With news all over the website now about the Red Bull Kart Fight at PRI, Sponsored by Rotax event coming to this year’s PRI Trade Show, I’m happy to report that PRI is back in the business of promoting a race. And that’s triggered a couple thoughts about promoting races.

First, no one knows what it’s like to be a promoter until you’ve done it. We learned that with our Twin 25 USAC midget races that we promoted. We think it’s great fun to promote a race, but we’ve only done, at most, three races in a year. It’s a tricky business as you work your way through the challenges of getting enough people in the grandstands, enough cars on the track and enough revenue in to have the whole venture make sense from a business standpoint.

Having described the challenge, I must also report that it’s an incredible feeling to leave a race track bone tired but thrilled to have provided thousands of people in the grandstands with a great night of racing. We have had the luxury of promoting a single race for months, and no matter the amount of effort and time required, it was always worth it on a personal level.

Promoting races requires skills and strategies we didn’t have when we started. There are some things you can only learn the hard way. But it was a magical moment when we knew we had created a night where racers and fans experienced a truly memorable event. That was a big, big deal to all of us here at PRI.

I should also mention that we organized a Twin 25 race in Indianapolis where the morning started off with rain. The storm moved this way and that, then finally, at about 2 p.m.--to give as many people as possible enough notice--we cancelled the race for the night. You feel that moment deep in the pit of your stomach. And it’s only then that you truly understand the full scope of what race promoters experience. It’s a damn tough job.

So, thank you race promoters for all you do to provide a place for racers to go racing.

The Red Bull Kart Fight at PRI, Sponsored by Rotax is going to be a blast to promote. We have a good track record in promoting a kart race at the PRI Trade Show, and have had extraordinary participants, including winners of the Indy 500 and Daytona 500. I remember being fairly mesmerized watching Jamie McMurray rip it up on the track wheel to wheel with the IndyCar drivers. Amazing. And there were plenty of moments like that.

This is going to be fun!

We found some excellent business tips in a press release we received from Ed Hess, a business professor at the University of Virginia, who has a new book available now from Stanford University Press. It's called, "Growing An Entrepreneurial Business: Concepts & Cases." It's priced at $75.

Here are his top nine growth challenges facing today’s entrepreneurs:

Getting overwhelmed by growth. Growth is change. Growth requires more processes, controls, and people. Too much growth too quickly can create financial, quality, and reputational risks that if not properly managed can lead to the demise of the business. Keeping tabs on all of these factors can easily overwhelm business owners. “Growth is like Mother Nature,” explains Hess. “She can be good or she can wreak havoc with hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. To properly manage company growth, successful, experienced entrepreneurs recommend the ‘gas pedal’ approach—when you start to feel overwhelmed, let up on the gas to allow processes, controls, and people to catch up.”

Knowing when to say “no.” Most successful start-ups have a plethora of opportunities. The challenge is choosing the right ones. Good opportunities are those that will enhance your company’s strengths and result in a compelling customer value proposition. “Opportunities that don’t fall into that category should be met with a ‘no, thank you,’” says Hess. “The problem is that too many entrepreneurs never learn to say ‘NO!’ In an effort to get their business off the ground and keep it up and running, they say ‘yes’ to everything. They end up trying to do too much for too many, which dilutes their focus and often the quality of their product or service. Determining and having the discipline to maintain a narrow strategic focus is critical to success, and that will require that you turn down certain opportunities. Successful entrepreneurs often call it ‘sticking to your knitting.’”

Learning to effectively delegate. For a business to grow, the entrepreneur must grow. When growth begins, you’ll quickly find that you can do only so much and that you need help from others to properly serve customers. You must evolve from being a doer to a manager of employees and then eventually to a manager of managers (a leader). “This may sound easy but it isn’t,” says Hess. “Most entrepreneurs don’t like to give up control of any aspect of their business. Facing the fact that they can’t do it all on their own and that they must learn to rely on others to complete certain tasks (and not necessarily exactly how they themselves would do them) can be a very hard reality to swallow.”

Transitioning from owner to leader. When you get to the point where you’re delegating tasks and relying on your employees to drive your business, you must also transition from thinking of yourself as just a business owner and start developing as a leader and coach. Evolving toward becoming a leader and coach is challenging, because both roles require emotional intelligence, people engagement, and the ability to relate to individuals in a way that they find meaningful.

