the products in the consideration set have been evaluated across the benefits, features and costs and a decision is made. For higher priced products, this tends to be a hands on decision that requires some touching, feeling, discussion with another human being or elaborate fact finding research. For products with little financial or relationship commitment … not so much … whims can rule the day here.

Step 4 – Repeat Purchase. They like it the first time so they do it again. Enough said.

I have spent most of my career working the last two levels of the funnel, though in recent times I am spending more time at the front. Admitting a personal Bias here…I think most companies waste money in the top half of the funnel that would be better spent on the bottom half, but the advertising industrial complex and its posse of mini skirted sassy mouthed ad execs are a powerful force against which many a corporate victim has succumbed.

Lets take a look at the steps of the funnel and how ad placement at the Super Bowl or IndyCar might fit in.

Awareness – if no knows who the hell you are and either you intend to sell to everyone or you cannot tell the people you want to sell to from those you don’t (gotta be carefull not to jump the shark on lesson two: targeting) then size matters. The biggest audience is the best audience. There is no audience bigger than the SuperBowl and unlike other events that might pull a big number, the audience is strangely fixated on the ads as much as the content. No other event can claim that half it’s audience watches the ads and pees during the content.

SO if you are trying to introduce yourself to as many people as possible, then the big game is the way to go. A classic example was the initial “Go Daddy” commercial from 5 years ago where a buxom bimbo revealed her artificial assets to an artificial courtroom. Wham, 130M viewers sat speechless asking themselves “what the hell is a GoDaddy?” Awareness achieved, mission accomplished. A more Subtle yet effective example from this year’s crop of ads was the Motorola ad for its new Android powered Xoom tablet device. Until the moment the 1984 ad ran, the majority of the country believed the only tablet device in existence was the iPad.

So if awareness is your goal, and not having the benefit of our next lesson, do you think advertising in IndyCar is a good idea to raise awareness?

Consideration – Consideration can build from marketing efforts by informing you about a brand or by creating an affiliation with a brand that leads people to consider a brand they may have previously excluded from their consideration set. These ads can work at a rational or emotional level, extolling the virtues of features and benefits, or appealing to a subconscious emotional need that a consumer may have.

The ad that many thought “won” the Super Bowl was the Chrysler 300 spot. It was an a powerful montage of images from Detroit serving to represent the image of a bygone era of American greatness. It featured spoken prose that appealed to a countries' pride in its own craftsmanship, not just a blind empty mantra of patriotic patronage. Then it revealed its star, Detroit’s own Eninem, to the audience and wham, an entire generation for whom Chrysler was “dad’s” car was now thinking about a brand they never would have considered before. The ad worked in both the ways a consideration ad can work.

Now thinking of IndyCar and how effective it might be in moving consumers towards consideration. Would you consider a Honda if in five years of running the Indy 500 no Honda engine ever had a mechanical failure? Would you make sure that the tire garage priced out a set of Firestone “Magic Rings” before you made your final decision???

Purchase – As we have discussed prior, an important determinant in this portion of the Funnel is the price and relationship commitment. If the price is small and lingering commitment minimal, an ad might work on a subliminal level where staring at a store shelve the recency of an ad might break a tie between equals. But for big ticket items where touching, trial and experience are necessary a television ad won’t cut it.

If more beer is sold for consumption during the Super Bowl than any other televised event, then isn’t advertising beer during the Super Bowl akin to closing the corral after the Clydesdale got away? And Yes Paul I do think Bud wasted money here, not that they could have put the same money to use on the side pod of a car, rather for pennies on the $9M they could be the official beer of the 500, or Long Beach and had captive audiences of 350k or 140k sampling their product.

Guys – I am starting to doze off – humor me and my meandering lack of focus here…

In person events can also be an opportunity for people to “kick the tires” on products that consumers need exposure to in order to close the deal on purchase. If the IndyCar series could build its portfolio of events to a list of 20 events each averaging 100,000 people do you suppose that investing in a marketing tent at IndyCar events would be a viable marketing investment?

As far as repeat purchase goes…Experience trumps advertising. Period. Which gets me to what I consider to be the biggest waster of $ at the Super Bowl the past couple of years, and yes they are widely considered to be among the wittiest ads and everyone loves the spots. But I found myself craving a candy bar during the game. Afterwards I drove out and got myself a Reece’s Dark Chocolate.

A guest post from Mrs JP

2011-01-26T18:44:00.000-08:00

I received an email today from my husband reminding me that in 5 months we’ll be in the stands at Iowa for the INDYCAR race. My response was something I never dreamed I would ever say: I’m so excited! I miss the smell of burning ethanol!

Before I got marred I never thought in a million years that I would be this excited about racing. Of course, I had really only seen NASCAR. JP introduced me to the IRL err, IndyCar uhhh, ummm I mean INDYCAR and now I love it. The drivers are personable and friendly. I love having pit passes so we can mill around the pits and even bump into and chat with the drivers. And with the advent of twitter I now feel like I actually know the drivers, it’s like they’re old friends.

Just a few weeks ago we were at a Pacers game and Graham and JR were there. I had just seen a tweet from Graham regarding his cologne so when I got a chance to talk to him at the game I mentioned that he smelled more like the Sharpie he was using to sign autographs than cologne, a comment that made him giggle. It felt like an exchange between friends. JR always seems to recognize my husband and always takes a moment to say hello to him. JP decided it would be a good idea to tell Graham that JR was going to "kick his butt" next year, laughs all around.

Last year at Long Beach I literally bumped into Simona, I apologized and patted her shoulder where I had bumped into her. She just smiled and said “no problem”. At Kentucky I was nearly run over by Ryan Briscoe on a scooter and received an apology. We’ve got pictures of JP with Dario (and of course JR!), me with Sarah, pictures of Justin, Vitor, Tony, Pippa and many others. I think one of the things that sets INDYCAR apart from other sports is that the drivers are so accessible to the fans. Too often you’ll see a professional athlete at some event looking like they’d rather be anywhere but there having to talk to the fans. Our drivers (and yes, they too are athletes) actually seem to enjoy the interaction, they seem to have fun with their fans.

