Business of Speed Podcast - Marshall Pruett: IndyCar's Real Problem, IMSA's YouTube Takeover, and 40 Years of Earning It

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Marshall Pruett spent nearly two decades as a crew member and race engineer before walking into a media center in 2005 with no credentials and total imposter syndrome. Twenty years later, he's the most trusted voice in IndyCar and IMSA journalism, and in this episode he explains exactly how that happens and why most people in this space never figure it out.

Welcome to the show, Marshall Pruitt. We're just going to cut right in, a little cold intro there. But Marshall Pruitt, you've been around this thing for, this thing we call life, racing, for quite a while. Is it your 40th year this year, officially? I don't know. It feels like that. I started when I was 16 or so, so mid-80s. So, yeah, probably when you two weren't born or were barely born, but that's okay.

I don't feel old. Jesus. Hey, if you think that we're in our 20s, that's awesome. Yeah, but you, so you transitioned into the writing role 20 years ago, which is pretty cool. And you've become kind of like the go-to of all things, any car, sports cars, not just motorsports in general, but that's what at least we know you for. What, I guess I'll start with this question for you. The adjustment from working on the cars, being in the pit lanes, hands-on, and then going into that media role. How was that transition for you?

Strange. It was something I wanted. don't get me wrong, but this, I like to be as prepared as possible for whatever it is that I'm about to do. And this was an ambition where, frankly, a lot of what I do is kind of do it yourself, figure it out as you go along. But I do my best to try and learn up front. This was a case of showing up to, I think my first, what today we'd call Motul Petit Le Mans and walking into the media center. I think this would have been 2005, 2006 ish. And I ended up having no idea what to do, where to go. Total imposter syndrome. Now what's weird, I walked across the bridge,

walked onto pit lane, started putting hands on a car or sitting in the timing stand doing race strategy or engineering, totally normal, no questions, but felt massively intimidated sitting in and among these folks who'd never touched a race car, never driven a race, nothing. But I respected so much of what they did, revered the writers, photographers, and whatnot. So joining that, knowing that in this tribe, I was a complete unknown, complete newbie, had no credibility because again I'm brand new it's a wild thing to process in my like mid 30s or so that kind of like okay I think I can do this I can do this I know some of the people doing this and they're not that good and if I can be here and they can be here we can do this

together but a lot of ambition Vincenzo but no real sense of like yeah I'm gonna kick ass here it was. I'm gonna try and figure it out. Total fake it till I make it. Did you, did you grow up, were you the kid who was a writer? Did you journal? Did you write poetry? Did you write songs? Was writing something you did privately prior to becoming a journalist? Not really. My father was a mechanic, grew up at his shop. He was an amateur race car driver. so racing is really his passion our passion would take me to his races growing up in the 70s and 80s so racing was just always a big part of our family but the writing side my father was really the inspiration for my curiosity with words and it came out of a necessity for himself so he was

born and raised in the South in Arkansas. And he had a really bad stutter and learned how to manage it as he got older, but it was still very prevalent. I remember being pretty young, Lolly, with him, whether it was grabbing the dictionary or sometimes we'd get a magazine in the mail. Believe it or not, back in the day when people printed magazines and mailed them, he'd grab, say like National Geographic was a magazine that he loved and he'd grab that. And if there was say an advertisement on the back page, he'd grab that, grab me and express his appreciation for the writing of that advertisement because of how the words flowed together. And it was all stemming from the speech impediment that he had, where a lot of words you and I use and we're using right

now. He could not use those without those words tripping him into stuttering. And so what he would have to do and started doing from a very young age, which he passed this on to me, is grab the dictionary. So if saying the word hello, I'm just picking something, but if the word hello would trip him into stuttering, grab the dictionary and find other options. Hi, greetings, good morning, whatever it might be, but find alternate words. And it was basically this way to navigate something where with this impediment, he couldn't necessarily communicate as effectively or clearly as he hoped. And so from this limitation of his, which he wanted to make something that was no longer a limitation, he really introduced me to a passion for words and not just using what's in

front of us and obvious, but there's two or three ways of whether it's a different word or a different phrasing. And so whether it's a magazine ad that he'd show me or something where he'd go, wow, this with me, how it's written allows me to say these words, speak these words without having to really think about alternates. But he was constantly looking for different ways to craft speech. And so from that, I did have a, I guess, a natural interest or curiosity in words. And so in high school, then later in college, English in particular is something that interested me quite a bit. So no journalism background, but definitely English and wanting to understand the art of trying to craft words in a good kind of way.

That's lovely. And it's very obvious in how you write and how you express yourself. And I am very passionate about people's origin stories. And I actually quite love that story and can see you with the dictionary in your dad. That's that's fantastic. Yeah, I love that. Is there what's the most unexpected thing that you have gotten out of working on the media side of the business? Now knowing that story, like that's actually pretty, really fascinating that words mean a lot more to you than maybe others think of them. So did something come out of this media side that's been really unexpected? The thing that I didn't know to expect was the continuation of the brotherhood and sisterhood of working on the team side. I retired end of the 2001 IndyCar season. I was about 30, 31 years old. Just, I'd been on the road for half my life doing this. Missed most of the big things like in high school, you go to proms or otherwise, because there was a race somewhere. All by choice and loved it. Don't get me wrong. But believe it or not, by like the age of 30, 31, I think I'd

