IndyCar & NASCAR Execs Should Seek Average Fan Treatment

Regular fans at Iowa Speedway.

First and foremost, credit for this idea goes to Joe Berkemeier of Trackside Online, a reader-funded news services for IndyCar fans, to which you should all subscribe immediately.

Joe’s genius idea floated many years ago, is this: every executive in IndyCar, NASCAR and all big-deal sanctioning bodies, should be expected to attend at least one race a year as a fan. No VIP anything. Choose your average fan amenities (motel, camping, day trip to the race track), enter with a ticket, sit in the average fan seats, eat the average fan food.

It’s an inexplicably beautiful idea, and here’s why:

It’s always good for the bosses to have a first-hand customer experience. If you’re an executive for Target or something, that’s easy. Just go to a Target store where they don’t recognize you, buy stuff, pay for it. BOOM. It’s just an easy way to see the pros and cons of your customers’ buying experience for yourself.

But that’s hard in racing, because there are average fans, and then there are credentialed people and even VIPs. There are multiple levels of access and amenities at race tracks, depending on your level of cash and connection. Most senior executives for IndyCar, NASCAR, what have you don’t deal with going through the gate, standing in line for a beer and hot dog, sweating it out in the stands etc. They get chauffeured in via VIP access routes, flashing the badges and credentials, whisked right into the deluxe infield parking, getting golf cart rides to wherever they are going.

That is bad for business, because it insulates you from the fan (customer) experience, and the fan (customer) experience is the most important thing in business. Period.

So, if I’m the King of IndyCar or NASCAR, I do this: I tell my executives to pick any race — except the Indy 500 and Daytona 500 — to attend. The company will pay all the expenses, but you have to choose from options available to the average fan. So no $542-a-night hotels, no eating at the four-star restaurants, no sky box at the track, etc. You’re staying at the Holiday Inn if not the EconoLodge, you’re driving yourself to the track, you’re parking in the pasture with the other fans, you’re walking in, presenting a ticket, sitting in the mid-range seats. NO infield access, unless you pay for it. So with IndyCar, sure, infield access is usually for sale, so pony up the extra $30 or whatever and get it.

Then sit in the stands for the race, file out with everyone else, drive out of there, go home. Soon thereafter, we sit down and total up the expenses for attending the race — including everything from gas to motel to food both at and away from the track — and then we talk about if you feel fans get full value for that money.

I can’t imagine a downside to this plan, except nobody wants to let go of their VIP access, which I full understand. I would probably cling to it also in their place. But ONE race a year as a fan, surely, won’t hurt Mr. Suite Dweller, and if it does then you got a big issue from a customer-experience perspective.

You can (and should) do all the formalized customer experience research and surveys, but nothing replaces having the average customer experience firsthand.

Even a lot of us bloggers, who think we know the fan experience, are a bit tainted by our access (at least I am). Media passes from the league or the tracks let us go a lot of places average fans can’t. Media access means no tickets to buy. A place to sit with our computers in the air conditioned media center, chances to question drivers, free food on the buffet. Cruising through the grandstand side of the track a couple of times and looking at it from the pits doesn’t give us the full picture of the fan experience.

Bravo to those bloggers who also attend races as fans, which in IndyCar world primarily happens at the Indy 500. I try to go to the IndyCar race at Iowa Speedway a ticket-buying fan for race day, but still, the media access on Friday and Saturday taints my view a little.

IndyCar and NASCAR for sure should make The Berkemeier Rule law. (Note: almost positive this doesn’t happen in IndyCar, but maybe it does in NASCAR. If so, I’ll happily stand corrected.) I doubt it ever happens, because all-access and suite seats are probably viewed as a perk that goes with the league VIP job. Pity. IndyCar and NASCAR would be better if the execs sat in the stands now and then.

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Comments

[Tom Rowell]

This is a brilliant idea that should apply to all sports. Let's see how Mr. NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB owner feels about paying $25 to park, $10 for a beer, $5 for a hot dog etc......

[Sandy]

Those of us with little tiny blogs don't get any special access, and we still attend races as fans. Because that's what we are. :-)

[Marc]

Excellent Idea. I would even go so far as to suggest that it would be good for them to try the experience of an event volunteer. I regularly work racing events as a marshal, and it is very different from the two experiences you compare here. We give our time and are at the mercy of the promoters and organizers. Our days start well before any on track activity and do not end until it has completed. Often we are given our lunch in the 5 minutes between track activity and asked to continue flagging while we eat. I will admit that you can't get much closer to the track and that is why we do it, but I am sure if the people making decisions were to stand in our shoes they may make some different decisions.

[The Speedgeek]

I think this is a decent idea, but with two questions in mind:

1) Will the "loss" of said exec for the weekend from the role of "flesh presser and hobnobber" (plus, of course, their other regular duties that they can't perform because they're hanging with you and me in the grandstand) be offset by a future increase in ticket sales or ticket prices (presumably, because they'd be adding more fan friendly experiences)? Not trying to be snarky here, just pointing out that there needs to be an actual, tangible business function for such an exercise, otherwise this is a "non-value-add" activity.

And 2) is there any particular experience that you currently think needs to be addressed at any particular track/event? Personally, even though I am a "blogger" in the most tangential sense of the word (if you can call somebody who posts 3-4 times per year such a thing), I have 99.9% of my race weekend experiences on my own dime and recognizance, but I can't think of much that needs tweaking other than a couple of very minor quibbles here and there (and those haven't really impacted my desire to give my return business to a track one way or the other).

Just curious.

[pressdog]

Geek: 1) I think the actual, tangible business benefit is to make execs more personally aware of the fan experience, and said knowledge will inform other decisions. It's not going to produce ROI in, say, 90 days, but it will have a generally positive impact on the business over time, IMO. As to if they can be spared, I can't speak to that. I have difficulty thinking that a deputy couldn't take the helm for the Big Dog for just one race. If nothing else, they should go through the ticket gate and sit with the fans during the race 2) the point isn't what can be fixed or not fixed, the point is to give the execs a personal experience. Remove the buffers and get them to experience it personally. Everyone is unique. My goal would be to get THEIR opinion on what's good and bad, not just simply have them take the opinion of others. If everything is FANTASTIC, great, but this would still be a proactive move to keep it that way, IMO

[The Speedgeek]

Fair enough. Carry on.

[D.J.]

Lovely idea. Would be even better of it could actually happen. Living 15 miles west of Speedway, I spend every day possible in May at the rack. During the practice & qualifying days of the Grand Prix of Indy, I noticed Mr. Prez of IMS, Doug Boles on the mounds in T1 & RT2. To me as a fan, its a nice touch that the president of IMS was out in the turns with the fans. He didnt go as far as you are suggesting, but he also didnt stay in the pagoda (or wherever else he stays). Also nearly every day I was at the track (except on the race days) he was talking to regular fans, engaging with them. Just my $0.02, take it for what its worth.