So yes, in 5 months we’ll be in the stands at Iowa. Before then we’ll be in the stands at Indy. After that we’ll be in the grass at Mid-Ohio and in the stands at Kentucky. If we’re lucky maybe we’ll be in the stands or grass for another race or two. But until then we’ll be anxiously waiting the 61 days until we get to see our “friends” on the track in St Pete.

Reloading in Lights

2010-12-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

There are times when you wish you could just zoom forward through a story directly to the ending and see if what you think is going to happen is going to happen, because you not only have a sense for what could happen, but also because of the greatness of the story if it turns out as you think.

That is how I feel about the class of IndyLights drivers we have seen the past two years. It’s a pretty long list: Hildebrand, Vernay, Hinchcliffe, Beatriz, Mann, Saavedra, Cunningham, Kimball, Romancini and Plowman. Then when you throw in the final class from the Atlantics championship: Edwards, Desilvestro and Summerton you see a deep generation of talented young drivers that could be part of something very special in the IICS over the next 10 to 15 years. This could be the generation that brings IndyCar back to popular prominence, perhaps one of the greatest generations the sport will see.

For the next year or two though we will watch them scramble for that first opportunity in the big cars, experience learning pains with those opportunities and ultimately some will stick some won’t. Some will join their more aristocratically endowed generational peers (read: Rahal and Andretti) already established in good rides and will compete with them for greatness. Sadly some may never get that first chance or not be able to capitalize on the chances they get and will fade away. All yet to be determined.

But one thing is sure, they are leaving the cupboard bare, very BARE in IndyLights. I don’t really know how much work is put into oversight of the lights series from a product management and marketing standpoint, but w/o some major help, Lights next year will be a tough sell to advertisers, broadcasters and promoters.

There is one story however that could save the day. For all the effort that has been put into “The road to Indy” as a ladder system to develop drivers for the IndyCar series, it is clear that not everyone sees it as being a simple straight line. Randy Bernard’s road has a fork in it. Randy is committed to seeing that the feeder series pulls from more than one source. The other root to the system are the USAC series for sprint, midget and Silver Crown car drivers. The creation of the Scholarship for the USAC champion to run either lights or the 500 came BEFORE the announcement of the scholarships for the Road to Indy program. Ultimately the rivers meet at the IndyLights series, where the Kart raised formula racers from America’s coasts and other international series meet up with the Midwestern kids who got their start in quarter midgets and moved up the USAC ranks.

And in that context is where a reinvigorating drama in Lights may very well play out.
What we know so far is that USAC champ, Bryan Clauson, has won a $300k scholarship that will fund a ride for the oval portion of the lights schedule, likely with Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Interestingly, Clauson said when the prize was announced that he would be interested in running road portion of the lights season as well. If Clauson is serious about running a full season, my guess is that the additional money won’t be a problem as SSM has at least one full time team sponsor.

On the other side of the ladder, Connor Daly spent 2010 absolutely humbling the rest of the Star Mazda field. He drives a Subaru wrx and was recently implicated in the firebombing of Graham Rahal’s mailbox so really, what’s not to like?

It has long since been assumed that the career path for Connor would take him to a GP3 or Formula 3 ride in Europe where he would climb the dev ladder into F1 where his father Derek Daly Raced and then back into IndyCar after his F1 window closed. To that end Connor participated in the GP3 tests this fall. Not being all that “up to speed” on interpreting GP3 test results, I consulted a European based blogger to get a more informed opinion on Connor’s test and the response was (paraphrased): solid, but not earth shattering, Connor was paced by several drivers who knew the GP3 car and Jerez circuit already.

Which begs the question, if Connor has no additional financing lined up, were the results strong enough to earn a merit based seat when compared to a number of other drivers who bring financing with them? Since the GP3 test, the Mazda Sponsorship of the Road to Indy was announced which includes a scholarship for the Star Mazda champion into IndyLights. This has to be a game changer for Connor considering Lights as an option.

Via twitter Connor recently asked his followers to guess where he was going to race next year. It seems to me that all roads for Connor lead to FIL and I am not the only one who now thinks that. Sage Karam the 2010 USF2000 champ who will be making the leap to Star Mazda replied via twitter FIL also. A paid for ride, potentially with Andretti Autosport is waiting should he choose that route. Randy Bernard has been selling Connor and Derek hard on the resurgent IndyCar series. If Connor Stays, another big win for Bernard.

When Bernard was the leader of the PBR, one of the interesting things he managed to do was to create a following for the individual bulls, not just the riders. Then the matchups between top bulls and top riders became as much must see events for PBR fans as when the great hitters face the great pitchers in Baseball. What it seems to me is that Bernard understands that matchups and rivalry make a sport compelling. In IndyCar, there is plenty to be had, road racers vs oval specialists, Americans vs Brazilians vs the rest of the world. But here in lights for 2011 just might be his masterpiece thus far. If Connor commits to Lights and Clausen runs the entire series, this matchup could begin a rivalry for the ages.

Though both Daly and Clauson both hail from Noblesville, they could not be any different. Daly grew up the son of a former F1 and IndyCar driver. Clauson grew up with no such pedigree. Daly has learned to drive turning both left and right, Clauson on dirt or pavement. Clausen would drive for Schmidt, Daly for Andretti, the two teams that have split the last 4 Lights titles right down the middle. A year ago their paths never would have crossed. A year ago neither would have been in Lights for 2011. But in short order, a plan has gone from vision to reality. I say let the spectacle begin. But the question becomes, will it be televised?

Barriers Still Being Broken

2010-12-20T06:08:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you forget. You forget that things that YOU have accepted as non eventful outside of any normal context still have very powerful symbolic meaning above normal context for other people in other places. I kind of stumbled into that realization this Sunday.

