INDYCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 13, 2023

Doug Boles

Glenn Johnson

Mark Miles

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. Happy race day. We're here to celebrate the most sustainable month of May ever. Providing an update today on some key Indy 500 sustainability initiatives, earlier today, just released, the INDYCAR diversity and sustainability report is available both on IMS.com and INDYCAR.com and there will be a more focused media gathering coming up later this month.

Joining us today to talk a little bit about sustainability, Mark Miles, president and CEO of Penske Entertainment Corp.; to his left, Doug Boles, president of Indianapolis Motor Speedway; and to his left, Glenn Johnson, who's the executive director of contracts, keys2work.

Mark, we're at IMS, but really this is an initiative that began the season-opening INDYCAR race on the Streets of St. Pete, well before that, actually, as well. If you could bring us up to speed on the sustainability initiatives here in 2023.

MARK MILES: Thank you, David. Good morning, everybody. I'm happy to do that. First, I just want to, again, emphasize the report. We're very proud of this, not just the fact of it and that I think it's pretty thorough and clear and comprehensive as a way for you all to catch up on what we've done over the last considerable period of time, both with diversity and sustainability, so it's important to us, and I hope that you all will have a chance to absorb it.

The report -- today we're talking about sustainability, but the report is about both diversity and sustainability, and later before the 500 in the next couple weeks we'll have a meaningful opportunity to talk specifically about diversity, as well. We're looking forward to that.

Today, by the way, in terms of diversity is a big day. We have the Indy Equity Collective, which is 100 chief diversity officers from around the state who are here enjoying the place but talking amongst themselves about how they can advance the mission of diversity and equity and inclusion in our society, in our businesses.

We have Force Indy Racing, having raced, Myles Rowe ran in the USF Pro 2000 earlier today. I think ended up maybe fifth.

And from like 10:00 a.m., just started through noon, out over by the museum, we have NXG Youth Motorsports doing an exhibition and demonstration which is really fun. We'll go over there later and see these young people getting into racing in a big way and try to encourage them.

Today is about sustainability, but there's a lot going on with diversity, as well, and as I said, the report tries to talk about both.

Listen, as you said, Dave, clearly this is the most sustainable May yet. We said that last year. We were just getting started. Like diversity for us, there's no end game. This is a way of life. We get better all the time. We have more impact. We're more responsible. So this is just an opportunity with you all here to mark some progress that's been made that we think is very significant.

We think it makes sense, and maybe Doug will talk about this, talk about sustainability in particular at IMS because in our minds, sustainability obviously is about the environment and all, but it's also so directly related to innovation, and if this place stands for anything in addition to speed in its history, it stands for innovation. To us, it's sort of a perfect extension of our DNA and our history, and when we get into some more of the details, I think that'll be clear.

There has been a lot going on with INDYCAR this season. Maybe the most conspicuous thing is Shell giving us 100 percent renewal fuel, race fuel, which is terrific and really puts us ahead of the game to a great extent in motorsports and has been accomplished without any glitches whatsoever.

The Firestone Firehawk race tire, the guayule rubber we talked about last year, we showed it in the Pit Stop Challenge, and now as you know it's being used in INDYCAR at all the street races, and I suspect that will continue to expand over time.

We have a new tire or a new mixture in the current tire for the 500. The chemical is called butadiene, but what I would say as a layman is we are recycling used plastic, consumer plastic, and that's now an ingredient in the tires that are out on the track for May, the black tires. That's a collaboration between Shell and Firestone, an example of innovation and how important it is that our partners are totally committed to this journey with us, and we appreciate that.

We extended with NTT, and NTT has made no bones about the importance to them is sustainability, and they're involved with us, so far in behind-the-scenes things like the programs, the trackers that allow us to keep tabs on our profile on our carbon footprint and the like, which is foundational for these efforts, and I think maybe it's time to turn it over to Doug because he will talk much more about the IMS perspective on this, but we were very proud, again, to get the certification through the Council For Responsible Sport for the facilities and the event here.

That's just a short answer to your question.

THE MODERATOR: I'm not sure Doug needs an introduction here at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but Doug alluded to it a little bit about the venue-wide strides that have already been made, and to Mark's point, it's only the beginning, right, Doug?

DOUG BOLES: It is absolutely the only beginning point for us, and it's something we've really been focused on the last few years.

