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INTERNATIONAL MOTOR SPORTS ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 25, 2019

THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with our press conferences this morning. We are now joined by IMSA CEO Ed Bennett and IMSA President Scott Atherton. Gentlemen, thank you for being here this morning. Let's just start, start of the season, 50th anniversary, some thoughts on both of those here.
ED BENNETT: It's an exciting time. Glad everybody is back here with us. The 50th anniversary of IMSA, so much history and heritage to celebrate. I think it will be a fantastic year with a lot of great moments, tipping the hat back to the last 50 years of IMSA and hopefully looking forward to an exciting beginning to the next 50.
SCOTT ATHERTON: Hard to add to that, other than I think if you go back to the beginnings with Bill France and John Bishop, I have to believe that they're looking down with big smiles on their faces and pleased with how things have come together in this 50th year of IMSA.
Many of you, if not all of you, that are close to our championship know that it always hasn't been like this. There have been some tall peaks and some really deep valleys. I think the byproduct of the merger has been a steady, sustainable growth curve that we're confident will continue, and I think it gives us a great environment in which to celebrate a 50th anniversary.
It wouldn't be quite as much fun if we weren't hitting on all the cylinders that we are right now, so we kick it off here at Daytona, but it's a season‑long celebration. We've got some tent pole events. We're focused on drivers and teams here in Daytona. We're going to focus on events when we go to Sebring. IMSA will be the featured mark at the Rolex reunion in Monterey. I believe that's the first time that a sanctioning body has been the featured mark. Typically it's obviously an automotive brand, Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, whatever. That event will be focused around the championship and the platform as a whole. A lot of focus on manufacturers there who are our partners in this.
And then the last of the four tent poles of our 50th anniversary celebration will be at the Motul Petit LeMans, where with a tip of the hat to Don Panoz, we will be focused on our fans. If you recall Don when he first launched the American LeMans series had "for the fans" as the tagline and the logo. Drivers and teams here, events at Sebring, manufacturers at the Rolex, and the fans at the Motul Petit LeMans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
THE MODERATOR: Earlier this week we announced a record 19 manufacturers. This is your first opportunity to really speak publicly about that. What does that mean to the series and the growth and the stability of the series?
ED BENNETT: I think all the different formulas. We have a total of 10 different specifications currently that are a part of the IMSA, different championships and series. Hopefully living up to the first letter of IMSA, stands for obviously International Motorsports Association, so one of our strategic elements has been to be relevant globally. So more than ever, we're racing global technical specifications that are relevant to our OEM partners. They can race many of these specifications around the world.
So it just makes it a lot easier, I think, to have programs and to have brands come in because they're not just using most of these specifications here, they're using them all over the world. So we think that's a great model. We're proud of all the brands that are involved, and hard to believe there's still others that are talking to us that aren't currently a part of the club.
SCOTT ATHERTON: I think having 19 manufacturers involved could be described as the high tide that lifts all the ships, and that goes across the board. Even for the media partners that are here, at the end of the day, it takes activation to make this platform work. It certainly is critical to our promoter partners. To use one example, and I'm not speaking out of school because I saw a press release regarding it, great media partner of ours, Racer Magazine, Pfanner Communications, they have put together a commemorative issue to acknowledge and commemorate the 50th anniversary. It's out today. Paul Pfanner shared with me that this represents an all‑time record revenue generated issue. So at a time when print publications are not typically setting records, it's gratifying to hear news like that. And it's largely driven, not exclusively but largely driven by the manufacturer involvement and the other partners that we have in this championship. It helps everybody.
And if you go no further than a quarter of a mile from where we sit right now, you'll see 11 or 12 very high‑profile OEM displays that make it part of the show. Tonight, tomorrow, Sunday, they will be very, very busy places, and at the end of the day, that's what we're all about. We're enabling our partners by every description to leverage the value of these platforms, these motorsports platforms, to move their product, to build their brands, and to engage with the fans that ultimately become our customers' customers. It's a good thing. 19 automobile brands actively involved in IMSA.
THE MODERATOR: Last night you gentlemen were at a function for Christian Fittipaldi who's retiring after this race. What's he meant to IMSA and sports car racing in general?
SCOTT ATHERTON: It's hard to be succinct and brief when talking about Christian because he has touched so many in so many different ways. I had the honor last night to present him with a small token of our appreciation from IMSA for what he's meant to our championship, keeping in mind that he's raced in Formula1; he's had tremendous success in IndyCar with the Newman/Haas organization; he's raced in NASCAR at the highest level. But thankfully he's also made a tremendous mark on his career and on so many through his sports car activities, and that's what we were focused on for obvious reasons last night. It was just a wonderful evening and a great opportunity to acknowledge the role that he's played.
He's got a roomful of trophies. He's got a drawer full of Rolex Daytona watches. But we wanted to acknowledge the role that he's played with us away from the racetrack. He's frustratingly good‑looking with an amazing head of hair. He's articulate. He is fun. He is a gentleman, and he's the consummate package.
If you're guys like Ed and I, he's one of those people you love to hate, but we somehow get around that, and for our promoter partners, he's a go‑to guy, and he never said no, even when we know at times we were conflicting with his personal schedule and things he would otherwise prefer to be doing. He's just focused on enabling us to build this sport. Good news is he's going to continue in a different capacity. It won't be behind the wheel, but he'll still be actively involved, and for that we will all benefit.
THE MODERATOR: Yesterday obviously we set track records in every class, both championships. What are some of your thoughts on that as we head into the season, as well?
ED BENNETT: It's an exciting time, these programs, all these different specifications that are a part of the IMSA family that are being optimized further and further, but I think it's really an opportunity, and appreciate everybody that's helped to build‑‑ to get things to where they are today. But have to really give special recognition to our new partnership with our friends at Michelin, obviously a global leader, premium products, the best in their category, best in class. Having an opportunity to partner with Michelin to bring them in and expand their involvement to where they're really our primary supplier partner, it's obviously going to pay great dividends. They're the best in the business, best in the world.
SCOTT ATHERTON: I would echo those comments. I would also say it's a great opportunity to reflect on the impact that Dan Gurney had on this sport. It's taken 26 years to eclipse the track record that was set by the Toyota Gurney Eagles with PJ Jones behind the wheel. Couldn't be more pleased that we've done that. I would say it's about time, and I think you're going to see more of that throughout the coming season and for years to come for that matter. The technology involved in these cars, certainly the Michelin tires, some really good conditions yesterday, and that will obviously carry us through tomorrow, as well.
It's fun to be talking about track records again. If you remember Tom Carnegie at the Indianapolis 500, "It's a new track record," we haven't said that in 26 years here.
THE MODERATOR: What about just the growth of this event, the Rolex 24? You've touched on it a little bit, but just how it has expanded and the fans and all the other amenities for everyone here this weekend.
ED BENNETT: It's kind of the official, to me, beginning of the motorsports season. It's the first big event of the year for all the different disciplines, so you get obviously all the IMSA regulars that are a part of it, but you also get folks from IndyCar, from Formula1, from DTM, from Supercars, from all these different NASCAR, all these different disciplines around the world. It's a lot of fun because you get people with a lot of different backgrounds to be a part of it.
There's a lot of history. This is the 57th. I think that the IMSA Rolex 24, definitely the international swagger of the event, which was Bill France Sr.'s original vision for the Rolex 24, I feel like that vision, that desire is back alive and well. I think it's had its moments where it was higher or lower from an international recognition and prestige standpoint, but I think it's very well positioned, and rightfully so, back on that stage along with all the other great international events.
SCOTT ATHERTON: My only addition to that is last Sunday the front page of sports in the Daytona paper had a headline that said, "it's Rolex time," and the content of the story was about the stature of this event that has achieved its own standalone status. It used to be, with all respect, a bit of an unspoken, unofficial start to Speedweeks that frankly operated a little bit in the shadow of what's next, the Daytona 500. Hard to get away from that. But look no further than what's happening around us as we speak and certainly what will play out over the next two days. This event has arrived in its own way, and it is its own standalone, and I think it absolutely commands the global recognition and stature and just the cache of the Rolex 24 at Daytona has achieved an unprecedented level with no sign of slowing.
It's a wonderful way for us to start our season. I just came from a promoters' meeting across the street where we had all 12 of our promoter partners in town, and they recognize the value of how we can all leverage this beginning of our season at what is arguably the Super Bowl of sports car racing, certainly in North America.

