IndyCar Future - Thanks RACER!

First, I want to thank Paul Pfanner and the gang at RACER Magazine for allowing me to offer my perspectives on the future of IndyCar - and what needs to be done now to right the ship. It's an honor to have my views offered in the same context as legends like Mario Andretti and Rick Mears as well as Robert Clarke, Diego Rodriguez and current series champion Will Power.
 
Overall, I tried to make two fundamental points. One, that the cry from the paddock for "better marketing" indicates to me that those repeating that mantra really don't know what marketing is. It's like most public opinion I suppose. People tend to live in the cloister of their social circle or organization and they hear a message repeated enough they accept it as fact. It's why someone back in the eighties or nineties originated the now much-coined phrase, "out of the box thinking." Well, those who keep saying, "the product is great, all we need is better marketing," are comforted by hearing the same line uttered by everyone they encounter in their little world, which is smack-dab in the middle of a box. 
 
I merely suggest that they stop for a minute. Just stop. Listen to a another message. I didn't say whole-heartedly embrace it the first time you hear it. That would be asking far too much. Just listen. Consider what I am saying. Long, long ago universities and the collective body of knowledge for the profession of marketing established "the four P's." That's product, price, placement (distribution, channels, etc.) and promotion. For amateurs, marketing is usually equated with promotion, or, more specifically, advertising.
 
Heck, latter day thinking has refined the four P's to the "seven C's," and other variants on and on. The main point is that the management challenge is to understand the marketing mix, not assume that engineers can use their personal opinions and bias only to hand off "the product" to the "marketing department," blaming them for any lack of customer enthusiasm. What amazed me in some comments to my column was that people glossed over this important explanation and blissfully continued to describe marketing as advertising - and even suggest that I didn't feel marketing was necessary.
 
Who knows why anyone would react this way. Did they truly read what I wrote? Did they not understand even though it is hard for me to fathom how my description of marketing could have been more straightforward, simple really? The explanation may be both, depending on the individual. Or, more nefarious, if that is not too strong a word, it may well be there is an agenda at work - people choose not to acknowledge what I said because it doesn't fit their position. Regardless, it is interesting how emotional all this becomes and how much anyone is discredited for offering a different position. What did not amaze me is that there would be people who were vehemently opposed to my view, a view that clearly would upset more than one apple cart.
 
The other fundamental point of my column stemmed from my transition for asserting that the product is, indeed, part of the marketing mix. The product must be what customers want or no amount of advertising, PR, Web analytics or data collection to pepper people with e-mail blasts pitching tickets or tee-shirts is going to get the job done. In fact, it's ridicuous to suggest all that is needed is more sophisticated, cleverer advertising - just nothing short of flat-out ridiculous. Sorry.
 
To this point of designing the right product I attempted to describe the car, which isn't the entire "core" product (as opposed to the whole product) but a central element that can topple your entire row of dominos if you don't get it right. In this description I probably employed an unfortunate pair of words when I used the phrase, "backwards compatible." This is a term I borrowed from my long experience in comptuing and telecommunications networks. It simply means that if you are going to succeed in selling your data networking wares to enterprises you need to be respectful of their prior investments and protect them. It's in your best interests, really. You can't expect them to rip out the millions of dollars of hardware and software they already have because you have the latest and greatest value proposition in a sector known for short product lifecycles. It's a non-starter discussion.
 
The moment anyone read "backwards" they assumed that because of my interest in history and my age (60) that I was longing for the days of the roadster. Well, for those of you who struggle with arithmetic I was born in 1954. My interest in racing ignited at the very end of the roadster era at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - 1963 - and I was enamoured with the world champion Jimmy Clark and his awesome Lotus rear-engine racers. Those guys with engines in front needed to get with the program. Those cars were old. They were not cool. They were not "today."
 
All that background aside, my comments, I believe, are about envisioning the future. One of the aspects of studying history that I thoroughly enjoy is that it fuels my imagination for going forward. I like envisioning the future - like giant aircraft made of protoplasm that are living human-engineered organisms that project themselves with massive lungs as they exhale. They carry hundreds of passengers at super-sonic speed, feed on agricultural waste and don't pollute. They self-heal. With genetic engineering I can imagine this. Not next year or even in ten years but before the end of the century? Absolutely. More near-term there will be self-driving cars as prototypes already exist. The potential for mimimizing accidents, saving lives, sharply reducing traffic delays and conserving energy is not hard to imagine. There is so much to look forward to.
 
The point is my suggestion for a highly sophisticated front engine car stripped of ground effects is derived from an understanding of not just marketing but also technology. Look, technology, as I tried to explain in my editorial, has overwhelmed motorsport. We have, in a way, reached a kind of "terminal velocity" for the man-machine combination. In the previous century it was an amazing escalation of record-breaking speeds as we all wondered what was possible. Well, we largely know what is possible now and the idea of a car with a person driving it racing around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at speeds north of 250 MPH is problematic on several levels. Safety, for one, is paramount - and I am not just talking about the drivers. As the unfortunate Tony Renna whose car got out of shape on a gray October day in 2003 while testing at the venerable Brickyard and literally flew into the grandstands demonstrates if you think about it. Nobody talks about it, but this lonely, sad accident could have been a massive 1955 Le Mans scale disaster if it had occurred during the Indianapolis 500. Successful steps were taken to address these concerns but inevitably as speeds climb the realities of physics present the potential to yield devestating results.
 