taken part of five, 5,500 then as a crew member, you know, team, team member, been all over the country, all over, you name it. Loved it. But also just got to that point, Vincenzo, where I was like really hard to have a dog or a cat or a girlfriend, much less a wife when half of the weekends per year you're gone. And it's not just the Saturday, Sunday, it's the leaving on a Wednesday, sometimes the Thursday, not getting back to Monday. You find out that in terms of the time that you're actually home, it's like three days a week, maybe four during racing season plus testing. So just decided like, hey, I either lock in and do this for the rest of my life, become a lifer and maybe never have those things or pull the parachute, say, hey, it's been amazing. I've

been doing this for half my life, but let me see if I can try something else. And so basically, air quote, retired, tried living a normal life, working normal jobs, doing some things here in the Bay Area, ended up meeting my future wife. She said, hey, I'm not going to be married to no dummies, you're going to college. And she's got degrees and masters and bachelors and whatever. So did that. All that was pretty awesome. But I did find myself missing motor racing and also working a real job and pay a whole lot because admittedly, I don't have many skills from the world of motor racing that apply directly in normal life. And so I just spent a lot of time found my weekends. I'm using all my vacation time to get on a plane to fly to Sebring and

engineer a race car for the weekend or manage it, whatever it was. The thing that I was missing was the camaraderie, the team. And so while I haven't necessarily gotten that back through my role in the media, because it is a little bit of, I won't say lone wolf, but you know, it's you, it's not 10 people there reporting with you. Cool thing that I was not expecting was while I'm in a different role, when I get to the Phoenix Raceway paddock here in a week and a half or so for the Indy Open test, it's going to be my friend such and such who I was roommates with at this team. And this engineer here was someone who taught me a heck of a lot. And the manager over here and the driver there I used to work with and like it's that side where I have something that has me

out of the paddock when I'm at the track right granted I'm in it a lot but where I work media center or similar but it is fun and cool knowing that as I walk down pit lane filming something shooting photos and whatnot it is kind of that hey how you doing buddy like that's so cool so that's honestly the thing that really invigorates me and keeps me coming back the stories change the teams change drivers change sounds maybe a little bit homer but like it's the people the people are what keep bringing me back that i didn't know i was going to still have that feeling of that bond in this very different role it's like your homecoming or your prom your high school prom although every you get to do it you don't get to do it the first time but you get to do it all the

time I think I need a sash something like that by the way while you you mentioned uh speed and growing up loving the former speed channel that I worked for and so next time I see you I found an old now granted it's a size large extra large for my melon but this is from back in the day never worn it still got the tag on it so I got a just recent found this within the last week and I'm like, I got to hand that off to you next time I see you. Wow. I don't think people who listen to the podcast know my passion with Speed and Wind Tunnel and Dave Despain and guys like Bob Varsha and Steve Matchett and Rick DeBruyl.

So that means a lot to me. Thank you so much. Of course. Of course. That's amazing. So speaking of names like this, and you're, I would say, very fortunate. You get to speak to a lot of people. And like you say, you're very well-liked.

It's very jovial and a nice sort of friendly environment. But Vincenzo and I are sort of baby podcasters, but you've been at the game for a long time. Have there ever been a situation, and you don't need to give the name, but where you've built someone up perhaps in your head, and when you get to sit down and write and talk to them, you're like, wow, you are actually nothing like you portray yourself to be publicly. I'm quite shocked. For better or for worse? So much.

Maybe the way to answer this is this. I mean, if you've been embedded in anything for a long time, you kind of know what's going on. So you're an insider in that fact. It's more the case of talking with people that you know, and you know who they are, and you see them putting on airs. And IndyCar's recent content days. I was texting with a friend, I was texting with a friend who may or may not have been moderating some of those Zooms and whatnot. Like, who the hell is this person? Like, just leave the driver's name out.

But it, like, I know who this driver is. They know who they are. And it was this like, like this wild thing of like, oh, did, did someone put something in their drink? Like where, you know, where this character you're presenting while entertaining and like, that's not you. And this, there's nothing here that I've seen to warrant this kind of like, hey, it's showtime and the camera's on and blah. Like, it was, right? And I'm like, are you okay? like it was a little worrisome about like is this person having some personal issues that's bringing

like again I don't know I don't know but I'm like I've never seen the side of this person it's those things where you go sometimes should say more than sometimes more often than you'd think they're folks who have some sort of agenda that they will bring into an interview they know they're going to be interviewed they probably know what they're going to be asked and they think about how they want the responses to be received that's a normal thing but in say the smaller world of indycar imsa two places where i spend most of my time admittedly we don't really have the problems of formula one where anything any but even the last place driver says blown up trillion people read it's not right i didn't really have that here again maybe it'd be a good

problem to have because it would mean that the popularity of indycar imps has just exploded but i just find this one a little bit unique because just talk here right we can just be who we are without having to worry about a million different spotlights and all kinds of scrutiny and pressure. And so when you get that, and you can tell someone's like really super manicuring the words they're going to say to affect a specific response and outcome, it's like, okay, again, I'm not unfamiliar with that. Why the hell are we doing that here? This is supposed to be an arena where we can just be ourselves. And I think that's a big part of the appeal. A, I'm not reading to you from talking points given to me to say these five things, nothing

more if you get asked this question deflect and like i've seen those i've seen i've actually had teams send me some of those pre-prepared things just for my own amusement at least in the little world that i float in i never quite understand why even we get those even we're not even anything compared to you and we've sometimes been told that we cannot ask about something very specific or yeah so I know exactly what you're talking about so piece of advice scripts and stuff yeah piece of advice couple pieces of advice if anyone asks if anyone asks you to send the questions in advance say no because the minute you do that you hand full control over your product that you own to people who don't own don't care whether you succeed or fail and only care about themselves

So of the times that I, and don't get me wrong, I get asked, hey, could you send your questions in advance? No. I could, but I won't. Not because I'm cool, but no. A, this is my business, not yours. Just as you have to do things to protect your business, but also place trust in others.