Women racing in IndyCar has become dare I say commonplace? From Janet Guthrie to Sarah Fisher to Danica Patrick, many “Firsts” for women in IndyCar racing have been achieved. Only a 500 victory and Series Championships remain to be attained. Certainly there is work to be done, but with what has been accomplished by women in the IICS and the feeder series to it (race wins by Legge, Beatriz, DeSilverstro and Mann) women in our sport in our context has become common place and accepted. Gender is no more a differentiating factor than nationality or even hair color.

Ana Beatriz otherwise known by her birth name Bia Figueirido in Brazil won the second race of Felipe Massa’s “Star Challenge” celebrity Karting event this Sunday. This event has a big time guest list, Barichello, Massa, Meira, Kanaan, and Castroneves…Just to name a FEW.

The IndyCar blogosphere was happy to see Bia win and began twittering congratulations to her. Never being the one to do something simply – I decided to send my recognition of the accomplishment by referencing something that happened in IndyCar several years ago. A young Sarah Fisher had just passed Elisio Salazar for track position and his team owner, AJ Foyt, was heard screaming into the Radio “You just got passed by a GIRL”.

IndyCar fans laugh about this story now in the same way we laugh about the “We got screwed!” quote from Doug Boles. My Comment/congratulations to Bia referenced the AJ Foyt comment with the hope of being humorous “Attention @tonykanaan @vitormeira18 @Rubarrichello and massa, you all got beat by a GIRL!!! @biaracing”.

What didn’t occur to me was that while I am quite used to women in Nomex, significant portions of the rest of the racing world aren’t yet. What Bia is doing in Brazil, Simona and Pippa are doing relative to Europe really is the equivalent of what Janet Guthrie and Lynn St James accomplished in IndyCar all those years ago. When there are barriers like that being broken, there are people who do not want to see them broken. I got tweet backs from people who must have assumed I was in that backwards thinking community.

Rest assured I am not. I am simply a little forgetful of the challenges that women in this sport, who come from different backgrounds, still face. The main feeder series for F1, GP2 and GP3, have yet to feature female drivers. Even closer to home, as used to seeing women participate and win in IndyCar, NHRA and USAC as we are, the gender barrier has yet to been effectively breached in nascar's Cup level.

Anyway Congratulations BIA! I hope this victory brings you a step closer to a FULL season in the IndyCar series next year. You have earned and deserve it.

As for the rest of us, when you see Simona, Bia and Pippa whizzing by at the 500 next year, remember, You are witnessing barriers being broken and history being made. It may not be your history but it is for them.

An Early Christmas Present for JP and a Bittersweet Moment, All in a Single Press Release

2010-12-14T17:10:00.000-08:00

Christmas came early today for JP. If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that one of the recurring themes of this blog has been to publically lobby for JR Hildebrand to land a full time ride in the series and today it happened. You know the news already, that JR will drive the #4 National Guard car for Panther next year. I couldn't be happier and frankly any fan of IndyCar should feel the same way. He's exactly what the series needs a little more of, a young Male American w/o a famous last name or step father. Someone that an average person can relate to.

The first time I ever talked to JR was in the autograph line at Milwaukee in 2009. I asked him fairly loudly "So when are we going to see YOU in one of the big cars?" Marco smirked and rolled his eyes, Brian Herrington and James Davison laughed loudly and patted JR on the back and JR got bashfull and perhaps even a little embarassed. I don't remember what he said at the time, but the humility in his body language said it all. That was the moment I knew he was the real thing, on the track and off. JR will do a GREAT Job with the Guard and be a great ambassador for the Series.

As happy as I am, it is a little bit of a bittersweet moment for me. As I have mentioned in a couple places, I have only come back to IndyCar racing within the past ~6 years. I abhorred the split and anything and anyone that had anything to do with it. From Johnny Rutherford and the Pennzoil Chapparal until the innaugural US500, I was an enthusiastic fan of the sport. After the duelling 500's I just walked disgustedly away.

When I came back to the sport, the first driver that sparked an interest for me was Dan Wheldon. Dan was young and in the ascent at the time. He was from Emberton England, and if you know my full name you will get the joke. Dan was a little different then, it was before the fancy haircuts, skinny jeans and teeth veneers. He was hungry and drove like it.

So now Dan and the veneers are out looking for a Job, that makes me a little sad. The driver who helped me regain an interest in the sport has been replaced by the driver who reignited my passion for it. I have made some twitter comments about Andretti insisting that they still plan to run a 4th car. I pondered that if Dan would run for a cost contained price, he would give Micheal a driver line up very comparable to what they had last year in experience and achievement, but a little easier on the team budget. I hope that this is how it works out for Dan. If not, Bobby over in Columbus couldn't possibly do any better for a two week program in May.

As for JR, I am hoping that Panther can get some T-Shirts printed ASAP and help save me from my Christmas shopping procrastination. Anyway, I thought I would go down memory lane and revisit some of JR's appearances in this virtual media Island. Enjoy...

JR and what could be IndyCar's next great generation...
The reason I played Powerball and Mega millions off and on for over a year
Satire and the way things ought to be...
An outstanding Idea for Sponsorship
The Very First JR Mention...

Conspiracy Theories, Get your Conspiracy Theories Right Here!

2010-12-07T22:57:00.000-08:00

Most the (official) news this week revolved around the Penske sponsor announcements and growing list of minor sponsors they have accumulated. Most other commentators have commented on the pillaging of Andretti sponsors by the Penske bully machine. I have a few completely random thoughts “based on nothing” that at the end of the day paint Penske in a little less “evil” light.

First: Part time sponsors Meijer and Izod Moved to Penske, with league assistance, in part to open up car space at Andretti for a full time sponsor for one if not two cars.

Let’s play six degrees of separation…AA employs Danica who once ran with Motorola sponsorship, Motorola is the manufacturer of the Droid phones that are used to record important votes within the IndyCar series. The Moto Droid phones are only available on Verizon who has been pushing and hoping that their ultimate success will not require them to give in and offer the iPhone. So far the droid has done ok for techy males and IICS bloggers but has not crossed over into a broader and more notably, female market.

