Here's a nice bit of new from behnd the scenes here at PRI: Michael Lewis, son of Steve and Loretta Lewis, won Saturday's race at Monza in the Formula 3 Italia series, earning him the Rookie of the Year title.

As part of being Rookie of the Year in the series, Michael earned a test drive with the Ferrari F1 team in November.

Michael won three races in the series this year, and came in second place in the overall championship. He drives for the PREMA Powerteam.

“It was a great feeling to win here at Monza as it is such a famous track with such wonderful history,” said Michael. “I made a great launch at the start of the race and was able to clear the first chicane without a problem so I kept my pace strong for the race. I could see that I had created space between me to the second-place car so all was working well. My PREMA Powerteam Dallara car was perfect the entire race. I owe this win and the success I had here so far at Monza to all the hard work done by my PREMA Powerteam crew. Also, my good friend Giacomo Ricci gave me some tips as to how to run the pace for the race. I did exactly as he wanted and it felt so good to see the checkered flag and to have this win at Monza. I was told during the television interview after the podium ceremony that I was the 2011 Rookie Champion and that I would soon be able to drive a Ferrari F-1 car. This was an unbelievable day and experience for me to win here at Monza.”

Michael Lewis celebrates his win at Monza, earning him the Rookie of the Year title and test with Ferarri F1.

Just wanted to report that I had a blast serving as a concours judge at the Kumho Tires Presents the Grassroots Motorsports $2011 Challenge Powered by RacingJunk.com. The task was to build a car for $2011 that could compete in a concours judging, autocross and drag race. Great fun, and pretty spectacular DIY innovation. (See photos at bottom)

Here's an example: Andrew Nelson’s entry came in second overall, but it represents the 'go for it' approach by the 50 contestants. He installed a Volkswagen Beetle body on a Nova subframe, then jammed a Chevy 350 under the front hood. He ran 10:58 in the quarter mile, and placed second in the autocross. Pretty damn impressive. Nelson also competes in landspeed racing in the east, and dreams of running at Bonneville one day.

Tim Suddard, publisher of Grassroots Motorsports magazine, said he started the event in 1999, after he got tired of people complaining that auto racing had gotten too expensive.

As far as I'm concerned, it’s a terrific (and fun) presentation of real DIY innovation in getting the job done on such a tight budget. Because the budget limits the ability to just go out and buy racing parts, they have to prepare the cars for competition with a lot of time and a all of their automotive skills, from fabrication to engine building. In judging, each car had its own story, and some were amazing. It's hard to comprehend the man hours involved.

Bryce Nash came from Oregon with a beautiiful little 1972 Honda N600, which came in second in the concours, but won him Best Engineered. Talking to him during the reception, he said he has a friend who puts in "crazy hours" training for a triathlon. He compares his Challenge project to a triathlon when it comes to hours in.

The overall winner of the 2011 Grassroots Motorsports Challenge was the Vorshlag team, with its E30 BMW, picking up a lot of points with its autocross win.

Suddard says these low-buck events serve as very attractive ‘entry points’ into racing. A very high percentage of the entrants never competed in any kind of race event before. Many will go onto NASA, SCCA and other forms of racing. Mechanical engineering clubs from Georgia Tech and Texas A&M also fielded teams. “This is our future,” said Suddard.

Greg Voth, who races in other events, entered a 1982 Mazda RX-7, with a Mustang 8.8 rearend. He said these events serve to demonstrate to race fans that they, too, can get started racing right away. “Anybody can do it,” said Voth.

Watching the challenge, it's not hard to recall the old jalopy days of racing, when the critical transition from grandstands to racer on the track seemed so 'doable,' if you had the skills when it came to fabricating, welding and engine work. Make no mistake, this was a solid gathering of very talented, passionate gearheads. We salute them all.

As for the pure fun of the event, I'm leaving a lot of things out due to space, including the allowed bribing of judges (I got a can of Haggis), the tire heading to the race control trailer, remarks about the car named Uranus and much more. Lots of smiles and laughter in the course of the weekend.

I'd like to thank Tim and Andy Reid for inviting me. It was very cool to see the whole Grassroots team taking on different tasks over the weekend to make the event happen.

Interestingly, Grassroots Motorsports' connection with reader is more than the magazine and events. They'll gather together daily on message boards within the Grassroots Motorsports website. The magazine in all of its aspects is an integral part of many of their readers' lives. No wonder it's packed with ads, and regularly nears or goes over 200 pages as one of the largest monthly magazines out there in the automotive aftermarket. We also would like to congratulate Tim and his team for all they do to encourage folks to go racing. Tim's a real racer, and his genuine passion flows directly into the magazine and events.