You're telling me from the outset, you have zero trust. Okay, well, then maybe we shouldn't do this. And maybe you two not getting to interview whomever maybe that's part of the sacrifice as you grow but the minute you hand that over admittedly that starts to make the rounds and other folks right you reach out to team a say hey could i interview team principal driver whatever they say sure send us all your questions in advance we'll approve the ones you can ask also here are the things you can ask who the bleep are you to tell me what i can or can't ask another human being that is that person's

choice not yours we're not we're not negotiating here if i can't do this with you that's fine but i'd rather hold the line with my own standards and not do the thing than have this under like some sort of almost like negotiation like hostage negotiation of you can ask these three questions in this amount of time but if you like we're talking about racing here y'all again we ain't hearing cancer. World hunger isn't getting solved from this. We're missing the point. So A, no, if anyone demands to see your questions, but B, the, and you can't talk about these things, sorry, then you're asking me to be like everybody else. And if the best I can do is just blend in and be no different from anybody else, why the hell would anybody watch or listen to what I'm

doing. So I realize that if you get an offer to talk with, if Max Verstappen is going to come over and you guys are going to have breakfast together, that would launch the thing through the stratosphere. You might have to concede a little bit, but if it's not that. So, sorry, little soapbox item here. Well, so you've taken, you've given me so many other things I want to ask you now but i'm gonna i'm gonna try to stick to the lane that we wanted so to piggyback off what lolly was saying i i do want to come back to this marshall lolly had asked you about you know if someone was different do you think and you mentioned media day specifically or content days with indie but do you think that formula one and drive to survive because we've heard and in a lot

of the interviews we've had and and people that we've talked to being in the paddock being you know at f1 vegas and different events there's always everyone always brings up drive to survive i mean mario andretti who we had on the show this past week he brought up drivers like he mentioned that do you think that has done and i don't want to say a disservice because i understand how much it's done for motorsport but do you think it's done a disservice to what people people being drivers team principals mechanics what they think they have to do on camera now or how they have to act around media or has it changed anything and again you've been you've seen this world expand over time like is is it are things a lot different now i'd say it's only amplified that

i don't think it brought anything new in that area reason being trainer i'm using my phone for this right now otherwise i'd grab it and hold it up and show it to you and say before drive to survive existed these little telecommunication devices we use were being used by everybody now granted team policy f1 in particular not so much that i've seen elsewhere maybe some nascar teams lay things out pretty clearly with what they do or don't want crew members to do media wise with their phone don't show this can't say that for the most part folks were already using their phones at the track, at wherever to show something, to post things, help them on their own videos, whatever it is, little clips to whatever. So it's not that drive to survive

kicked off something and now everybody has to be alert and awake and conscious. That was already happening. This has just driven home the importance of it, but also maybe given folks a reason to think a little bit more about what they do, knowing that in theory, the cameras are always on, the microphones are always pointed in your direction even if they aren't that's the general message hi newest lowliest person on our f1 team who's spending their first day in the garage i need you to think like there's a hundred different cameras pointed at you sure and every single word you say can be heard now when you're at dinner when you're in your hotel room Got it. Just be mindful. We live in a time where gotcha is a huge currency. Did you hear what this

person said? It's a mindset folks have to welcome themselves into for the sake of security and comfort of their teams. I don't think Drive to Survive in and of itself sparked something that wasn't already happening. It just really brought it together in a great package and then out to the world yeah um you say oh i was just gonna say that coco goff you know the tennis player coco goff yes i know did you see what happened to her the rack like you can't escape it she just wanted to have a personal uh moment vincenzo i don't know if you saw she lost at the australian open and she went back like behind there's no people and she just slammed her racket in in a moment of frustration and anger this is her her whole life leads up to these tournaments right off the

court right back in whatever you call the the rooms behind the court but yeah not a public thing but no one was around to her belief except there was a camera sitting high overhead that happened to catch her kind of go halfway around like that level of scrutiny i was reading a great thing i forget which site about someone trying to catch some of the recent no media allowed 2026 f1 car testing and getting chased around by local police and whatever. Right. But even that and like the best shots they could get was seemingly from a trillion miles away. And so you see these photos or video that's like a mile wide in the middle, a little grain of sand is an F1 car. But like even that. Right. But how fun. And they just spoke about. Yeah. And then we saw these people over

here that kind of knew the way they were locals. And some of them climbed up in a tree and we went up with them and we hid for a while and shot for it like but even that where you're like i can see no people around me nope even if it's a little grain of sand photo they're always watching yeah i think john noble had posted something about climbing up somewhere with a bunch of people and it was like binoculars and i'm just like what do you do like oh my god this is crazy to follow up on that thought how do you personally how do you avoid that like gotcha journalism because it's so easy to get clicks and views with that how do you avoid to avoid it what do you do to avoid it i think age i think age and tenure so i can't say well i do intentionally avoid it because

since i am established and have been doing this long enough have amazing clients have those clients for a super long time yeah they aren't the ones looking for cheap easy things that are going to blow up for 24 hours be forgotten tend to be more in the the endemic media side and so as a result they're looking for authenticity they're looking for things that are going to feed the folks who love the sport are in the sport call it full-time it's what they live for not so much the here's the little shiny objects that's going to dazzle you for 30 seconds on TikTok wherever and then be forgotten. And don't get me wrong. There are some folks who they are great merchants of that. And that's the main thing they do, which is here's the shiny thing

with a headline or a photo, whatever it is. While it's not something that I prefer, I also realize that I have the luxury of saying that as someone who's been doing this for a long time. If I was six months into this, Marshall, and trying to find anybody to pay attention to what I was doing, I fully understand why I'd be trying to think of like, huh, what's that hook?