No, the reason for my "backwards comptible" comment is all about restoring a great brand of American racing - the Indianapolis 500 and the "Big Car," "Champ Car," or "IndyCar" series that includes it. I want to differentiate them from any other form of racing and eliminate any confusion with, say, Formula One. I also want a logical extension to the organic ladder system of American open wheel racing. That's a connection to all the bullrings and towns across America where local racing fans visit short tracks to cheer on regional speedsters. Here we have the "hero's journey," or the career progression these American drivers make on their way to the pinnacle of racing - the Indianapolis 500 and the series that contains it.
 
Am I against foreign drivers? Go back a few paragraphs and read about my childhood hero, Jimmy Clark - a man I will still argue was the greatest driver of them all. International stars add tremendous spice to the flavor of the product - but the reality is that Americans need their local heroes to get excited. Television for Olympic events bear this out. 
 
Also, note in my article that I insist that while I think the new car I suggest could enable a return to dirt ovals for a broader, more diverse test of a driver's skill in the quest for the series championship, I also want to see the road and street races retained. Real racers aren't afraid of a challenge, they just want a real opportunity. I lived in Long Beach, California for seven years and went to every Long Beach Grand Prix during that time. I have been back since. I have been to virtually every form of racing anyone can imagine and probably every major American racing facility. I raced a G Production Spitfire as a young man dreaming of emulating my heroes - at Riverside and Willow Springs. I did that until I realized that it wasn't the right path for me. It still hurts to admit that. The point is the blend of road racing, dirt ovals and the big speedways offer a compelling value proposition for race fans. Just as interesting as seeing how short trackers can tackle the streets of Long Beach is how foreign-born drivers could fair if the Hoosier Hundred was wonderfully part of the "national championship trial" again.
 
At the request of auto racing photographer and analyst Larry Clarino I posted the following as a follow-up to my article on Facebook:
 
"Let me say this about the car I suggest. First, people need to stop assuming it will look like '50's roadsters. Re-imagine a 21st Century roadster. I am talking about a very sophisticated race car. The reason for the design I suggest is because I want to be "backwards compatible." That's a term I picked up from my data networks background. It simply means connecting back to the customer's installed base. In this case I mean a logical extension of the platform used by the grassroots American short track racer. It needs to be a car that celebrates that style of racing. That distinguishes the brand of American Indy car racing. Look, if you want high tech love on Formula 1. Just remember that even there they have clamped down on tech whether you realize it or not. A lot of the early '90's computerized ABS and such was outlawed. Why? Because they realized the path they were on was taking the driver out of the equation. The "better design" of rear engine and aero made sense in the '60's and '70's when we still had not reached a kind of terminal velocity for man and machine. F1 realized that by the early '90's they were on a path that would eliminate the driver altogether. With unlimited tech taken to its extreme you don't need a driver. Let me repeat. You don't need a driver. It's not the world of the past century. Technology has overwhelmed the sport. It can be a remote control computer game. Is that what people want? I posit, "No." My suggestions are a way to: 1) focus on driver skill; 2) fully differentiate American racing from any series in the world; 3) re-establish the Indianapolis 500 as the pinnacle of the American driver's "hero's journey," and give fans across the country a connection to a hometown hero. What I suggest is anything but a step back. It is a vision of the future that recognizes today's technological realities and reconnects with the sport's abandoned brand attributes before it is too late. There is no silver bullet. Even with these important changes it will take time and patience to re-connect with a fan base that has been abused by self-interest for nearly two decades - or more." 
 
Finally, in Will Power's interview with RACER editor David Malsher for the series I found a ray of hope. Even amid a lot of commentary that ran counter to my expressed view there was just a shred of opportunity for meaningful compromise. Will said he would enjoy racing a dirt car. He made it clear this wasn't feasible as teams could not afford to maintain a completely different car to the current racer, but that it would be a fun challenge for him nonetheless. 
 
I refuse to rush to some compromise of my position because the car I envision would address the issue of needing two cars, but let's assume two or three dirt races were added to the championship. There is more than one way to a solution. Back to thinking out of the box.
 
What about partnerships between Indy car race teams and USAC Silver Crown or sprint car race teams? Just for three races perhaps. Or, as my friend Larry Clarino suggests, could you design the next gen Indy car as a rear engine job capable of running on a dirt track? My point is this: the entire Indy car racing community - fans included - need to respect the other guy's (or gal's) opinion and assume best intentions. Assume everyone wants the sport to succeed. Let's listen, but let's also know that the current business results could not sustain a company without subsidy. If you want to count on that forever I think you are kidding yourself. Let's listen to one another. Let's recognize change is necessay. Let's build the sport together.