For more information, go to www.grassrootsmotorsports.com.

Just returned last night from Florida for the Kumho Tires Grassroots Motorsports 2011 Challenge Powered by RacingJunk.com, where competitors must build a race car for $2011 and compete in three categories: concours, autocross and drag racing. I had a blast. Truly memorable. Virtually every car had its own unique story, and some were pretty  wild.

I’ll cover the event in another blog this week, because I wanted to preface it with my visit to the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, Florida. I stopped there on the way up to Gainesville for the Challenge.

I highly recommend a visit to the Museum for attendees of the PRI Trade Show. It’s worth arriving a day early and making a run to Ocala…roughly an hour from the Convention Center in Orlando. This is a great place to soak up the grand history of drag racing, as well as automotive history in general.

The word that came first to mind as I surveyed the exhibits was “innovation.” There’s a boldness to the cars, and there’s incredible innovation as you calculate your trip through time from a replica of Garlits’ first dragster in the mid-1950s to the exquisitely sculptured top fuel dragster of the mid-1960s. All that happened in 10 years?! My Lord.

It reminds you of a time when a visit to the race track held surprises as race teams were driven to innovate regularly to see what worked and what didn’t in the great adventure of speed.

You see Garlits’ Don’s Speed Shop dragsters from 1957, 1958 and then, 1959, which has something very different atop the motor compared to the previous version—a supercharger.

It was cool to see an exhibit dedicated to Smokey Yunick, who was a good friend to PRI. It shows a mannequin working the dyno from Smokey’s shop in Daytona.

Add there’s a whole wing devoted to automotive history in general that’s great fun, too.

Too much to cover here, so we’ll just end it with this advice: Go.

We're working on the November Show Issue right now, preparing it for the printer, and a thought that's in my brain and I can't get it out is the fact that it's 386 pages. It may be a misuse of blogging etiquette, but I have a real sense of pride right now in the accomplishments of PRI, and the way the racing industry is pulling together in these challenging times.

Last year's Show Issue was 306 pages. This year's Show Issue will be 80 pages larger. About half of that is from our decision to insert the Guide To Orlando, but another 40 pages comes from the increased activity of racing marketers in advertising in the Show Issue.

It seems much more than a matter of revenue for PRI. It took a heck of a lot of work on the part of our sales team to have conversations with roughly 400 companies that resulted in an advertisement in the Show Issue. The folks on our sales team are great people to talk to, and some of them have relationships with their customers that are over a decade long, now. People are ultra-careful in how they spend their money these days, and they expect our sales team to give them a sense of confidence in spending marketing dollars in a display advertisement in PRI magazine. It's a pretty intense, complicated conversation. With 400 companies, it resulted in a positive answer. That's a big deal.

As far as I can tell, there's no publication or form of media with this many performance racing companies advertising their products.

There's also a sense that the November Show Issue is a good sign for the racing industry. I've heard several times recently, from publishing industry sources and non-publishng sources, that advertising expenditures should actually go up in a recession. The companies that do this, along with good products and good customer service, will come out of a tough economy with a greater share of the market. I think the pages and pages of creative advertisements in the Show Issue is a good indication that a lot of racing companies are maintaining an aggressive stance.

It's a sign that the racing industry just wants to be on the throttle. And I think it's that kind of racer approach to life that is such a powerful force in this dynamic industry.

And I'm very appreciative that all of these companies understand that close connection PRI magazine has with its readers. We've got great writers, and a crack editorial team, to go and get the 'big picture' views on the racing industry, and the result is engaged readership and, consequently, advertising. PRI readers typically spend over an hour with each issue, return to each issue several times, and save each issue almost 7 months.

As I write this, there are great print publications that have disappeared, including newspapers and racing publications. I've heard more than once the phrase, "Print is dead." I never believed it. There's a comfort and ease to a magazine that makes it better than the Internet experience if you want to reflect on something as complicated as your own business.

So, I'm yelling out, "Hell yeah, 386 pages!"

Here's a nice 'behind the scenes' note about PRI: Michael Lewis, son of PRI's Steve and Loretta Lewis, won his second Formula 3 Italia race of the season at Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello in Mugello, Italy.

Congratulations, Michael.