Advertising campaigns in the cell industry are often mixed party efforts between the Cell phone manufacturer and the carrier itself. One way to tell…if the ad mentions nothing but the carrier, then the $ to place the ad came from the carrier only. If it mentions a specific phone, then the phone manufacturer pitched in to buy the placement. More Verizon customers will mean that the Verizon manufacturers will sell more phones, so the manufacturers have an interest in seeing the carrier do well.

Verizon joined the league on Will Power’s car last year and was apparently quite happy with what they got out of the deal. SO the worst kept secret during this off season is that another “large sponsor of IZOD’s magnitude or greater” was to be announced any moment (at least in Angstadt time). Curt Cavin has mentioned on Trackside, that this sponsor was going to enable cell phone users to stream IndyCar races live over a mobile device…one would assume that this sponsor was either a cell carrier or hardware manufacturer, ie Verizon or the maker of their most advanced phone, the Droid by Motorola.

I think we all presumed that increased sponsorship from Verizon might mean that Briscoe or Helio might get to carry Verizon colors next year in addition to Will Power. But here’s the fly in that ointment, what if part of the money for Verizon’s involvement was coming not from Verizon, but from Motorola. Motorola who was sweet on Danica and by association, Andretti? Motorola may want to have a say in which drivers they have access to for their part of the effort to sell more Droid units. More specifically, they may want Danica (to help sell the Droid to women) and secondarily they may prefer an American male to compliment Danica. Hence Andretti picks up an option on RHR at a moment when they lose 7/11 and cut TK loose and Danica mentions this week that “She would love to be around in 2012 to drive the new car” and presumably cash in on a big new sponsorship deal.

Where this is all going, what if Izod and Meijer were swapped to Penske so that Motorola and Verizon had access to specific drivers who happened to be on contract at Andretti? Might we see a Verizon Droid car driven by RHR and a BIG associate deal with Danica as well? Roger would not have let Exclusivity to Verizon go without getting a piece in return…As I say… just thinking out loud here…

Another tidbit to think about here. I read somewhere that the Meijer money is in part coming from Coke, I have no way of knowing if it is true but... Again, business deals like this happen all the time, coke in particular will pay for all the Marketing research that a restaraunt chain will do on it's beverage line and will also do lots of research to support the sale of its products in a particular retail chain. Actual promotion dollars spent by a vendor like coke, to support a retailer like Meijer is not an uncommon arangement, right Chip? So what if the Meijer money does come from Coke? Well then Meijer can't spent it at AA. Why? Because Seven Up/Dr Pepper is already at AA with its Venom brand of energy drinks. Everyone in a the sandbox has to play nice and Meijer never would have gotten the Coke $$ if they had stayed at Andretti.

Second…this chapter is subtitled “IMS kicks ISC in the crotch in the one small way that it can”

The biggest story that accompanied the release of the 2011 schedule was the absence of any track that contained an ISC in the spelling of it’s name. This was met with:

Angst from many IndyCar fans who were losing their favorite or home track
A slight tinge of remorse from the folks up in Watkins Glen
Apathy from the track managers at Chicagoland, Kansas and Homestead, who hadn’t even realized that they hosted IndyCar races to begin with.

But besides the fans who was hurt the most from IndyCar’s decision? The track manager at Fontana. Huh? What? Fontana didn’t even have and IndyCar race. Correct, but what made the IndyCar race in Kansas expendable was its gaining second cup date that in turn was taken from Fontana. SO Fontana had some time available on its schedule and more importantly, it had a sponsor, Auto Club, who had in 2008 paid upwards of $75m over 10 years to put their name on a facility that now sat empty for what was supposed to be a second large event crowd. ISC bait and switch in action thank you.

ISC no doubt understood that it would have to find a replacement for that second cup date, which is why they were pitching that IndyCar close its season there and not Vegas. So when IICS pulled the plug on all ISC tracks, including Fontana that was lobbying the hardest, they left ISC in a sticky position with a sponsor who had written a big check.

Of course I have never seen the contract between ISC and Auto Club, but I wonder if there are event provisions in it that specify the number and standards for events to be held at the speedway complemented by punitive remedy clauses that kick in if those standards are not met. And so today Auto Club announces that they are sponsoring Helio at Long Beach and Texas… I wonder where the $ came from? I also suggest that the #3 will wear AAA colors at the Vegas, once it becomes official, as Vegas is another large Auto Club market.

Chapter 3, Are Sponsors fearing the dips in nascar ratings beginning to hedge their bets by dabbling in IndyCar?

Over the past few days we have seen Shell Pennzoil, Auto Club and Chevrolet all enter the IndyCar series as sponsors. While none of these companies have left nascar behind, they have stuck their toe into the IndyCar pond. But why? At this point IndyCar ratings would not really support a move into the series for most sponsors, but at the same time the nascar juggernaught seems staggered and wavering, unable to deliver the same growth that has experienced over the last 15 years. Are sponsors dabbling in IndyCar to have alternatives if nascar can’t right the ship?

Suppose you were a sponsor and were looking to get involved in racing. You enter the sport in 2002, seven years after the IndyCar split and at a period where nascar is in its ascendency and IndyCar is in the middle of its Mid split freefall. Looking at the ratings trend, you decide to throw your dollars behind a nascar effort. Five years later, in 2007, things have gone well on that initial investment, and you start negotiating with your nascar partners. They tell you how great it was to have you around and that because of the growth in the sport over the past five years and because of the growth they EXPECT to see over the next five they are going to charge you substantially more for the same sponsorship package. Because the first 5 years were such a success, you agree to the offer.

But now suppose that instead of following the red line upwards that your contract assumptions were based on, nascar ratings followed the blue line into decline. While at the same time IndyCar, which you had long written off as dead, reunified and seemed to right it ship financially and again looks destined for relevance. Knowing that your contract was up in 2012 and knowing that you are likely to place a racing sponsorship somewhere, would you start testing the water Before your 2012 renewal came up?