What's the thing? If I could get three people to follow me today, cool. And then if I can think of something else, I could get five tomorrow and get some momentum rolling. So how's this? For those who are 21 years old, new to this and doing clickbaity, whatever things, no one should be mad at you. Now, if you're 41 and you've been doing this for 20 years and that's your sensibility, my brother, my sister, we got to have a talk. Because that is, well, frankly, I don't think you'll be doing this for all those years because that's something where you, it's like pets and children.

There's a certain grace period for acting out, acting a fool. There is a point where you go, okay, you still got the zoomies. You're still running around acting great. Like, yeah, you get, come on now. So, but yeah, you got to understand. We don't live in a time, obviously, where like subtlety and chill is the way. to get recognized or go forward in life so i don't know i think you just have to understand it's kind of the way for folks to uh to launch themselves i'm gonna steer this ship into a

arena that i adore into my baby girl a lovely series called indie car because that is an enormous passion of mine as it is yours and vincenzo as well but it really is like my baby a girl I want to know I'm very curious what your thoughts were at the time when Roger Penske Penske Entertainment bought the series and I'm curious also if your thoughts have evolved perhaps a bit with time so let's talk about that for a little bit sure thought it was potentially the best thing to happen to IndyCar in 20-ish years. Having been there, fortunate to grow up in IndyCar in the 80s, working in the 90s and such, really peak era. Now granted, if we're talking post-World War II, when it blew up the 1960s, early 70s, I mean, it was truly the biggest thing. IndyCar was

still the most popular racing series through mid-ish, late-ish 90s, the kart IndyCar series. Roger was obviously a big part of that with his team, but just fortunate due to when I was born, it was pure luck to have grown up, been in IndyCar when it was at its peak. Biggest racing series in the country, scared the living crap out of Formula One. Story that I need to do, and it's an old story but just want to resurface it indycar was becoming so popular in the early 90s formula one openly was considering starting an oval racing series to try and negate indycar's popularity it was their one glaring weakness right by comparison but you think of formula one all road racing street racing indycar was getting so popular doing a number of international events

as well they were thinking about well how do we take away the one thing that's unique to them never happened i don't know if any of us really thought formula one was going to add ovals to their calendar but it was being discussed again just speaking to the size and scariness that the kart indycar series was bringing globally so seeing all that and then seeing kart start to crash coming just right out of the 2000s i was at phoenix international raceway back then for the opening what back then would have been the indie racing league what we call now the indycar series when team penske showed up 2001 their very first uh appearance there's the great late great gil de farin elio castroneves chip ganassi racing had kind of broken ranks coming out of cart uh went

over to the Indy 500 in 2000 with Juan Montoya and Jimmy Vassar and destroyed everybody but if we're looking about really starting to add serious part-time full-time effort switching camps that happened around 2001 that car eventually crashed and died the onset of 2008 but the split had happened before that art was running out of steam champ car emerged but was a shell of its former self. He hated, nobody watched Indy Racing League. All of a sudden receives Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing, what we call today Andretti Global, and so on. All the biggest, most of the biggest teams move over. It gets much more popular, becomes the lone remaining IndyCar series as of after the Long Beach Champ Car finale in 2008. So it's just been the only thing we've had. Just to run through that

little history tour you then get this move through the 20s where it's good racing it's everything's good hard to say anything's great the holman george family which had owned indianapolis motor speedway founded the indie racing league running out of steam decided to sell to roger the huge hope going into 2020 roger bought it the business started to get conducted finished towards the end of 2019. So leading into 2020, we have the most successful IndyCar entrant, Indy 500 winner ever in the history of ever, COVID. Stymies a lot of that. Can't blame everything on COVID. If we look at Penske Entertainment, the parent company of the IndyCar series in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, again, criticism here. They've used COVID as a pretty enduring excuse for a lot of things they

didn't do they were in real financial peril don't get me wrong but took a while so we get out of covid 2022 really 2023 by then feels like earth's kind of gotten back to normal looking for moves looking for big things to happen they're not happening 2024 hey okay we're now many years into owning IndyCar, big things, new things. Hey, nothing happened in there as well. If anything, some things may be going backwards. Get to 2025. Finally, we have some real movement, real traction.

Again, if you wander through the history, handing off to Roger, his team there, the expectation right off the bat, we're going places, big things, didn't happen. It was extremely critical of them about that. They fired back at me constantly. It's the way it's supposed to work. But now in 2025, it feels like everything that folks were hoping for in 2020,

with the caveat of COVID slowing some things down, it's happening. New cars coming, new engine formula still being finalized but is on the way. Get the Arlington event announced. started hearing summer of 2025 about a washington dc race possibly happening without really knowing the roots where that would come from that's now been formalized this fox tv deal right it's been transformational for indycar could be a lot better in terms of ratings average ratings per event not the big indy 500 result which dragged the average up but actual can you get each race to be over a million viewers that's the next big uh crossroads for them to go through but all the momentum lolly