I do want to touch on something that Mark said before I answer your question. The diversity piece is super important to us, and if you have a chance and can go out and watch the NXG folks running over there, it's a really cool program that's been here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for over 15 years.

When Roger bought the speedway, he's really doubled down in terms of supporting NXG, so the young kids here in central Indiana who are competing in go-karts. It's a great way to go see that program. That program is expanding to other communities, as will. We've done some things in St. Louis and Detroit thanks to the Penske Entertainment leadership.

But it's a great way to begin to get young kids who might not think that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is open to them, to give them an opportunity to come here and really understand what racing is about and connect firsthand, and Rod Reid, Coach Reid, does a great job with that program, so if you have a few minutes, I'd encourage you to walk over there.

First I want to say thanks to Shell and to Firestone for all of the partnership that they've really given us as we've started to walk through all of these sustainability components. It starts high level with Mark and everybody at the NTT INDYCAR Series, but it really hits home here as we start thinking about our sustainability. We have great partners in that respect.

Having NTT re-up is a great one, as well. The technology that we use here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to help our customers get in and the things that they can help us as we continue to think through sustainability is really important.

I think most people know that when I speak, I usually speak from the heart, and it's pretty easy. There's so many things that have happened here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the last year that I'm going to go from a few notes to make sure I don't miss anything because it really is remarkable when you think about this 114-year old facility and what we've been able to do to focus on sustainability.

One of the biggest things that you'll notice around here and I know our teams noticed as they pulled into the garages this year, we continue to think through all of our lighting and our LEDs. We're going to spend well over a quarter million dollars this year on continuing to make sure that we're retrofitting everything that's outside that's not LED, our high bay lights that you see in some of our bigger spaces and in the garage area with LED lights.

One of the things we've heard over the last few years from our teams is the lighting is not perfect for them inside the garage area, so for us to be able to update those garages with new LED lights has gone over really, really well. It's also good from a sustainability standpoint.

One of the things that Glenn and Mark and I have up here, we have these really cool aluminum cups, aluminum Solo cups that if you're in our premier spaces, our hospitality spaces, and you're drinking beers, this is available to folks. It's recyclable. Our friends at Novelis, Penske Logistics and Ball have really helped us in getting this out. I'm pretty excited about them, and hopefully at some point in time we'll be able to figure out how we use those at a few of our concession stands where some of our fans can drink their Miller Lite out of those and then take them home with them.

Last year we really started a program focused on our food waste and even food that was not wasted yet, so some of our prepared unused food that are in the suites, we've been able to package that and send it to Gleaners Food Bank where that's used, but we've also been able to start composting that food that was already used and taking care of it.

This year we're expanding that compost. We're composting our food, but we're also focusing on composting some of our pallets, so a lot of our wood pallets are now being composted. A lot of the grass clippings and the things that the facility guys pick up are starting to be composted, so we've really expanded that program, which is pretty exciting.

Glenn is going to talk a little bit more about the recycling part, but that's really where we engage our fans is how do we get them to recycle, so when they're bringing those coolers in that are full of their Pepsi cans and their Miller Lite cans, how are we figuring out how do we recycle those, and we've got a little bit of work to continue to do because we're trying to educate our fans on what's recyclable and what just goes into waste, so Glenn can talk about that a little bit.

I went by our merch shops on Wednesday, actually bought a couple shirts, wore one last night. We have some really cool recyclable clothes that are made out of plastic bottles. We first started doing that last year, but we've expanded that line. It's amazing how soft those shirts can feel. Just right outside the media center here, we have our electric-powered merchandise truck that moves around, has a bunch of sustainable merchandise in it, so we're thankful to the partnership with our friends at Legends to continue to think through that.

When you check out at our merch stores, we have a fully recyclable bag that's made from plant-based materials, and you can tell when you pick it up, it's a little gritty and it's see-through. It's clearly recyclable.

I'm excited about that because it was pretty strange when we were so focused on our efforts of sustainability yet you were not getting a bag that was fully recyclable, so when you buy your stuff at the merch store, you'll pick those up. So happy to continue to do that.

We've also worked with our staffing partner On Demand to really help us think about how we're recycling, so when you look at the thousands of cans that Roger has helped us put in around this speedway over the last few years, the green "We Keep Indy Clean" recyclable cans, and then our black "We Keep Indy Clean" trash cans. On Demand really helps us start thinking about making sure that that stuff is sorted correctly.