“Coaching requires that time be spent getting to know people, listening, caring, understanding their emotional needs, and helping them grow,” explains Hess. “Coaching takes patience and a degree of personal emotional intimacy that many entrepreneurs are not able to achieve. It requires a continuation of the mind shift from ‘me, the entrepreneur’ and ‘my way’ to ‘it is really all about them.’”

Hiring smart. Hiring mistakes are costly, time consuming, and create quality and financial control risks for small businesses. When confronted with impending growth, entrepreneurs often panic and hire employees too quickly, making snap decisions based on little data.

“In my research, bad hiring practices often continued when entrepreneurs tried to hire managers who needed to have functional or technical experience,” notes Hess. “In many cases, the companies had to make multiple costly hires for the same position before finding someone with the right competencies who also fit the company culture. Many of these entrepreneurs frequently stated that they should have ‘hired more slowly and fired more quickly.’ They made much better hiring decisions when they learned to hire against a competencies and cultural scorecard; conduct multiple interviews; have multiple people interview prospects; hire on a trial basis; establish mentors for new employees; develop a good on-boarding process; and encourage good employees to make hiring referrals.”

Managing cash flow. Many times entrepreneurs get overly engaged in the joy of growth and lose sight of the need to manage cash on a daily basis. Cash flow management during growth periods is critical, because in many cases growth requires investments in people, technology, supplies, etc., ahead of the receipt of cash from customers. Thus, there is often a mismatch between expenditures and receipts.

“This might sound simple, but it can be a major issue if not handled properly,” notes Hess. “Entrepreneurs have to understand that they may not be able to afford all the available growth. The amount of cash available for investment can limit growth, especially in today’s economy when many small businesses can’t get loans or credit lines. And finally, I can’t help but stress the importance of cautiously managing your checkbooks, credit cards, and online accounts. If you do decide to delegate this task, choose the employee you trust the most and set prescribed monetary limits. Check your payments and accounts every day, because frauds do occur.”

Spending too much time putting out fires. A high-growth environment is hectic, sometimes chaotic, with multiple mistakes needing to be corrected almost every day. “Entrepreneurs can easily get sucked into playing the role of ‘firefighter,’” says Hess, “spending their days putting out fires. The problem with that is that growth requires the entrepreneur to plan for more growth, to put in place new and better processes, and to be constantly upgrading processes and resetting priorities. It is very difficult to find the time to do all that when your time is eaten up mediating employee conflicts, correcting inventory orders, calming angry customers, and so on. Entrepreneurs in my study found that they had to be disciplined in getting away from their businesses for short periods of time to think and plan. They needed ‘firehouse’ time away from the daily ‘fires’ that pop up when running a business.”

Creating a high-performance “family.” Entrepreneurs often struggle with creating a high-performance “family” or team environment. The challenge, of course, arises when someone in the “family” just isn’t meeting expectations and has to be terminated because they couldn’t grow their skills as the business grew. “Here entrepreneurs face an uphill battle in balancing loyalty and changing performance needs,” notes Hess. “Let someone go who everyone else at the company loves and you’ve created morale and emotional issues. Let a poor performer stay and you’ve created morale and emotional issues. See the challenge? The entrepreneurs I researched learned that you can have a ‘family’-like culture and high performance by having clear job expectations; a fair, transparent, and frequent feedback process; and by giving people a fair chance to improve or to step into a role that they could do well.”

Understanding that upgrading never ends. The people, processes, structure, and controls needed to manage a business with $1 million of revenue generally do not work for a business with $10 million of revenue.

“Entrepreneurs often learn the hard way that growth means continual change,” says Hess. “And as you grow, the solutions that worked at one level will most likely not work at the next. Inflection points for the companies I’ve studied occurred frequently when they expanded to 10, 25, 50, and 100 employees. When these changes take place, entrepreneurs often realize their hope of having a smooth-running machine is an elusive dream. Successful entrepreneurs and their employees are open to learning and adapting in an incremental, iterative, and experimental fashion. The hard truth is that growing businesses generally do not experience much sameness or predictability until they become quite large—for example, larger than $100 million in revenue—but learn to manage these changes properly, and you can keep the ship pointed in the right direction.

“Growing a business is an evolutionary process,” says Hess. “Growth is messy. Growth is change. Growth has spurts, detours, downturns, and spikes. Growth requires constant learning and improvement. And if not well planned and managed, it can outstrip the capabilities of companies.

“These are important points that must be heeded,” concludes Hess. “Growth should be a strategic decision made only after the risks of growing and not growing have been assessed. My advice is that rather than focus on growing for growth’s sake, base your goals around how you can constantly improve your business. When you do this, you will be able to meet the challenges of business growth head on and with great success.”