that i think everyone had hoped for and wondered is it going to happen seems like a couple years of stagnancy seemed to kind of sort of all hit coming out of 24 into 2025 now we're in a bit of a waiting uh mode here to see what's going to be next quickly was that the euro light series you referring to with the lola spec cars was that the oval no never happened okay never no no i just okay all right so to follow up then on what you were just saying if you had you were put in charge of indycar tomorrow what would you do to continue momentum because like you you just said things could be a little bit better what would you do what's that one thing you implement immediately biggest thing that i have seen work for indycar in the past we've seen other series used to their

benefit this is not an easy thing to arrange but if you think about a motor racing series like an IndyCar that is great old meaning I don't mean old as in like heritage a lack of relevance but just it's been around for a long time it's well established it's been through mostly peaks been pulling itself out of a valley despite Roger Penske's business success he doesn't look at IndyCar is a place just blank checkbooks, send all my money there for fun. He's a business person. So if you're going to grow a series, if you're going to make it more powerful and more well known, the one thing that needs to happen because it's worked in the past is you need marketing and promotions allies. If we think about all the auto manufacturers that have been

involved in IndyCar over the years, right now we have two. We've had two since the end of 2012 when Lotus pulled out so for 12 13 14 years it's been Chevrolet and Honda they spend a lot of money per year rumored 40 to 50 million could be more a piece certainly been more in the past but they spend a ton they try to market as best they can to help IndyCar as a friend IndyCar has a healthy marketing budget but again they're not just getting a free check from roger to spend there the biggest thing indycar lacks is coast to coast awareness so the solution the fix is not a simple thing like no more of that and everything gets better it's actually a much bigger play more detailed play it's getting more auto manufacturers involved not just to compete and participate

that's the fun part hey we got a bunch of different engines a bunch of different manufacturers in the series yeah what does indycar need more than additional motors being provided they need to be able to tap into the giant marketing budgets of name the companies afford of this of that that's where you x x x the promotional capabilities if i'm thinking back to i don't know let's just say like a phoenix i'm sorry a portland grand prix kart indycar series race from 1998 or a milwaukee kart indycar series race in 96 you'd go anywhere locally you go have dinner at a place probably a chain restaurant pick whichever one you like a chili's or this whatever name one of those where you go okay fair amount of human beings go there on a daily basis you walk in and you see little

placards on your table that have Bobby Ray Hall's Miller-sponsored kart IndyCar Series car, and it's a Miller ad while you're sitting there looking through your menu. You go into the 7-Eleven and you see this. You go over here. It's not just the proverbial billboards and radio ads, which everyone says they need more of. Sure, I don't disagree with that. But the big flex, the big thing vincenzo that you saw and felt was not just the auto manufacturers chevy honda toyota mercedes-benz ford putting full-page ads in those weird paper magazine things that i mentioned but like spending real money to say hey wherever the average american might be sitting at the dentist's office grabbing a newspaper or magazine back then to flip through while waiting or at

dinner or getting gas or we are being seen, whether it's a big box store, Kmart was there, Target was run on down the line, alcohol, major fortune, not just 500 companies, but like fortune 100 companies were involved. It's really easy to say, well, hey, just go get some of them. Obviously, they'd be here if they felt there was value. But at least on the manufacturer side, there are things that can be done i don't know how deep and stupid and technical we want to get but there are ways you want to go yeah well there are decisions that could be made with the 2028 engine regulations that would make it very easy for a wide array of car companies to get involved to supply engines not a spec engine which nobody really wants but something that is

halfway there enough common parts to make the price of participation much much lower decided against that but still well there's still time because to my knowledge that formula is still not finished but anyways long story short what's the thing that indycar needs to become what it could be well it's got a great tv partner in fox so we know fox is trying to blow them up that's kind of the home team now, right? It's no longer just, hey, you're one of multiple racing series that we feature. We own one third of the IndyCar series. So they have a vested interest to their shareholders to try and blow up IndyCar. How many people watch Fox on a daily basis? I don't know. I mean, I generally don't know, but there are multiple network channels. So it couldn't be

the only one. You don't have 100% subscription from folks watching Fox, but that can only help. That'll help get IndyCar's message and existence out to coasts, north, south, everywhere. But then it's really and truly thinking of ways how you can get more auto manufacturers in to help use their vast marketing budgets to promote the series, reach more people. Some of those big box stores, I don't know what the promotions would be, but think about that. How do we get you in, even if it's at a non-significant profit for IndyCar? What's more important, Vincenzo?

So IndyCar adding a lot more money to its bottom line or figuring out ways to use big companies with big marketing machines to say, hey, you probably know F1, you probably know NASCAR. Let us tell you about this American tradition that's more than 100 years old. We put on some really cool racing. How do you get that giant machine to tell your story? That's where IndyCar changes. That's a good, I read something the other day where there was some folks kind of saying like, well, you know, GM, Cadillac, Like, they're spending all this money to promote this new livery in F1. Why, you know, how come we don't see that with IndyCar, with, you know, their other series?