Then we work with Glenn and his team at Keys2Work, and we literally go through and hand sort those things, so that's why we're trying to educate our fans on what's recyclable and what isn't, so that hand sorting process can be shorter and quicker.

Then all of that once sorted ends up going to the Waste Management facility where we are continuing to divert as much as we can from landfills.

In addition to Keys2Work, one of their partner groups, the staffing arm called Recycle Force, we've actually encouraged them to help us, and they've been great at helping us with some of our bigger things, so the new pylon screens that you see, the structure is the same as last year, but all those video boards are the same, so Recycle Force has been great at helping us figure out, how do we recycle things like those old LEDs, how do we recycle things like old radios as we transition out of the radios that so many people use here as well as some of our electronic waste. It really has been a big focus here.

I'll leave you with one last point.

I'm an old guy, I'm 56, and I remember growing up, it was about litter, right. You threw your things in a trash can because you wanted everything to look good. So you're trained always to do that.

It's amazing how when you put a recycle can out there how easy it is to really think about litter but also think about the recycling. What I was unsure about was how an older fan, somebody like me or older, was going to engage in our recycling. The number of people who have come up to me in the last year to thank Roger Penske and Mark Miles and everybody at Penske Entertainment for doing what we're doing on recycling and sustainability blew me away.

It isn't something that just young people are concerned about. Our fans who have been here 50, 60, 70 years were very, very appreciative of that, so I'm excited to continue to do it. I'm excited to engage with fans who are excited to help keep Indy and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway clean but more importantly recycle those things that we can recycle.

THE MODERATOR: Finally to Glenn, good morning. I know as Doug just alluded to, we're all excited about having the opportunity to work with your organization, Keys2Work. Tell us a little bit about the mission, the values and this new connection here with Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

GLENN JOHNSON: First and foremost, I would like to thank Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Thank you all for having us. This new partnership is amazing. We're excited simply because this is something that we naturally have been doing for years, and so it fits right into who we are and what we stand for.

Keys2Work is an alternative staffing organization, which primarily focuses on staffing the underserved communities, the homelessness, the at-risk young adults, the folks who are reentering society from the criminal justice system, just a plethora of individuals who with wanting to work and get back acclimated with the system.

The same with Recycle Force, which is our partner. Husband and wife, both own both entities, and Recycle Force has been our -- what we would call our transitional jobs program that is a social enterprise and they specialize in recycling anything that has a cord on it. As they mentioned earlier, the pylons, the old radios, things like that, that is something that even residentials such as yourselves would like to take to our warehouse, you can bring that in. If it has a cord, we'll cut it off, we'll break it down to its simplest form and recycle it.

The cool thing about that concept is that the individuals who are working at breaking those recyclables down, their lives are also being recycled, as well. It's a good combination of doing work for the ecosystem but working in a humanitarian effort, as well.

As far as the partnerships amongst us, like I said, Keys2Work and Recycle Force pretty much goes hand in hand. We've always been associated with each other, husband and wife, as always, own each entity, and we're growing. So we're super excited about this partnership and look forward to many more along the years. Thanks for having us.

THE MODERATOR: Mark alluded to it earlier, there certainly is no end game here, but the journey has come a long way. Mark, there's a lot of pride when you come into this facility or the INDYCAR Series, the paddock, it's everywhere, the pride, where it's headed, where it's come from and where it's going.

MARK MILES: Well, there's no question about that. It's completely infused into every one of us that is here, every day, all year, and then it just gets better when the fans come and we can kind of show off our pride in the place.

I think that's another reason that -- part of that is not just the facility, it's also being good citizens. I know our employees, all of us, care about that deeply. We want to work at a place that is not just carrying its weight but being a leader.

So these two buckets, if you will, these two hugely important initiatives of diversity and sustainability really matter to all of us here, and it's another source of the pride that we take in the place. It's the pride we take as an employer and as a builder of teams in this great community.

Q. Mark and Doug, as someone who comes from the NASCAR world, which I primarily cover, the idea of a TV blackout in a local market is all but verboten. In a world where VPNs and social media exist, why does IMS and INDYCAR continue the local blackout for the Indy 500?

MARK MILES: Well, it's a fair question but not a new one. We've had this conversation for many, many, many years, and recently here in this community.