This week, I visited Mazda R&D in Irvine, California, and had the rare opportunity, along with a handful of other motorsports journalists, to sit down with CJ Wilson, starting pitcher for the Texas Rangers, and discuss his baseball career and, more importantly, his racing aspirations.

I was especially intrigued with how Wilson’s baseball career plays a big part in making his racing dreams come true. As a young boy he knew he wanted to be a race car driver before he even started playing baseball, but he also learned that the sport of racing has a hefty price tag attached to it. Wilson’s dad told him that if he wanted to get a race car he’d have to get a “cool” job to be able to afford it. Wilson then literally wrote down on paper that he was going to be a professional baseball player.

He began playing baseball at age 9 and finally made his way up to the big leagues in his early 20s, even after enduring Tommy John surgery while in the minors.

A few years ago Wilson (now 30 years old) was finally able to begin his racing career, which allows him to compete in road racing during the MLB offseason. “I’m developing myself through the minor leagues of racing,” he noted. “I try not to dive in past my talent level. I respect the racing institution so it’s important for me to earn it.”

C.J. is working his way up the motorsports ladder and already took a class win in the 2010 NASA 25 Hour - in a Mazda MX-5 Miata, and he co-owns a team competing in the SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup.  His racing season is rather unique as he can only race after the baseball season concludes and prior to Spring Training, hence C.J. only races November-February.

During the baseball season he tries to acquire as much track time as possible, and previously living at Motorsport Ranch in Texas for a year definitely helped with that, but he mostly develops his driving skills in other ways, such as practicing on his in-home race simulator and visualization. “You can develop outside of the car if you have focus,” he said. “The desire is there and the technical knowledge is there, I just need more seat time.”

After all of Wilson’s goals are reached in his baseball career, he’ll turn all his focus to racing, in which his ultimate desire is to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, either as a driver or team owner.

My favorite part of the discussion with Wilson was hearing about how focused and determined he is to excel in his racing career and in life in general. I always love seeing that immense enthusiasm.

For our PRI team here in Laguna Beach, this time of the year is always exciting. There are many things happening and everyone is very busy working on a variety of projects that include the three big fall issues of PRI Magazine (October, November and December). Then we have our Trade Show team working long days to get everything in order for our 24th Annual PERFORMANCE RACING INDUSTRY Trade Show at the Orange County Convention Center that opens on December 1st. Also, coming in to visit us for the last three weeks was Arianna Maugeri, our European marketing specialist. Arianna works with Francisque Savinien and plays a key role in developing international attendance as well as exhibitors. Upon her arrival she was very exited to share with me that she met Red Bull Formula 1 team leader Adrian Newey at the MIA House Of Lords function in early July. During the conversation with Adrian, she asked him for an interview. Guess what? He said, “Yes,” and this week Arianna interviewed Adrian Newey while he was at the Monza Formula 1 race. This is quite an accomplishment. Arianna’s interview with Adrian was very insightful, and will be featured in the BIG November Show Issue.

Another important “coming attraction” that will be featured in the November Show Issue is Greg Zyla’s Industry Insights interview of Hendrick Motorsports leader of the No. 48 Jimmie Johnson car, Mr. Chad Knaus. Here we are, right in the middle of the NASCAR Chase For The Championship, and Greg Zyla was able to catch Chad with a spare moment.

Here we have the wonderful opportunity to share with our 25,000-plus readers “special insights” from two brilliant team managers both who are responsible for massive budgets and the directing of the efforts of two championship-winning teams. I can’t wait to read and learn the behind-the-scenes effort and approach of both Adrian and Chad. It will be excellent reading.

Another “coming attraction” that is rapidly gaining momentum is the RED BULL KART FIGHT at PRI presented by ROTAX. I mentioned in last month’s Publisher’s Page that we were bringing back the kart race to again be a part of the Thursday opening day activities. Now we have sent out the race entry form throughout the kart industry and teams and drivers are returning forms at a rapid pace, so we will have a full field of young karters as well as a great compliment of all-star drivers ready to race Thursday night right after the conclusion of the famous Budweiser – PRI Happy Hour. Practice will begin at 3:30 p.m., and the first race is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. We will house the kart teams in a BIG tent, while we will also bring in plenty of grandstand seating so everyone will have a good seat to watch the great racing action. Trade Show Director Karin Davidson is planning a food and beverage area so it will be easy to grab a cold beverage and something good to eat before going to the grandstands to watch the young karters and all-star drivers have at it. 