And it's interesting you bring that up now. Like, I never, I didn't really think of it from that perspective, that the promotion shouldn't necessarily only be coming from IndyCar. I mean, obviously, Fox is going to do what they have to do. Like you said, they're directly vested. But those budgets from the automakers, I mean, that's where you need to tap into. and how big those marketing I forget the exact number but like GM's marketing budget the people will complain if I say people you Twitter folks that have no idea they complain about like oh my god they're spending eight million dollars on a on a Super Bowl ad it's like well do you know what

their budget is like that's probably what they spend on pay-per-click ads you know in a week you know I mean it's it's it's insane the the the parallel I would say that maybe it might be the easiest way to to distill things is indycar needs to think of itself despite its 100 plus years of history and stature as that brand new content creator looking for collabs trade more car companies and more big brand companies to bring their marketing budgets to help amplify and spread indycar's message or awareness to the world to think of themselves like a new content creator looking for collabs hey if i could get the red bull f1 team to accept my invite and blow it right yeah just saying it's to be honest for me the mindset is the same how can you help take me

and my little voice here and explode that cool what are the methods because indycar's greatest problem is not the quality of the drivers racing none of that the product's phenomenal not enough human beings know that it exists or for those who have a vague awareness of it probably think that's a funny looking stock car or what do you know what i get all the time marshall like lewis hamilton doesn't drive that what the hell is like i get this all the time because i'm such a passionate advocate for IndyCar and when I'm traveling a lot in Europe specifically this happens but even in even in America and in Canada people say oh I don't like IndyCar because they only race on ovals so I find there's there's this also misconception about what type of racing

happens in IndyCar and we've talked about this with other guests on the show but I do want to ask about this so there's an education piece right that needs to happen so people understand that they don't just race on ovals and that obviously comes off the back of the Indy 500 and other big races. But then something that Drive to Survive did very well is introduce these characters to people. And IndyCar has slowly started to do that. They've really hyper-focused on three, on Joseph Newgarden, on Pato Award, and Alex Palo. How much of that is still missing? And what do you know from behind the scenes of what they're trying to do to create these heroes and villains and market these drivers so people have sort of some skin in the game?

there's a ton here lolly we could spend another hour on this but we won't part two coming up none so pato is obvious right even if no one knew who the kid was he's just always been this wonderful electric fun child from the first time i met him forever ago he's the same way. Now happens to be IndyCar's most popular driver. So that's great. Alex Palou, phenomenal person. So fascinating. Nobody knows him. I know for a fact, whenever I interview Alex, have him on something I do on video, audio, or written words, it is going to just die. No one cares which is sad forget the whole mclaren lawsuit or any of that stuff just as an individual does not resonate with anybody for the most part it's just too bad so i understand the reason to

want to try and surface him and promote him joseph one of the enduring faces and names of the series two-time champion two-time 5500 winner good looking guy like he mr all-american so i get that that makes a lot of sense as well thing that shocked me coming into this year looking at who would be chosen for the fox advertisements for example last year as you mentioned joseph alex um and and pato those three and they've chosen will power as the fourth and only now i love will do not get me wrong he's the funniest craziest greatest like he's just the best Also in the twilight of his career. So we'll have to see how they promote him.

So there is a story there. Don't get me wrong. But I look at someone like Kyle Kirkwood. This is a thing that I didn't understand. So last year, as we're getting towards the end of the season, someone from Penske Entertainment said, hey, so we're just trying to think about who and what for next year's commercials. Just asking some folks, who do you think?

What do you think, right? Not as if anything I would say would change what they did, but they're just fielding external thoughts. And I said, well, Joseph's just had the worst year of his like frontline career. He's had a season or two back in the day before Penske. That wasn't great, but truly bad year. So do you stay with him for year two, despite if we're just talking merit, how you finish in the championship, how well you did like, hey, we're going to try and choose someone

to focus for these new F1 commercials we're doing. And, hey, Pierre Gasly? Like, again, dude, love you, Pierre. But, like, all of anyone that finished ahead of him that wasn't featured in a commercial would be going, but I hit... So you can see how some IndyCar drivers who finished in front of Joseph

who weren't part of those commercials before going, but didn't I just beat... Anyways, but I get it. And what they did with Joseph, brilliant. Best, you know, IndyCar commercial. You know, abs and jawline. Like, that stuff sells, right? Come on.

And he's like a serial killer putting the heart. No, the Joseph as Dexter angle that they took, like, brilliant. So I'm like, okay, while he might not have earned it on where he finished in the championship, oh my gosh, what a brilliant idea. And we'll have to see, you know, we'll see how Will Power's stuff is received. But I'm just trying to think of this. Hey, Kyle Kirkwood in the 2025 championship, top american driver for best ever in his career now with colton heading to f2 hopefully f1

good old kirk kirkwood is the at least for now until power potentially outruns him the top dog at andretti top american in the championship and nobody knows kirk and he's fascinating all he wants to do is get on his boat and fish every time i talk to him i'm like how how did depopulating the ocean go today, my guy. And like, he's renovating houses, right? In his spare time, like he's trying, he's doing things where you're like, wait a minute, aren't you supposed to just like gym tan laundry, like the old Jersey Shore routine and just kind of be this screening driver who's like, hey, I'm just going to stand outside and let you see how cool I am. Isn't that what you're supposed to be doing? But like, so it's those kinds of things, right? Where you go, okay,

you kind of know the main names you might pick, but in year two, if you're not making an effort to say, hey, young driver who's our future, we're going to plug you in here and try and move you along, damn, love will power. I hope what they're going to do there is something that really truly helps. Will's also 44, 45, end of his runway. Interesting decisions here, Lolly, to think of if we're going to use this megaphone to promote what are we doing that helps today versus should we be seeding things for the future so yeah hoping they have pieces in season Marshall like you know how the Olympics does those sort of little bits that we all love and adore I'm praying that we're going to see those throughout the season when we're at certain people's home races perhaps or

close to their state or for whatever reason that we have more lifestyle pieces about these drivers because we do need people to really attach to one of the drivers or a few of them. So there's one big thing which I hope IndyCar can figure out, and this is purely for their own benefit. So we've spoken about drive to survive a lot. We know that it's value. We know what it's done for F1. For those of us who followed F1 for a long time, it's been wild to see.