When the economy stalled out and took a dive in 2008, our first thought was that we’d rather be in this mess with racers, because racers are built for challenges. Resourcefulness is one of the things racers love about this sport. Impossible doesn’t really exist. Forget whining altogether.

In putting together the daily news for the new ‘front page’ of the PRI website, we’ve gotten in tune with the racing industry in a hyper sort of way. We’re publishing a number of news items every day, but we’re also reading through tons of news released about racing on a daily basis.

The impression we got immediately upon switching to this new gear of daily news is that racing is indeed evolving quickly. It always has, and it always will. And it’s this fast pace of responding to a changing world that will keep racing vital, and keep the industry side of the sport strong.

The downturn in the economy, and its effect on racing, knocked the confidence out of a lot of racing business people, many of whom enjoyed a couple decades of growth, little by little, year by year. We’d like to say that the daily news coming out of racing tells us that it’s changing fast—reacting and responding quick as our best drivers in a crowded chicane—to build the future.

In our development site while we beta tested or in our ‘live’ front page, we’ve put up headlines such as:

Must See Racing posts $10,000 to win for Bristol. This is a series that didn’t exist in 2007, and its races will be available on television this year to over 100 million homes.

Empire Super Sprints on web TV. They’re putting together up to 10 40-minute shows this year. The Internet is offering new opportunities to televise racing, and racing organizations are getting on it.

NASCAR creates online game for Facebook. The most powerful sanctioning body in racing is going after the next generation of race fans where they live.

POWRi to pay $10,000 to win for Micro Sprint race. They’ll likely get over 100 entries. The racing industry constantly invents new and affordable ways to compete. Micro Sprints are just one place a working man can enter the sport.

IHRA creates sportsman website. The pros get the attention and TV, but it’s the sportsman drag racers who buy a ton of parts each week. And the IHRA rightly salutes their importance with a website dedicated to sportsman racers.

Nine Racing forms alliance with Venturini Motorsports. There’s no shortage of opinions about arrive-and-drive programs in oval track racing, but all sorts of race teams across the country are strengthening car counts by providing easy access to the sport for families with the budget but a lack of skills to go racing.

Deltawing car to run at Le Mans. It looks like a rocket, and we can’t imagine how it’s going to turn, but count us in as part of the TV audience when they cut this thing loose on this legendary track.

These are news items within the last couple of weeks. They tell us that racing is working creatively and aggressively to strengthen the fan base, strengthen the car counts and strengthen our future.

And come back to the PRI ‘front page’ with your morning cup of coffee tomorrow for the latest news.

The digital version of Performance Racing Industry magazine has some feature that we just can't do in print that adds an interactive touch and makes sourcing racing products a bit more convenient.

One of the tips to reading the online issues of Performance Racing Industry is that website addresses in the advertisements of racing industry suppliers are live links. In the middle of reading an advertisement, if you want more information, you're typically one click away from the company's website.

Just find the website address in the advertisement, and click on it.

I was fortunate enough to be invited by Dean Case of Mazdaspeed to the Formula SAE West Competition this weekend to participate on a panel of racing industry professionals as a presentation judge.  I jumped at the opportunity to participate, as I was eager to find out what innovation was on the horizon for racing from this next generation of motorsports engineers.  The experience was inspiring as I was surrounded by the future of racing and a healthy new crop of young engineers that have vision, passion, creativity  and optimism.   I was ready for the day…what could be more exciting than the spirit of innovation, school pride and the thrill of competition?

If you have never heard of the FSAE West, it’s a student design competition that is organized by SAE International www.sae.org that has been in existence since 1979.  The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer.  Over the course of the school year each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules whose purpose is both to ensure onsite event operations and promote clever problem solving.  And now, 60 schools--domestic and international--converge on the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, to compete for the top spot.

Our judging panel consisted of a unique cross section of racing industry experience that included the team captain, Corena Dusek, former Managing Editor of Performance Racing Industry Magazine and founding Director of Hyundai motorsports, John Morel, Director, Product & Marketing Planning from Siltanen & Partners (ad agency for American Suzuki), Karen Wong, Manger Communications & Brand Identity for Mazda North American Operations, Jim Skelly, Council Director for SEMA and former Technical director at NHRA for 16 years, Don Taylor, who has had numerous years in the racing industry, formerly with GM Racing, and NHRA.  I felt privileged to have been associated with this group.



