THE STATE OF THE RACING INDUSTRY |
You became the president of PRI in the middle of an incredibly challenging time for the industry . Do you see that as a setback , or do you see it more as an opportunity to try new things that otherwise wouldn ’ t have been as impactful during normal times ?
The line I use is I don ’ t really know it any differently . This has been a year for protecting the industry and looking for opportunities to move us forward . I think there have been a lot of setbacks , but there have also been some great opportunities that the industry has taken advantage of .
It ’ s pretty widely known that racing parts are back ordered and that some of these racing parts manufacturers are having some of the best years in their history . Some of these 50-year-old companies are up 25-40 percent . There ’ s been some good .
For PRI , it was a huge , huge bummer that we had to cancel the PRI Show , but that was the way the whole world went . Our pivot was the PRI Road Tour , where we took the show on the road and put our content creators in a van . We were on the road for 77 straight days and the team visited 100 manufacturers , capturing content , letting them launch new products , tell their story , and it did amazing things for the industry . That was my biggest concern .
It did great things for PRI as a brand and our social platforms . To give you an idea , over the last 365 days , PRI Road Tour content has reached 65 million unique people . That ’ s more than a Super Bowl commercial of reaching super-targeted , race-oriented fans that can ’ t wait to see what ’ s coming next from the industry . There ’ s a ton of momentum at PRI right now and we ’ re just helping this big industry move as fast as we can .
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PRI ’ s new membership program launched earlier this year . What was the idea behind that new initiative ?
The membership idea really started more than two years ago when Wade Kawasaki , who was the chairman of the board at SEMA , positioned James Lawrence as the chairman of the PRI task force with the initiative to help the racing industry . I was on the SEMA board and I was on that task force . Wade had placed me there to work with James . I never imagined it would evolve into having the opportunity to be the president of PRI .
The initial work from that task force pointed us in the direction of PRI being the brand that all of the racing industry could come together through . If you think about the racing industry , there ’ s all these different groups . You serve the drag racing side , but there ’ s an equal amount of circle track racers , a little bit less road racers , drifters , karting , and we can
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THE PRI GROUP IS KNOWN FOR ITS ANNUAL TRADE SHOW IN DECEMBER , BUT THE ORGANIZATION IS ALSO INVOLVED IN ADVOCATING FOR THE RACING INDUSTRY AND EDUCATING ITS MEMBERS ABOUT ISSUES LIKE NAVIGATING THE COVID-19 SHUTDOWNS .
even say the video game racers on iRacing and things like that . Our goal is to bring those folks together in one common organization .
We spent the better part of two years working with the SEMA board of directors looking at multiple models . It just has happened that we have the EPA cracking down on race parts manufacturers , then the pandemic .
PRI launched an ambassador program where we hired three experts on racing that were literally going track to track asking , “ Are you guys OK ? What can we do to help ?” There were a number of the mom-and-pop-owned racetracks that had never even talked to their local health officials and never knew why they were being shut down and lumped in with concert venues . There was a lot of work done there on the political side that taught us how much the racing industry really needs representation .
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On the political side of what you do , the RPM Act has become a major topic . How is the RPM Act going to impact the industry ? How is PRI working to avoid any issues from the federal government ?
We ’ re seeing a big impact right now . This goes back to when Scooter Brothers was the chairman of SEMA and all the great work that [ SEMA President and CEO ] Chris Kersting has done to get this industry ready for what they had perceived as this day , which is an interpretation of the Clean Air Act where race cars cannot be built from street cars . The RPM Act protects the transition of a street car to a race car in its simplest form .
In drag racing , I know the hardcore , headsup guys have dedicated chassis and bodies , but my estimate is 90 percent of the racing world is made up of street cars that have been turned into race cars . It is the industry . That ’ s why getting the RPM Act passed is so important . It ’ s been a six-year battle . We ’ ve gotten better ,
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78 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated . com |
Issue 170 |