Like for a lot of old school F1 fans, it's like, oh, nice to meet you. Glad you're here. Where the hell were you? but we're glad you're here nonetheless with what IndyCar has in its partnership with Fox I'm sorry business relationship co-ownership with Fox isn't exactly something that is as widely available as Drive to Survive on Netflix it's through I believe the whole 100 Days to Indy docu-series type thing is through is it Fox Plus Fox One I don't remember the name of their streaming fs1 channels but maybe not fox no it's the true streaming yeah not cable but it's reserved for

their stream pay streaming service not a widely held thing this is another thing where honestly on the what can indycar do to help itself hey pick something that is widely available that has no political overtures this is a downside to this not every person is a huge consumer of fox content whether it's i think network not so much i mean they kind of got from the simpsons to the nfl like there's a lot to love there but you start diving into fox's other products pretty heavy political angle well that's awesome if that's your political jam if you hate politics like me you resist if you are a lover of the other political party it is like kryptonite so just saying reserving indycar's version of drive to survive for a pay streaming service that in

theory half the country would probably go hell no i don't know how that helps do anything to grow it's present so yeah youtube youtube is where imsa has radically changed its awareness its life it's everything it is a hundred thousand subscribers away from being the most subscribed racing series in north america popping nascar i mean it's wild and it's not just because he racing's great and all the things that we would enjoy it but a strategy well known everyone in the industry is looking at this going you are transforming yourself through the use of youtube through live streaming a lot of stuff but just attacking youtube i don't pretend to know what they're able to do contractually between indycar and fox and if it has to be on their for pay

streaming service but boy i know that the win the weekend episodes that imsa does sponsored by michelin created by the good folks at tangent vector what is that million million and a half viewers two plus million per episode free to the world yeah it's something for them to think about yeah it was fox nation is the streaming platform i think that's what that's we're going for i looked it up real quick you answered the question i was going to go for i wanted to talk a little bit about imsa kind of switch into into that and we talked to john dunan at the 24 and he was so geeked up about you know he was like we're about to i'm like you're about to pass nascar and he's like don't say anything he's like yeah but yeah we are and he was just so geeked out about it like

passionate about the digital transformation that they've been going under we had talked to somebody else i actually think it might have been you marshall who was talking about how they are leveraging user-generated content and they're embracing that as their own as opposed to like walling it off yeah only the things we create and you know i think there's and you mentioned how indie should create act like a creator right so there's all of this available opportunity it's like can you just get out of your own way and can you just let it happen and it is fascinating to to watch i love watching imsa do this because i don't know five years ago i don't know i don't know what the numbers were five years ago off the top of my head but you've got to

think that if they continue in this trajectory they will actually it's going to convert at some point right like it will convert fans from that youtube product to somewhere else you're going to get hooked it's just a matter of time what do you think is like the timeline an acceptable timeline for that transformation though like at what point does it have to convert to bottom line imsa indie any of these i think why don't we stick with imsa because i think they're on a really fascinating potential trajectory here and for this reason so back in our beloved speed days, Lolly. The Rolex 24 Daytona cut on speed channel owned by Fox. And you could watch the 24 hours on that single channel. Sit on your couch and hey, I'm not moving. Well, I might have

to go to the bathroom, but I'm not moving from Saturday to Sunday or Le Mans. 12 hours of Sebring, 10 hours of Petit Le Mans. You could get the whole thing on cable. Again, sitting in your couch back than not having to bounce between, all right, we're going to be here for three hours and move over there and streaming a little, like have to do that today. And I think that has become a reality where the Rolex 24, for example, NBC, we're going to start live and end live on NBC, but in between we're going to a bunch of places and you can get us on Peacock streaming, but then we're going to spend some time over. We do not live in a time where any significant cable channel or network is going to readily make 10, 12, 24 hours of nonstop action available. Knowing that that

really is the heart of IMSA's product, half of their calendar are what, six hour races or longer? Knowing that so much of what IMSA does doesn't necessarily fit that traditional, we're going to be on network where we're going to get the most viewers for six plus hours straight, not going to happen. I do think digital is indeed the place where they need to go and commit to that. Not that I think they have a really long contract with NBC. I don't foresee that changing anytime soon, but I'm just saying overall strategy specific to IMSA, other than getting a little blip here, there for a short race, right? Some of the shorter races, maybe we'll get, you know, some, some good network windows but for the most part it's going to be streaming it's going to be cable

the ratings numbers aren't going to be amazing do you continue to deal with that knowing that the 18 plus auto manufacturers official manufacturers invested in IMSA are looking for the best ratings they can get to help justify ongoing participation it's the same in any series But I do wonder, I mean, I generally wonder, Vincenzo, is there a strategy, a strategery shift coming up where you go, do we just go all in? Is there a way we can do this with NBC where they say, hey, okay, so it's still going to be on network for whatever number of races, going to have the Peacock streaming platform for sure. How much more can we make available on YouTube, for example? looking at the numbers that just came out a few days ago was it 3.8 million viewers on youtube for the rolex 24 i mean that's wild massive those are the kinds of numbers where name all the auto

brands involved there are going okay cool only change and again this maybe of all the things we've discussed fits the business of speed motto better than any other how do auto manufacturers regular sponsors value what's the valuation process for their participation in the sport there are a lot of different ways attendance for the event but we know that the quote tv numbers the nielsen ratings are giant so there is still that televised mindset which they prize and say The bigger the number, the more we can value what we spend, what we invest or justify. I just do wonder how much longer it's going to be until many of them say, you know what, the Nielsen digital ratings, that's actually where we're going to shift our, not our priority,

but what we hold is most valuable. I don't know if the televised thing will ever truly go away, could, but I do think for an IMSA where they've clearly got lightning in a bottle with their digital delivery, YouTube in particular. I wonder if that's a place where you start talking to those manufacturers, to those sponsors saying, what if we keep trying to go in this direction? Would you go with us and place equal value to that as you would a TV number? I'd hope so. I mean, a viewer is a viewer, right? That leads me to a question, actually. If somebody hired you, forget about your journalism career, but you have this encyclopedia of knowledge of so many aspects of the business of racing. If somebody came to you and said, Marshall, we want to hire you as a consultant. This is a company, it's non-endemic to racing, but they have money to spend and they don't know exactly if they should go the IMSA route or IndyCar route. Where would you advise them?