Aw hell it’s late and I am tired. Going to bed now thanks for reading – again this was based on NOTHING. Be sure to write your congressman and governors letting them know that The National Guard should spend your tax dollars hiring an outstanding young American driver like JR Hildebrand. Guten Abend.

The Chip Stack: Short Stacked with about 20 Blinds Remaining

2010-11-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: This Post came out PRE - Lotus Engine Announcement. With the engine involvement AND the aero kit+color scheme This relationship moves up to the Blue Chip Level.

In honor of the “impending” 2011 season finale at Las Vegas, I thought I would take stock of the current Sponsorship, Marketing and Media relationships the Izod IndyCar series currently has, WSOP style. Hence the Chip Count. Blue Chips are worth 10, Red Chips are worth 5 and white chips won’t be counted because they tend to follow the bigger chips around. For the series to grow, this stack needs to grow. Generally chips are earned for series wide sponsors or primary car sponsorships, but if the sponsor is too obscure, chips aren’t earned. Let’s get on with the inventory…

Blue Chips (10 Points each)

Izod – A Title sponsor is worth 5 points simply for having their name on the product, Blue chip status comes with the activation, celebrity networking, buzz build and positioning equity they lend the league.

Honda – No Brainer Here…

Chevrolet – May need to break out with Purple chips if Chevy is competitive right out of the box in 2012

Verizon – This spot may be a bit premature pending the long overdue Angstadt press conference, but that ad with Power and Alagier was placed outside IICS broadcasts and that has to mean something.

Target – Solid…While probably not what is could be, activation within Stores is not nascar biased and that is unusual.

50 Points From Blue Chips

Red Chips (5 Points Each)

Dollar General – Activation has been nice, the car stands out and gets IndyCar into smaller communities across a wide geographic region.

Lotus – Nice for old school fans, and will give the series a sexy exotic feel once casual fans realize it is a sportscar and not a yoga position.

Firestone – Every race series has a tire sponsor and not worth 5 chips without the heavy in broadcast ad placement and involvement in race sponsorship and further down the development ladder

National Guard – One of the Big 4 armed forces would be a blue chip, but Panther and Dan Wheldon have done well with this relationship, finding an American driver (Read: JR Hildebrand) to take it to the next level is the next logical step.

Apex Brasil – That’s a lot of Money Wilbur…

Go Daddy – Danica and her Go Daddy hook up is a relationship known well beyond the IndyCar faithful. Now does anybody actually remember Danica is “IndyCar’s Own”?

BSA – Great relationship to expose imaginations at just the right age…

NTB – Core Industry sponsors are always good.

Versus – Say what people will, Versus is in as many Households as Speed and on the three systems I have had, they have always been the channel NEXT TO Speed. Good broadcasts and an audience for the rest of its programming that is off the beaten path for auto racing. And Pending Final Merger details…

BAND TV – The BIG secret of the IndyCar series…nascar sized ratings in one of the world’s top 10 and fastest growing economies…Soon friends, we will see stickers like “Ipiranga” on the side of IndyCars for no other purpose than for this audience to see them whiz by…

50 Chips from Red Chips

Close but no cigar – ie White chips…

Venom – Venom is owned by Dr Pepper, if only the parent company was on the side of that car every race….

7/11 – Easy Come, Easy Go….There's a lesson to be learned here...

Mazda – Sponsoring the entire formula root of the feeder series and an engine sponsorship for Lights would move Zoom Zoom up the list.

Peak – Torn, lots of in broadcast ads and I saw a cutout at AutoZone once but…

Z-Line – Solid Backing for Justin is appreciated, but this brand is just a little too obscure

Sunoco – Every race series has an official Fuel, tell me something I don’t already know.

ABC – An effort comparable to a late night air buy is a big demerit from what should be a blue chip relationship.

Total Chip Count = 101 (100 from symbolic chips and 1 actual Chip)

This is down from the day reunification was announced but Up from where we were at the end of last season. Back at reunification, the partner points were way down compared to where they are now, but the stickers on the sides of the cars were better. The off season is not over and we will revisit the topic. As for a goal???? Needs to be 150 by the start of the season. Keep at it Randy et al…

Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make Me a Match…

2010-11-11T19:59:00.000-08:00

I was scarfing down lunch today and mentally playing fantasy matchmaker with open or hypothetical second seats at various teams and the drivers who could fill them. Taking the big three + Foyt out of the equation, here’s some I came up with. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

Panther – JRHildebrand - Full Time program, Ed Carpenter – Oval Program, John Edwards - Road +500 program. Some of this may be in the works already. Robin Miller has placed JR meeting Guard Brass last week. If you have been at a Pacer game this year, you know that Fuzzy and Ed are going to be somewhere next year and it’s a pretty cool use of the new balcony rim lights at the fieldhouse. If it is true that the guard is paying Panther $10m a year to field a team, and $3M is no longer going to Dan Wheldon you would imagine that it would not require a large amount of incremental money to round out the rest of the road schedule and like JR, Edwards would be another good match for the core sponsor.

Lotus/KV – Sato and Tracy…Come on Jimmy and Kevin… Do the right thing…

Newman Haas – Lloyd and Mutoh. Alex had a good year driving on the leftovers of Citgo’s dime, it would be nice to see him take a step up into a better ride in 2011. Word has been that the clock is ticking down for one of the storied teams in open wheel history, here’s to a 4^th quarter deal coming together for a pairing that was supposed to happen last year.

Coyne – Viso and Summerton. Viso has money and will be somewhere, while word still has him at KV next year, Dale gave Milka’s Venezuelan money a good ride and he would do the same for EJ’s as well. Jonathan was one of the drivers in the mix for the BSA ride last year and, like the National Guard pairing above, this would be another bold step towards logical sponsor/driver alignment.