Our panel was to represent an investment group and the students were to present to us the vision of their project providing aspects of engineering, design and function of the car and specifications, how the car will be manufactured, marketed and financed.  The presentations were to be 10 minutes in length with a short question-and-answer session, followed by panel feedback.  We had back-to-back presentations that filled the entire day.



The presentations were interesting and varied and most teams played to their strengths, focusing a majority of the time allotted to the car design and engineering elements.  Since my experience lies in marketing, advertising and promotion, I was particularly interested in how the teams approached their target market and what kind of advertising media they planned with the proposed budget. Some of the teams had skewed views on what it cost to advertise. For instance, one team suggested “an aggressive advertising campaign allocating $25,000 for the year.”   I was particularly impressed with another team who had set up a social media network and blog to generate monthly traffic that resulted in an average of 27,000 views per month.  This team’s goal was to generate a loyal following (which they clearly had) and focus their marketing efforts to this group, which I thought was clever.  It was rewarding to see presentations that were well organized, with a compelling business plan, and then be able to provide constructive feedback to the groups that had gaps in their presentations.  The feedback was welcomed and taken as constructive…after all this is a learning experience.  Right?

During the lunch break I spent some time walking through the pit area to see the student’s creations in real life.  As I moved through the paddock, I saw smaller schools that made the trip from long distances in rented Budget trucks to larger schools that had large trailer rigs.  One team that clearly stood out was the University of Washington, which had around 40 members all standing around the car in their purple uniformed shirts. It was quite impressive to see their level of commitment to the program.  I had to give a quick look to my alma mater CSUF Fullerton, and see what kind of car they created. I was greeted with a warm reception and Titan pride. I admit to being biased, and immediately found their car to be my favorite.

With each car I observed, I could count on someone from the team walking up to me and asking me if I had any questions about the car.  I could sense their anticipation for me to make some observation or comment about their work.  I wandered up to the University of South Florida team, and the captain noticed the PRI logo on my shirt and said they attended the show last year and absolutely loved it.  He called the PRI Show the “ultimate candy store” and said that he made great contacts there and formed working relationships with some of the exhibitors, one of which being Brown and Miller Racing Solutions.  I would encourage any of my PRI customers to get involved with some of these student programs, as you can get tremendous branding and positive PR mileage for your company.  These kids have unbelievable passion, and if you give them a bit of encouragement and support, most will talk about you and your company with high regard when they enter the industry after graduation.  You could gain a customer for life.

After leaving the pit area, I went over to the garage area where the technical judging was taking place.  Several student team members were locked up one-on-one with technical judges explaining the features of their car.   The judges were comprised of some of the racing industry’s finest, and included people such as; Scooter Brothers from Comp Cams, Claude Rouelle from OptimumG, Jason Wahl and Mike O’Neil from Tilton, Jack Burns and Vince Roman from Burns Stainless…and so many more.   It was great to see so many people of note in racing giving back to the industry…and you can bet that some of them were on hand to scout new talent for hire, which wasn’t surprising considering the talent on display here.



Although I was a first year rookie this year with the FSAE West, it was an honor to be invited as a judge, and I felt that I was able to contribute some business insight about racing and help enrich the students’ experience.  I would like to thank Dean Case of Mazdaspeed, who is the FSAE West event presentation captain.  I think you would be hard pressed to find a harder working PR man in motorsports than Dean Case…he’s everywhere!  I would also like to thank Corena Dusek and my co-panelists for an enjoyable day. It was quit an impressive team, with many industry contributions in their various careers.  Next year, the FSAE West will be moving to Lincoln Nebraska, but there is talk about FSAE Baja coming to California in the next year or so.  I plan to help out however I can, and would encourage others in the racing industry to participate. It’s a great chance to give back to the next generation of motorsports engineers, and it’s a rewarding experience, personally, as well.

We've had a lot of fun putting together this new web page, offering you the daily news in the racing industry, new products on a weekly basis, blog entries and more. Our hope is that PRI becomes a part of your first moments in the morning at your racing business...a quick review of the daily news with your morning cup of coffee. We'll have some fun along the way, too.

PRI magazine offers the same powerful experience of thoughtfulness, insight and perspective as racing entrepreneurs rethink their businesses and how to navigate the future. There's nothing like a magazine as a useful business tool on a monthly basis. It can't be beat.

A Readex Research study of PRI magazine readers show that our audience spends an average of more than an hour with each issue, returning to it several times, and keeping it an average of seven months. That's a pretty strong statement of its value.

