Q: Is the AMA name going to change on the racing series, or is it still going to be branded the AMA?
EDMONDSON: No, it’ll be AMA Pro Racing. There’s a long heritage of AMA racing, and while, again, those of us who consider ourselves to be insiders, we may rail against the Man day in and day out, but the fact is, the general public considers AMA racing to be the real thing, and rather than start from scratch, I think our best interests lay in taking that brand and taking it forward. This is a departure from what the initial intention was when Rob first started out. They wanted to divorce themselves from the sport, because they felt in many ways the controversy that is attendant to racing was holding the AMA back. But again, we’re honored that as a sign of confidence in us, they’ve agreed that we can use the name AMA Pro Racing to carry it forward. And we’re going to carry that name with pride.
DINGMAN: And I would add to that, also, that it was very important to us in this deal that we maintain the AMA champions, and the AMA professional racers will always pursue that AMA No. 1 plate. And we will continue to sanction amateur racing, as well.
Q: A question for each of you. Rob, how many groups submitted proposals, and did any other group submit a proposal incorporating all the racing properties like DMG?
DINGMAN: There was not another proposal that embraced everything that was embraced by the Daytona Motorsports Group. Most of the proposals confined to one or two or I think as many as three disciplines. But none of them proposed to take over the sanctioning as well as the management and commercial aspects. As far as the number, Dennis, would you recall the number?
RHEE: Fourteen.
DINGMAN: Fourteen bidders total.
Q: And Roger, do you have a vision for AMA roadracing at this point, or is that yet to be determined over the course of 2008 with feedback from the stakeholders?
EDMONDSON: Well, the vision, the overall vision, is no different than it was for me back in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I want to see this sport reach its potential. When we started Grand Am, the same thing, the original idea was simply to go in and try to take sportscar racing to the next level. Well, we’ve gone about three levels since where we were back in the beginning. I think that it’s important that we find a way to move to true professionalism here. I’ll give you an example. I don’t think that one rider, one bike, a guy getting in a van and going somewhere to race for prize money is professional racing. In other words, the old division used to be, if you made a little more money than you spent, or if you had the potential to make more money than you spent, that was professional racing. Professional racing is when you leave home and your bills are paid for by a sponsor, and you’re representing a company.
So our goal is to try to build this sport to the point where there are professional teams who are sponsored and who have an entity of their own, much like Richard Childress Racing is in NASCAR. So that’s not just in AMA roadracing. That needs to be true across the board. If it comes down to operational issues, obviously I think roadracing first and everything else second.
You asked Rob about the proposals. Many good companies made proposals, and one of the next steps for us is to go out to those companies and conclude their deal, because their deal will now be with us instead of being with the AMA. And there are a lot of good, talented people out there who are ready to make investments. But to make the full investment that’s necessary to grow their particular discipline, they need to know that their property rights are intact and respected. And every contract that we do will be a model after the Live Nation contract. I have to tell you that was part of our thoughts. At the beginning, we were only interested in roadracing. And we looked at the tremendous success of the Live Nation program, not only in terms of the events they run and where they run them, but in sponsor sales and ticket sales and all the things they have done. And that’s a model for what needs to be followed, and what the other sports need to do.
On roadracing in sportscars, we looked at 1948 as the day that Bill France started NASCAR, and we looked at that as the same point
in time when people started racing sportscars in this country. And then we looked at the comparative size of the two, and the public acceptance of NASCAR versus the public acceptance of sportscar racing. What went wrong? We need to take the same hard look at motorsports, at motorcycling motorsports. And if we look at what’s been done at Live Nation, that does create a template for us on the contracts we’re going to try to make with the other specialty people, so that motocross and flat-track and hill climb and all of those other things that we’re going to be responsible for, is put on a solid business basis with companies that know what they’re doing, and we’re going to build it to where all of those disciplines are loaded with people who are sponsored and can take a real professional view, not just a hope for a purse and a check that’ll get them home that weekend.
Q: Roger, this question is for you. With Grand Am and Grand Am Cup, Grand Am Cup still follows the formula of production-based sedan racing, where Grand Am and Daytona Prototypes kind of took an independent arc from anything else in sportscar racing. So with the AMA roadracing, do you plan to take it more in the same direction as some of the other national Superbike championships and World Superbike, or are you thinking, or at least considering, taking it on a more independent arc, kind of the same way that you did with Daytona Prototypes?
EDMONDSON: Well, let’s examine why we did Daytona Prototypes, and go back even a step further. Let’s look at the early days of NASCAR. At the beginning NASCAR raced real cars that you could buy at the dealerships. And in fact, there were people who crashed their cars on Friday’s practice and bought new ones that night and were able to race them on the weekend. And then they went, not so long ago, they went to the tube frame car that was a different car, and of course now they’re doing the Cars of Tomorrow, which is a completely different step. We have no plans for the Motorcycle of Tomorrow, okay? We’re going to continue to base our product, our racing product, on motorcycles that you can buy.
You know, the industry’s made a tremendous investment in carrying this sport. I’m talking now about the manufacturers and distributors in the United States. They have really spent a lot of money to build the sport up to where it is. Not only in fielding teams and in designing product that can be raced as well as ridden on the street, but also in supporting the promoters with sponsorship and hospitality programs, and program management, all those things.
That asset is a head start we didn’t have in Grand Am. We started with nothing. We had no rules, we had no employees. We had one race date, and that was the Rolex 24. I laugh about it now, but the first sportscar race I attended was the Rolex 24 that I had to be responsible for. But I had the right people. And it wasn’t my genius in running that event, it was my genius in hiring the right people. Well, I hope God’s still got that working for me, because I believe the right people are out there, and I believe that they will be attracted to this. The one thing that’s been the wind in my sails through my entire motorsports career has been the association with Jim France. I have been blessed to be able to make my living, do what I enjoy, and at the same time providing him with programs for the things in which he has passion.
And so we go into this knowing – I know this sounds cocky, but forgive me – we know it will be successful. Once the France family decides to move forward on a project, it does not fail. It may have some hiccups, it may have some problems. But it is not going to be allowed to fail. This is quite clear. I’m not a kid any more. This is the last mission for me. I don’t want to walk out a failure either. So I’m excited about the opportunity. It’s going to make me feel young again for a little while. But we’ve got a great future in all of these things by getting the right people together.