Dreyer Reinbold – Wilson, Conway and Beatriz. Wilson is signed, a Comeback by Conway would be a great story and frankly we all could use a little more Ana Beatriz.

Conquest – Baguette and Vernay. Bertrand was a pleasant surprise last year and the Lights champ should always have the chance to move up. Can you imagine the Continental Breakfast at the Conquest hospitality tent? Croissants, Waffles and Brie!

Sarah Fisher Racing – Townsend Bell with Sarah back for the 500. Randy Bernard killing off the under promoted and under attended races at ISC properties for hopefully better attended ones elsewhere should play well with a marketing plan for Herbalife to use race events to get distributors in touch with and sampling to a large number of potential new customers. If the Dollar General money buys into Townshend as well, could this be a full season deal with split sponsorship?

TCGR Satellite operated by Sam Schmidt – Graham plus Jay Howard for the 500. We may hear about something like this real soon…

DeFerren Dragon – Kanaan and Matos. Tony runs on Sugarcane Ethanol and could probably teach Raphael a thing or two, both on the track and how to be more congenial to fans off the track.

Fazzt – Tagliani and Hinchliffe. In case you have not noticed, there are a few examples of “All Nation” teams in this list – let’s throw in one more! And all of Canada, both English and French speaking, came together for a group hug, and a dog wash.

HVM – Desilvestra and Pippa Mann. Simona is booked for next year and Pippa would be a nice pairing for the 500 plus a couple other events. As for sponsorship, someone get H&M on the phone!

Rahal Letterman – Dan Wheldon for the 500 and perhaps the rest of the Ovals? To date the NOZ has only been in hand, perhaps it’s time to be on the side of a car too…

And Finally, JP’s Lottery Money would buy up any leftover 3G, Vision or any other equiptment he can get his hands on for Oriol Servia, Roger Yasukawa and Wade Cunningham. Because good, talented guys deserve rides too.

So What Do the NFL, NBA and IndyCar All Have in Common?

2010-10-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

My answer would be that all three are engaged in some risky games of Labor cost containment. It is well known that the CBA covering both the NFL and NBA are within a year of expiration. Labor / Mgt unrest in both sports may lead to lock outs or strikes. But it strikes me that IndyCar is also in a period of salary adjustment and the stakes are high here as well. Is seems funny that labor costs are an issue in a sport where Alex Lloyd ran the season for virtually little more than a race weekend per diem and the opportunity to keep a career (hanging by a thread) going. But at the top of the sport, where rides are earned not bought, there is a war raging.

The labor struggle at the top of the IndyCar food chain is not a struggle reminiscent of the current NFL situation where a League at the peak of its game is looking to grow owner coffers by expanding the season, yet not compensating the players for the additional weeks on the field. Rather it seem more like the problems the NBA faces.

Recently David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA has come out and said that the league is looking for labor concessions to cut the on court payroll by nearly 30% for the next CBA.

Comparing the NBA and NFL labor arrangements is a study between night and day. In both leagues, there is a salary cap. In the NFL, the cap is hard, there is no exceeding that dollar amount in base pay (signing bonuses are a different thing). In the NBA the cap is soft, you merely cannot sign free agents to exceed your cap amount, but you can sign your own players to larger contracts and exceed the cap as an owner see fit. There is eventually a “Luxury Tax” that sets in where payrolls in excess of a certain amount the teams must pay a penalty to the league commensurate the amount that the payroll exceeds the tax threshold.

A second point of contrast is the binding nature of contracts. In the NFL, contracts are at will and terminable at any moment by the franchise that grants them. If a player is not meeting the expectations of the team he can be cut at any moment freeing up everything except the pro-rated portion of his signing bonus for the team to go sign a replacement player. In the NBA, contracts are guaranteed, if a player is not measuring up, tough luck for the team that holds that players contract, they are stuck with that player and if there is no more room under the cap, the team has to play the roster it has or make a trade that requires special accountants fluent in cap rules and regulations.

It is the combination of these two points that has put the NBA and many of its franchises in jeopardy. What started out as a concession to insure that the Boston Celtics could always pay Larry Bird more than any other team bidding on him in the free agent market has lead to a situation where exorbitant, yet un-terminable “Max Contracts” are bleeding franchises dry. While there is no denial that the teams issuing the contracts are to blame for their fortunes, there remains no recourse or relief for a team suffering the wake of what the Game Theoretical Economist would call “Agent Based Moral Hazard” issue.

It is in this context that the current labor skirmishes in IndyCar must be viewed. In the NBA there is a type of salary called a “Max Contract” where a team pays a player the maximum amount allowed by the league for a player of that relative experience level and can only be issued by a team holding the “Larry Bird” rights to a player. This type of deal was initially created for the Bird, Magic, Jordans, Bryants and Duncans of the world, but eventually began to be issued to the McGrady’s, O’Neals (Jermaine), Marbury and Murphy’s of the world. These contracts were issued based on projections of potential greatness or greatness once attained, expected again, but not since observed.

IndyCar, the equivalent to the “Max Contract” is the $3m per year salary issued by the merit based teams. By my reckoning the following drivers were in that club during the 2010 season: Castroneves, Dixon, Franchitti, Kanaan, Wheldon, Patrick and potentially Briscoe. While perhaps only Briscoe and Patrick’s status in this club were based on a projection of talent, the rest were based on attainment of championships and 500 victories. But as in the NBA, what happens when players or in this case drivers no longer live up to that elite status? When the best years are behind them or when the driver and team combo have no chance of living up to that expected level of performance?

We see what we have already seen this off season, those drivers who are furthest away from their championship seasons or 500 victories are cut loose from their teams or asked to take large pay cuts to stay where they are. Rumblings about issues with Wheldon started last year only to come to the surface again in the closing days of this season. Many are penciling in other drivers into the Panther seat, I still suspect that Wheldon may be back with a $1m contract as opposed to the max deal he had been enjoying. Kanaan’s contract status was announced in tandem with the announcement of the departure of 7/11 as a primary sponsor for his car. I personally think that timing was expedient. I think Michael did not want to be paying that amount of money for a driver whose best days were in the rear view mirror. But, can you blame him for that? Ultimately for Michael it is easier to sell a sponsorship for a $4m program where the driver makes $1m than a $6m program where the driver makes $3m. Similar pressures and dealings were probably at hand with whatever re-working of Ryan Briscoe’s deal took place. But with typical Penske class that laundry was aired in private thank you.