But this daily drumbeat of racing industry news is a fun way to start the day...a great reminder of how rapidly this business can change.

The Internet is an unbelievably fast experience for most of us as we jump from one site to another. However, it's part of our lives and we at PRI want to do our part in this media.

Bookmark the page. Give it a quick read with your morning cup of coffee. And we'll see you tomorrow.

Just wanted to share with everybody a shopping experience that provided a quick, classic example of what to do with a first-time customer.

I was walking through the little shopping district of my hometown when a vintage midget appeared in a store window. That got my attention. I was stopped dead in my tracks. And when my eyes moved past the classic race car, I found I was looking into a display window for a new men's clothing store.

Furthermore, there was a mannequin wearing a cool, long-sleeved T-shirt with a poster for an old Ascot midget race printed on it. OK, I'm a first-time buyer in this new store. Here are the three questions the owner asked that I wanted to pass on here:

"Is this your first time here?" He knows the importance of expanding his customer base one by one, and he has plans for me.

"How did you hear of us?" He's verifying his marketing efforts. I told him the attention-getting power of the midget in the window.

Then, before ringing up my purchase, he asked, "Could I get your name and email address?"

It was quick, smooth, non-intrusive, and he learned more about his merchandising efforts plus put me into his data banks for future communications. I thought he did an excellent job handling this first-time customer.

Editor John Kilroy has 'pushed the button' to start a new era in our PRI method of disseminating information to the worldwide racing industry. We have been working on this project here for the last six months spearheaded by John Kilroy and his colleague Rob Hiner (Creative Director and Web Manager Guru) to design a special new PRI Web Portal Landing Page. This page will allow us to “expand our reach” and get racing industry news to the heart of the market the moment the news breaks.

John, Rob and a highly acclaimed web management firm by the name of Trinet have worked diligently these past few months to come up with an extraordinary Web Portal Page design that has many special features and unique methods of disseminating information. At our internal launch meeting this week John Kilroy described the “look and feel” of our new PRI Web Portal page of having the USA TODAY look. Now when you log on to www.performanceracing.com, the first thing that will pop up on your computer screen will be our new Web Portal Page. Content is the key word here and that is what will drive browsers to the new PRI Portal page.

Right at the top of the page is a section for “breaking” racing industry news, then we have a spot for blogs by John Kilroy and, yes, even I have a blog position. New products will be displayed, plus we have a spot for video playback and a number of other key elements to bring industry news, product news, and current information ALL organized in a user-friendly format. Advertising on the new web pages is available. And, yes, our dynamic, creative and important current PRI Website is located right behind this new Portal Landing Page.

But we haven’t overlooked many of the great features of our previous web page. You can still go to this site to learn more about how to preregister for the upcoming 24th Annual PRI Trade Show. You can easily find our dynamic floor plan and see who is exhibiting and where their booths are located on the floor plan. Yes you can still go on our PRI Website to gain access to all of our Exhibitor Services offerings. And, you can even access the digital version of our PRI Magazine.

From the very beginning of our PRI adventure that started 24 years ago, it has been our primary objective to bring to the dynamic racing marketplace viable information that will help racing businesses become better informed about the industry, products, market trends, international business opportunities and methods to efficiently operate a business profitably. We are excited here at PRI for the moment that John Kilroy will “push the button” to ignite our new PRI Web Portal Landing Page. Now, every day there will be updated news items carried on the home page. It is going to be the “industry destination” for “what’s happening” and what’s new.

Our new PRI Web Landing Page is going to fit nicely with the role that our PRI Magazine and PRI Trade Show perform monthly and annually for the members of the racing industry. I look forward to hearing your comments and thoughts about this new addition to our ability to disseminate information.

We’re always on the lookout for creative new ways to promote racing products to racers, and we wanted to pass along the concept of YouTube commercials that we’ve seen as produced by Roush Yates Performance Parts.

They call it Wide Open Wednesday. The concept is simple. Just 30 to 60 seconds of uncomplicated video with a dash of editing. Show the parts and tell the audience the price this week.

There’s something about this kind of video that has a personal touch, compared to, say, an eNewsletter. And the idea of producing one every week at the same time is a clever way to work the promotion into the minds of customers so they return each week out of curiosity, in addition to the motivation to buy parts at a special price.

Best of all, the promotion is low cost.

Click here to check out a Roush Yates Wide Open Wednesday YouTube commercial.