We think this is a unique event. With all due respect, and I mean with complete respect to our friends at NASCAR, at Indianapolis for the 500, we sell as many tickets in the 500 hours after this race, renewals, as they have at the Daytona 500 in total by the time they run the race. And that is in no way meant to be -- like I said, we have complete respect for them. It is meant to emphasize how important attendance is to us, to the success of this event.

We have to get people here as they have been here in growing numbers for many, many years. We're really clear-minded about the fact that for us, attendance is first, and this spectacle emanates from the vibe here on race day with 300,000 plus people here. I think that's unique.

I didn't in any way mean to go off on NASCAR. I mean that sincerely, but you mentioned them, and it's an example of a big event that doesn't do that. Most of us don't. That's why we do it, and I think it's a model that we intend to stay with.

We also, I think, have demonstrated over the last few years that when getting people here is not an issue, either because it's COVID and we can't bring anybody here, or because the number of people that could come were limited and we were definitely going to have that total here, then we do open it up. We like the idea that people can take it in, whether it's linear or streaming.

But for now, that's our rationale, and it's important to us.

Q. For Doug, last August or July, I asked you about what the plans were for the NASCAR road course event for the Cup Series here, and you said for 2023 it was probably going to be on the road course, and now the talk is that starting next year it's probably going back to the oval. What's the story with that?

DOUG BOLES: Yeah, so we continue to talk with our friends at NASCAR and think through when the right time is to come back on the oval. I think we've said for the last several years that we would probably be back on the oval at some point in time.

I think before that decision is made, we have to align with our television partner, with the folks at NASCAR. Obviously if we're going to switch from the road course to the oval, we'll need to do some time with Goodyear because they'll need to figure out what kind of tire to bring here. They haven't been on this oval for several years now, so to be able to come here and think that through. We'll definitely get back there at some point in time. I don't think we've made a final decision yet when that will be.

Q. Mark said earlier, Shell has renewable fuel this season for INDYCAR racing. Is this fuel also available for road cars, and was it necessary to maybe do engine changes, modifications?

MARK MILES: I'm happy to take that. No, it is not yet available to the consumer, but I expect that it's a work in progress. And no, we did not -- we tested the fuel as we normally would, whether it was regular ethanol or this renewable fuel with Chevy and Honda and the teams, and there were no changes required. It was really seamless.

Q. For you, Doug, you mentioned recyclable bottles. Let's say when this place is packed, maybe millions of recyclable bottles. Is IMS working with a here in Indiana or Indianapolis or everywhere in America?

DOUG BOLES: So we start here obviously. We start with our fans to help us get that recycled, and when Glenn's team comes in with Keys2Work, they help us sort those things out, and then from there, Keys2Work will send things to Waste Management. We have a large relationship with the folks at Waste Management in terms of helping us make sure that we're diverting as much as we can from the landfill.

MARK MILES: Let me be a little more granular. You see recyclable bins and regular, so the fans, we're asking fans to throw the recyclable stuff in the recyclables, but that's not enough. Once that's done, then we collect that material, and the staffing goes through that and sorts it again to make sure that the things which can be recycled will be recycled and separated from the stuff that's going to the landfill. It's a whole 'nother level of investment and work to take the stuff that's put into the recyclable bins and make it appropriate for recycling.

GLENN JOHNSON: And that's happening real time. That's actually happening right now if you go around to these collection sites, you will see staff members sorting through this, taking what we're going to recycle and shifting over trash to the actual trash bins, as well.

Q. So there are centers at IMS --

DOUG BOLES: We have locations here at IMS where things go from the recycle cans to these locations and where they get sorted. When I talked about earlier the education process for our fans, because so many things say they're recyclable, but in terms of what we can really recycle, it really boils down to pretty much your plastic bottles and your aluminum. Some of the cardboards can, but if they're soiled too much, we want them to go in the trash.

So what his team is doing is looking at what we think is recyclable and then they have to go through and sort it to what is truly recyclable and the other stuff that actually goes to the trash, and then from there it ends up going to Waste Management.

Q. There are a couple of locations --

DOUG BOLES: We have three locations here.

MARK MILES: There's three here and one off-site.