I do not intend to take a stance on who was worth what, or who deserves this or that. This is merely my association of what I see as similar trends and actions. As the NBA is pressuring it’s union to allow the dumping of the Larry Bird provisions in favor of an NFL inspired “Franchise Player “ tags, IndyCar owners have revised the standards for who is invited into the $3m club. Hard ball cost containment of driver salaries has come to the Merit based teams in IndyCar.

In the NFL and NBA these games between management and labor threaten the on the field continuity from season to season without interuption. In IndyCar these moves threaten the inclusion and involvement of Icons and known faces at a time when the series has precious few to put forth to the public. It is a dangerous game all the sports are now playing.

Controversy Builds Over Technologically “Enhanced” IndyLights Driver

2010-09-30T22:03:00.000-07:00

Controversy bubbled over today at Homestead Miami a day before practice began for the final Firestone IndyLights race of the year. At the heart of the controversy IndyLights Driver Pippa Mann and her recently surgically repaired left hand.

According to Press releases, Mann broke the hand during a practice incident at Toronto earlier in the season. She raced in the Toronto race and the following weekend at Edmonton before having the hand surgically repaired, forcing her to sit out the race at Mid Ohio. She returned to race at Sonoma and has been on track with the series ever since, winning the most recent race at Kentucky speedway.

Others however dispute the story, suggesting something more sinister might be at work. Pointing to a great disparity in finishing position before the surgery compared to after (avg place before surgery 11^th place, after 2.66^th place) as an indication that something more substantial than a plate and a few screws were inserted into the wrist.

One driver who refused to named commented “it’s like that wrist is now like a machine…bionic, like the bionic woman, and it allows her to steer the car more quickly and with more authority than before”, referencing the 1970’s Television featuring Lindsey Wagner. The show’s premise is that a young woman is nearly killed in a fashion shopping accident and is then repaired by a team of robotic scientists that replace all her nonfunctional extremities with robotic appendages which help her become a crime fighting superhero.

Others see things differently. “She’s a deep space mutant alien and she is here to devour the male drivers” said JK Vernay working through his interpreter Roy Hobson. “She takes on a pleasing form to distract our attention as she consumes our male vitality. She’s like that monster machine woman Seven of Nine from the Star Trek television show” Hobson continued after Vernay began talking to other reporters. The Seven of Nine character in the Star Trek Voyageur series was played by the buxom dimpled bombshell Jeri Ryan. Seven’s character background was that she was a human girl, 10 years old, when her space colony was assimilated into a Borg commune. 15 years later when the starship Voyageur destroys the Borg commune, unlike all the other Borg drones that short circuit and die, Seven’s remaining Human vestiges reassert themselves over her short circuiting machine elements. The Voyageur Captain decides to rescue Seven and dresses her in skin tight silver spandex in order to raise the morale of the male officers and distract them from the reality that they were sucked into a black hole and were 2 billion light years away from earth.

Driver Charlie Kimball postulated that “Since the alien technology was implanted into her left wrist, it was helping her to do exceedingly well on ovals”. In fact, in her two oval races since the surgery, Pippa has finished second at chicagoland and then first place at kentucky.

One driver apparently isn’t content to stay around and have his male vitality consumed. Sebastian Saavedra recently bolted from the league aqnd sketchy rumors persist that are tracing Saavedra's exit to a paranoid fear about Mann’s robotic appendage.

When asked what he thought about Mann’s robotic enhancement, driver James Hinchcliffe commented “I think it is sort of HOT! Just imagine the action she now gets on her spanking motion!”

When asked about the controversy, Mann responded “I don’t know what all the fuss is about, it was a metal plate and six screws!”. When asked to explain why her results had shown such drastic improvement since the surgery she responded “During some Idle time at Mid Ohio I went shopping and found this smart little store called “Fashion Bug” they had the greatest pair of jeans. I have never had such a great pair of jeans they made me feel so much better about myself. It’s like they have turbo charged my self confidence.”Outside the paddock, the controversy is seen in a positive light. Independent T-Shirt vendor, John Pemberton related “Pippa and her alien technology have really saved my season. I was looking forward to getting stuck with a bunch of Wade Cunningham, JR Hildebrand and Jon Edwards merchandise, but my latest design for Pippa has been selling like hotcakes” referring to a T shirt with Mann’s image and printed saying “Resistance is Futile” on the front and “Prepare to be A-Pippa-lated” on the back.

Mutant technology or smart jeans, the answer to this mystery is still being sorted out. But the final race of the Firestone IndyLights schedule will be run Saturday at Homestead Miami speedway and it will not be televised on Versus, because apparently they don’t care, but yet they can show 10 freaking hours of fishing shows every damn day. BASTARDS.

Championship Contenders Defect from Series on Eve of Season Finale

2010-09-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

Izod IndyCar Championship frontrunners Dario Franchitti and Will Power have announced plans to leave the series just days before the season’s final race that was to crown the champion. Heading into the finale, only Power and Franchitti were mathematically still alive for the championship with Power leading Franchitti by 12 points.

Apparently the issue compelling both of them to leave the series relates to the unveiling of a new championship trophy for the series. “It’s a way wrong scary bugger ‘ee is” said Franchitti when asked to describe the new trophy. He added “Ashley won’t want that in the ‘ouse”.

Power seemed to be wavering on the decision, was quoted “It’s a very hard decision for me because It would be my first series championship, something I have fought for all year, but I can’t have that thing in my house, I’ll have nightmares”.