Q. Obviously IMSA had to get its feet underneath it after the merger. With how much progress we've made in the last five years with the series, how much are you looking forward to the next five years?
ED BENNETT: Speaking for myself, it's a lot more fun now than it was in 2014. That was an interesting time, and I think everybody really has worked together over these last five years. I think probably the secret ingredient of being in a stronger position overall is not IMSA the brand or just the people who work with IMSA or work for IMSA. It's everybody. It's the drivers, the teams, the track promoter partners, the OEMs, the key suppliers. I think that probably the secret sauce of this generation of IMSA is how well everybody is collaborating and bringing all these great ideas, not just from North America but from around the world. I'm really excited for the next five years.
I think things are as stable as they've been in sports car racing for a long time. A lot of people have worked really hard together to try to have the best ideas rule the day. We have a lot of long‑term partnerships for all the key areas, whether it's our partnership with Michelin, our television partnership starting with NBC, the relationship with WeatherTech. These are all really long‑term relationships, and that was all on purpose.
Easy to say and hard to do, but you've got to have the foundation be strong to be able to build upon things, and I think we've not had the strong foundation that IMSA has now probably ever. So we're probably in the best position IMSA has ever been in.
SCOTT ATHERTON: Yeah, the only thing I would add would be the fact that the next five years in those critical categories that Ed just mentioned, entitlement partner, broadcast partner, tire partner, we know where we are. It's not speculation. And having been through many, many years of not knowing what the next year brought, let alone the next five years, we're in a very, very enviable position.

