I fired up the replay of Trackside with Cavin and Kevin and, dude, you gotta listen to John Lewis, the IRL VP of Marketing & League Development. Um, OK, where has the league been keeping this guy? I'm nodding and agreeing with basically everything he said.
Lewis talks about what they do to find out what current fans want, all of which I had no idea they were doing. Talking to ACTUAL fans who watch on TV and go to tracks about what they want.
Lewis also came out strong about flipping the script -- and then shredding it up and burning it -- with a radical new car. Then he talked about the "Year of the Fan." Insert me breathing into a bag with excitement here.
Note to IndyCar: when you are doing many things to help the series, maybe don't keep it a secret. I follow the series pretty closely and hand zero idea much of this was going on.
Amen. I'm listening to the podcast right now, and when he started talking about focus groups and the 83-page document of fans' ideas, I said to myself, "Pressdog's gonna be spewing some beverage all over his MP3 player right about now."
Posted by: The Speedgeek | November 20, 2009 at 09:23 AM
Dude. I almost cried several times and my chair now has a huge stain on it. IMO the league should be trumpeting the shit out of everything he said, because it all made me feel about 47% better about the future of the league.
Posted by: pressdog | November 20, 2009 at 09:31 AM
Completely agree, they need to clone this dude and make him the talking head of IMS
Posted by: 16thAndGeorgetown | November 20, 2009 at 09:32 AM
John Lewis is a visionary. Not because he commissioned the Silent Pagoda -- but in spite of it. That egregious error notwithstanding, he GETS IT. And will do wonderous things for the League.
Posted by: Roy Hobbson | November 20, 2009 at 09:37 AM
Listening now...and feeling better about investing some time, money and passion in this sport. It looks like I'll keep taking my two boys to see some Izod IndyCars.
Posted by: Mike Krapfl | November 20, 2009 at 09:54 AM
John Lewis...really...John Lewis?
Let's see who John Lewis really is...*Scooby Doo mask pulled off*
Angstadt!
And he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for a meddling kid like me.
On the bright side, the Year of the Fan will last for a millennium.
Posted by: will-isitmayyet.com | November 20, 2009 at 12:19 PM