The trophy created by sculptor Ted Gall is meant to symbolic of man, machine and the symbiotic beast they become “We’re not just a human form; we’re what we use all the time,” said Gall. “It used to be if you were a cowboy you’d ride a horse. Now we’re really attached to wheels our whole lives. The arms are imploring; they’re reaching out for that golden ring, for that big win”.

Other drivers were asked their opinion of the new trophy and reactions varied. “I think it is really interesting, reminds me of a time back home when a movie was being filmed and the call went out for extras to take part. I went down and they made me up in layers of brown makeup so thick my cheeks were numb. I think they said we were orcs or something. Not sure if they ever finished the movie or not but it was fun staggering around in the makeup making strange noises” said Scott Dixon.

“I am disappointed that they got rid of the old trophy, I promised my son that next year I would win it and he could take a bath in it” said Tony Kanaan. “He’ll take a look at this and he’ll cry”.

Danica Patrick was quoted as saying “and they wonder why I am leaving for nascar?”

IndyCar officials were confident that after initial reactions subside, both Power and Franchitti would return to their cars Saturday night. “We only create the trophies and prizes, it is up to the drivers to decide to accept them or not”. Said Brian Barnhart, President of Competition.

When asked what motivated the league to design such an unorthodox prize, President of Commercial Stuff, Terry Angstadt related “After Kentucky we were hanging out polishing off a case of Fuzzy’s, and we were thinking how hysterical it would be for Ashley to have to display some hideous monstrosity in her house after Dario finished off Power during the oval part of the series and then EJ Viso went by on his unicycle”.

IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard was quoted “We believe it is important to leave the politics of the split behind. That includes the symbols of that era, like the previous championship cup. Taking things further, we want people to forget that we are even an auto racing series. People said that in rejecting the Delta Wing, we weren’t bold enough, we didn’t take the risks necessary to move this series forward. I would suggest that this trophy represents a commitment to bold, risky thinking that will carry the series into the future”.

Persistent rumors suggest that there were other motives to the retirement of the IRL trophy. Rumors on the internet have sprung up suggesting that since the IRL trophy was made of solid Silver, it was sold to a local cash 4 gold location for an estimated $100,000 which was used to pay the bonuses to the two new discipline champions. The trophy was melted down and made into dental fillings.

Meanwhile, a perplexed Will Power struggled with his decision “I really want to win a championship. Maybe I can just take the hat home with me. They can keep the trophy at the Museum or something”.

Pulling for The Fairytale Ending

2010-09-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

The Izod IndyCar championship will be determined this weekend at Homestead and I need to pick a side. None of my Fav’s are in the hunt: JR Hildebrand is Home in Sausalito eating copious amounts of Italian food, hunting for funding for his big chance; Vitor Meira drives for Foyt – enough said; Ryan Hunter Reay has had a solid first season with Andretti Autosport – but not championship quality. I have no chips on the felt. So I resort to plan B in picking a favorite and that plan is rooting for the outcome that I see as the best bet to move the needle for the league. But who would that be, Will Power or Dario Franchitti?

This year my nod goes to Will Power.

The Versus promo spot for Homestead says it all. The replay of the horrendous accident at Infineon last year, the images of Will in traction being loaded into the Evac chopper with the voice over from Bob Jenkins summarizing the list of broken vertebrae in Will’s back. During the chopper flight, the tears and fears of potentially ending Nelson Phillipe’s life during the accident’s impact. The doubts about ever racing ever again. The long difficult Rehab. The commitment of a class organization to keep a seat open for his return. All followed by the general beat down that Will has dealt out to the rest of field on the road and street circuits this year.

Indeed, compared to where Will was a year ago, this would be the top feel good, fairytail story in racing since Alex Zanardi got back into a car for the first time after losing both legs. This storyline is why we love the personalities in racing and in sports in general. It is the reason athletes become our heroes. We love athletes with the “will power” to overcome difficulties and adversities to climb to the top in the competitive endeavor.

Many are counting Will out. He’s never won on an Oval. He has one of the greats of his generation in the rear view mirrors. His team has had hiccups in the pits and has been outsmarted by the TCG boys more than once.

But, never has does not imply Never will, and Will has been very close to that first oval win multiple times this year. But on three occasions, it was bobbled away in the pits. With a championship close at hand, Team Penske has begun to shift pit crew members around. The group that will sport Verizon fire suits this Sunday will be an all star crew. The story only gets better if Will seals the deal by winning at Homestead on Saturday.

So why is a Will Power championship the best outcome for the league? Simple, the story is great and it will get legs. But some promotion wouldn’t hurt either. I would hope that Randy Bernard would be on the phone to Bristol, CT Monday selling a story, looking for commitment from his broadcast partner. What might this entail? As the Versus promos show, the story is great copy and would be strong support material for ABC’s promo activity next year.

Then there are those things called the ESPY’s, ESPN’s own little awards ceremony. Aired on the slowest day of the year, the day after the MLB All Star Game. The event draws the eyes of the entire sports world. Two awards nominations for a Power championship would seem logical: Top Racing Performance and Best Comeback Athlete. Fan voting determines the winners, and after Sunday momentum is rolling on a fifth Cup championship for Jimmie Johnson. The racing prize probably goes there. BUT the comeback award is a bigger deal in the show’s program and the Will Power story will be a tough one to beat. This is the kind of exposure the league needs from a source is sorely needs it from.

Another likely outcome from a Power championship is the likelihood that Power’s sponsor, Verizon will want to brag a little. This could mean full page ads in prominent national papers. It could mean television spots during other sporting events. But most of all it would be a favorable coincidence for a sponsor who has begun to step up their involvement from a single car to a wider association with the league as a whole. Activation friends, activation.

I respect and admire Dario Franchitti. His 2009 championship was about redemption, for himself and in some larger sense the league. His second 500 victory was about legacy. But the sport has enough legacy and history, it now needs new heroes to sell to a new generation. A Hero that stars in a Fairytale ending is a good place to start.