Q. In November you had the Michelin sports car encore with a four‑hour enduro. Are we looking at possibly seeing more four‑hour races in the future, not just in November?
SCOTT ATHERTON: There's one other event of that duration on the calendar. We were very conscious of not getting ahead of the teams' budgets because race cars operate like airplanes and boats: By the hour. So for every hour that they're out on track, there's a meter running. We take those cues from our teams. We also are very conscious about how the schedule is configured. We have more demand than supply for content to be on our weekends, and a four‑hour race takes up a lot of time. Plugging that into the Roar weekend, which was a brilliant idea for Mr.Bennett, that some people kind of looked at him sideways when it first came up, and now of course it's a great success so everybody is taking credit for it.
But that will be the dictator, budgets and just overall scheduling.

Q. Two questions for you, Ed. Obviously currently in the prototype category, DPi and LMP2 are two different classes now. Nevertheless, to attract more LMP2 teams, are there any plans or efforts to reduce the technical gap between DPi and LMP2 so that LMP2 has a little bit more chance on the racetrack?
ED BENNETT: I think just given that they're separate classes there‑‑ last year we had them both in the same class, obviously, and technically that was difficult. The cars are different enough to where, whether it's different performance elements of DPi versus LMP2, we thought it was a better decision to have them be separate classes, which is probably a more global approach to LMP2 versus what the top class is in a platform.
I think the cars themselves‑‑ we tried not to decrease the performance of LMP2 last year. To be honest, we were having to pull back pretty significantly the performance of DPi and felt like it was the right thing to let DPi reach its full potential from a performance standpoint, and LMP2 is really running more or less at the global level.

Q. And the second question, for future championship calendar, are you planning to go to areas where IMSA never have raced before, maybe another city race or street race somewhere in America?
ED BENNETT: We do a three‑ to five‑year calendar planning process. Proud of the calendar we have. It has a lot of the historic significant events in North America. But to be honest, we're always looking. We're always talking to people. There's a lot of interest in North America for IMSA events. We want to be respectful of the partners that have helped to build IMSA to where it is today, particularly that we're there when we started this new journey with the merger and the new championship in 2014. But there's some markets and there's some tracks that we're talking to that we've been talking to for a couple years, but it goes back to Scott's point. We have to be very careful about the team budgets, so it gets hard to add races. So really what you're talking about is replacing a race, which at some point in time I'm sure will happen. It's not what we wake up and think about, but we're always talking to people that we think could be a great host for an IMSA event, particularly if it's a new market.
SCOTT ATHERTON: There has consistently been interest by many in hosting an IMSA weekend. It's all been driven by budget related. Our teams have been very outspoken with us in terms of what they're capable of doing. And keep in mind, in the first two races of our championship, the Rolex 24 here, the Mobil 1 Twelve at Sebring, I think in terms of running time, that's an entire IndyCar season as far as hours of racing. So when you put that in perspective, we have to guide ourselves accordingly.
THE MODERATOR: Ed, both you gentlemen touched on the NBC relationship, and really that started yesterday in earnest with their preview show and coverage of qualifying. What does that mean as far as getting IMSA in front of more people throughout the year and in the future?
ED BENNETT: To me when you look‑‑ and appreciate everything FOX did to build us to that level that we achieved by the end of 2018, but really this opportunity gave us a chance for more distribution, always being on what I would say at least a fully distributed cable channel, so you've got an opportunity to reach more people. I think you'll see them cross‑promote IMSA with other sports properties, other motorsport properties. IndyCar, NASCAR are different properties; they have Mecum auctions for cars, even super cross. I think they'll do some promotional things.
So they're going to put their own fingerprints on it, do their own presentation. I think you can see from all the announcers they've brought here, they really plan to blow it out. I think the production value for people that are watching on television, whether it's the graphics or the announcers or the sound, I think they're going to take everything to a different level. So it's an exciting time.
SCOTT ATHERTON: Yesterday if you didn't have a chance to actually watch the live qualifying on NBC Sports Network, find somebody that taped it and take it in. Any question that may occur regarding NBC's level of commitment and what will be different going forward will be immediately answered. To put it in perspective, yesterday at 2:00, a season preview one‑hour show fully produced with all the bells and whistles preceded a two‑hour live qualifying show. Unprecedented for IMSA. We've never, ever had that. And we need look no further than that example to see what NBC will do with the content of their announcers, the production values, every aspect of it. I can't wait to see the results for this weekend and for the season to come because we're very confident that we're going to post up some good results.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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