We had a great day yesterday visiting with Tim Huddleston, High Point Racing, and Jeff Schrader, Racecar Factory. And we have an interesting idea of theirs to greatly expand the number of people promoting ticket sales at a local short track.

They’re both important assets to the racing at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale, where Tim’s driver development program fields several cars in the track’s top late model series. The Racecar Factory builds the cars for High Point Racing, and the series. As a driver, Tim has won more late model races at Toyota Speedway than any other driver, five track championships. This year, Brandon Davis, in a High Point Racing car, has secured the track championship.

Their idea is, “Irwindale Bucks Program.” Here is a basic explanation of what Tim and Jeff have in mind.

The short track goes to all of their racers and gives them a stack of 100, to 500, coupons that are redeemable for general admission tickets for $15. Perhaps, the coupon could represent a discounted ticket price.

The coupons can provide the race track with information as to which racer was responsible for handing them out to race fans.

When the person turns in the coupon at the track, they pay the $15 for tickets. The short track would get $9 and $6 would go into a fund for the racer responsible for the ticket sale.

All of the racers at the local short track would have an easy way to talk up the great racing to all of their friends and acquaintances, and finish each conversation with a ticket coupon.

The races would have an added motivation from the Bucks Program established in their name. Selling 100 tickets would put $600 in the fund, to be used for such expenses as pit passes, track rental time, fuel, tires, etc.

The race track would benefit from getting more first-timers to the track, many of whom would hopefully become regulars. The track would also have a chance to make money from sales of beverages and food. As Jeff said, movie theaters may have $8 tickets for matinee showings, etc., but they charge plenty popcorn and other snack bar fare to make their numbers.

Sponsors connected with local racers could participate in the racer’s Bucks Program, too. Crew members could help. Friends and acquaintances of racers would take advantage of the program to help the team’s Bucks Program account grow in dollars.

Eventually, the number of people working to seriously develop ticket sales at the local short track is expanded by hundreds. Most of the cost of the promotion is printing up the coupons, which doesn't cost much at all.

“Who is going to go out and talk up Saturday night racing? The racer!” exclaimed Jeff.

Auto racing and cable TV have had a long and successful marriage. Those who may not have been around at the beginning might not know that auto racing drove the cable TV business at its birth, and cable TV, in turn, greatly expanded the number of TV hours devoted to auto racing, thus helping the sport to expand its customer base.

Cable TV discovered a big competitive advantage in auto racing that was largely ignored by the old broadcast TV business model. Cable TV found a great sport with a huge following that was tremendously underserved when it came to television. If ESPN put auto racing on TV, then race fans would have to get cable TV to watch. So, auto racing drove cable subscription.

Furthermore, auto racing came with its own big bank of potential buyers of TV commercials. All of the sponsors on the sides of the cars were low hanging fruit to cable TV advertising salespeople.

We point all this out because it’s still happening. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series has launched a promotion with MavTV. They’ll be handing out “I Want My MavTV” cards at remaining events this year. Race fans who bring their “I Want My MavTV” card to the series apparel trailer will get a free gift.

The goal is to get race fans to make sure they’re getting their MavTV channel from their local cable provider.

“Our goal is to get MavTV into more homes across the country, to showcase all the different forms of Lucas Oil Motorsports programming and the numerous other broadcasts within the network. Everyone that turns in their “I Want My MavTV” card at our series events will get a free gift and a chance to win some Lucas Oil Product gift packages” stated Ritchie Lewis, series director.

We salute the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series for continuing this great tradition in racing. The birth of cable TV has been incredibly instrumental in elevating our sport to a new level that few could have predicted in the old age of broadcast television.

Bold thinking is a much-admired trait in these times, when we’ve all come to the conclusion that what worked in 2007 may not work today.

It’s no time to be lazy in our thinking.

And so, when we come across a bold moment of marketing, it’s a cool thing to just stop and appreciate it.

Here’s our most recent such moment: Walking through Costco (chaing of warehouse discount stores), when we saw a major display up front for K1 Speed Indoor Go Kart Racing.

Karting in Costco? How did that happen? Someone was thinking outside the box!

In the neverending battle of motorsports versus stick-and-ball sports, a key competition to attract the next generation of racers, K1 Speed is certainly doing its part, having grown to nine centers nationwide. And now they’re taking their message to those outside of racing, that racing is a ton of fun, and they’re making it an attractive, easy and affordable right there at the front of Costco!

Congratulations to K1 Speed!