Where would they get maximum ROI today? Where would you leave them? Which series? Who's to say I don't already do that? Opa, well, there you go. So where would you send them? For the sake of the show, I guess. But truly depends what they're looking for, Lolly.

That's when you get those outreaches. Hey, love racing. We think there's something cool happening here, which is true across all forms of racing right now, right? Hey, doesn't matter what it is that you love in racing, most likely it's really having big popularity, a bigger popularity right now than it's had for a long time. But the question to fire back is, cool, what are you trying to do? Do you have a thing to sell? Do you need people to buy the thing? You have an actual product, hi, trying to sell pens,

whatever it is, cool. Then we need to think about maximizing putting your product in front of people who are going to see and feel that. That is a activation on site, most likely. Are you an awareness campaign, right? You're not necessarily trying to get people to buy more of your product tomorrow, but to say, hey, we exist. We're a new company, whatever it is, we're trying to branch out in the marketplace. Cool. Who are you trying to do that to? Are you skewed younger or skewed older? These things all steer us in different places. Are you looking for tribal loyalty, right? Well, if you have anything vaguely automotive, whether you're selling insurance, car parts, I don't even know what, IMSA is pretty hard to turn down, right? That is a full car

culture place. The car corrals themselves that you see at the events with folks who just want to bring and show off their amazing, accurate BMW, Lexus, Porsche, BMW, like it's wild. You think about demographics and IndyCar skewing younger for sure they've made huge gains there in recent years really adopting a much bigger digital promotional plan they still have just about the oldest fan demographic in motor racing at least in the country if you have something that again your mom or your dad might like or Tia this or who met you like right you this is a place you might consider to do that because you know you're going to reach viewers at least who probably might like your product it's not always like i say this being a little bit older than y'all but

my wife and i often laugh when we're watching web whatever it is that we like and start seeing commercials and it seems like 90 of the commercials today are all some sort of medical product hey take this pill take this shot whatever it is yeah but we do laugh every now and then like you know what the thing we've just chosen to watch tells us who they think we are because these are all like look my yeast infection cleared up a long time ago y'all okay like whatever it is but like i'm going like yeah i the demographic they were told to aim for in this show i don't know if i fit that this hitting us well it's reality but like you do kind of get told who they think you are based on the ads they're chucking at you and it's tons of like mitt mobile

commercials and and doritos and pepsi you're like okay you probably think i'm 22 and whatever but like that is a real thing so depending on what it is you're trying to do and who you're trying to reach that is lolly a bit of the matrix of like cool we're going to imsa here we're going to nascar there we're going to indycar here formula one there's almost a do no wrong type thing i believe you could sell anything and i believe everything is being sold in relation to f1 and you mentioned vincenzo you mentioned the the cadillac thing and why are they spending so much on this and why aren't they spending it the same amount of money and where's that energy to do that an IndyCar. This is the uncomfortable thing, right? Folks tell you their value of you based

on their habits. And if you've got someone who's just like around you and buzzing around you all the time, you're like, okay, cool. They're kind of down with me and think I've got something cool going on. When you're going like, hey, have you seen them for a little while? It kind of tells you. They maybe aren't seeing the same value in you as they do someone or something else. Chevrolet is committed to IndyCar. To me, there's no question. I absolutely believe they'll be back. They'll sign to stay and continue supplying engines beyond 2026. My own belief, I'm not revealing any realities here or any hard news, just my own belief. But you look at what General motors is spending on formula one granted a lot of it's the andretti global twg motor sports yeah

a lot of that funding is coming from them but regardless it just tells you boy they see a ton of value in f1 it is manifest and all the wild number things they're doing haven't seen a lot of chevrolet or general motors related commercials of late with indycar i don't know how many i've seen Cadillac, GTP related. I hope we'd see more Corvette Racing, GTD Pro. We know they place value. They spend money for those things to exist. But then you have to stand back, right, and go, cool, you've got all these things to choose from. What are you pushing the hardest? We see that clearly F1 really commanding most of their interest right now. Marshall, we typically end our show with a question each that we really enjoy asking.

But I'm going to do something even different with you. I'm going to ask you, let's just record another episode another time, like a part two, because there's so many things that we want to ask you. And to keep this in a relatively listenable hour or so, it's going to be difficult. So I, instead of asking those final questions and closing it up, I want to be continued. How does that sound?

Hey, I thought you were going to say we were going to sing a song. We can, so we'll practice. Maybe we can sing a song too. Yeah, or, you know, yesterday was a big celebration of Jay Dillow's life. So I thought we could do, recite something from Donuts possibly. I saw you're a fan. I saw you're a fan. Do you want to do it like impromptu right now or you want to practice for part two? No, I mean, there's a reason that I type for a living and speak into a microphone instead of sing.

rap or otherwise but i was gonna try to bait you guys into doing something uh no not at all