Q. This could be answered by Doug or Mark, perhaps both of you want to take a stab at it. When I was flipping through the presentation today that you guys sent out, I was thinking back to why this facility was originally built in 1909 by Carl Fisher, trying to be a leader of testing what cars and automobiles can do and being a leader in that sense. When I look at this report, I know of the sustainability things that you guys have talked about, the things that you guys are working on on track between Shell and tires, the hybrid engine that's coming out next year, and I just wonder if you guys could maybe put into perspective if you feel like maybe IMS and Penske Entertainment and INDYCAR is back in this mindset of trying to be a leader in innovation and sustainability that all of this was really built around more than 100 years ago?

DOUG BOLES: I'll start on the Carl Fisher connection and I can let Mark add on to it. The place was built in 1909 to test the technology of the day, which was the automobile. Folks were starting to see automobiles and they were being build here in Indianapolis, and there wasn't a place to really test them. More importantly, Carl Fisher wanted a place where American ingenuity and especially central Indiana ingenuity could be tested against the world, and that's why in 1911 we had the International 500-Mile Sweepstakes, because he wanted to bring as many people over here and pay attention to things that were going on in Indiana.

While I agree we've ramped it up, I don't know that we've ever really stopped testing technology at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. A lot of it's been driven through the NTT INDYCAR Series and the things that they've done over the last couple of decades, or think about the SAFER Wall here is something that started here that right now every racetrack and especially every oval racetrack finds that they absolutely have to have for driver safety. So that is central to our DNA.

I think if you step back one step further, too, it's pretty central to the NTT INDYCAR Series DNA, and Mark can touch on that, and even more so I think it's central to what Penske Entertainment does and what Roger Penske does, so you see a lot of the things we're doing here are parallel with Roger Penske's organizations, with the NTT INDYCAR Series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Q. A quick follow-up on that, Doug and Mark, do you feel there's more of a push towards sustainability and testing the limits from a technological standpoint with Roger's takeover of IMS and the series over the last four years? Are we seeing more of that than we might have under previous ownership?

MARK MILES: It feels a little bit more like a car question, an INDYCAR question than maybe this place, so I'm happy to try to take it.

We're all about innovating and executing. So sometimes when I hear pushing the limits, I think the rocket goes up and blows up in space. We can't blow up on the track. What we have to do is set the vision and then challenge Honda, Chevy, Dallara, our ecosystem to deliver. There's really important work in that regard going on right now. I don't think that people understand its significance, and that relates to the much-talked-about hybrid that will be on the INDYCARs next year.

You can buy a Volt and you can get a hybrid. There are plenty of even race series that use hybrids, but this is actually real technology development work. The system isn't taking somebody's battery and putting it on the car and linking it up with a hybrid motor with an internal combustion engine. It's real development, and it's amazing the work that's gone into it, and I can't say enough about the job that Honda and Chevy in particular are doing with INDYCAR's engineers and others to deliver on the promise, the premise. That's serious for us, and it's early because you haven't seen it yet, but next year we're confident that we're going to be able to deliver that, and it will be a great addition to INDYCAR racing.

Part of it is sort of a sustainability story, right, but for race fans, it's about boost. It's going to give INDYCARs the ability to have more time on track when they can have more boost and enhance the racing. More horsepower, better racing.

I think it's going to be a very important -- it is a very important program and one that tons of work is going into.

I guess maybe just to close, innovation is possible through partnerships. In any walk of life, you bring different disciplines of science together and magic happens. I think that's what we're doing now with Firestone and with Shell and Honda and Chevy and Dallara, and the more -- one of the great hallmarks of Roger's tenure here, ownership here, has been bringing more partners and partners with real substance and wherewithal in, and it's the collaboration between all of them on things that we all have in common as priorities like sustainability that is really helping amp up our activities.

DOUG BOLES: I'd just add to Mark, he is absolutely right. Roger is the catalyst for all these things. He's also the connective tissue that pulls it all together, so we are fortunate to have him. I do think that is a piece of why we're driving forward so fast, so quickly, since the beginning of 2020.

Q. Mr. Johnson, welcome. Tell me a little bit more about your company and where I can go to learn more about it if you could, please.

GLENN JOHNSON: Keys2Work and Recycle Force, we're based here in Indianapolis, Indiana. Keys2Work was founded in 1996. They obviously offered the seed money to start Recycle Force in 2007. We've done amazingly well here in our community. We're partnering in with the city of Indianapolis, Citizen Energy, formerly raised, now working with Waste Management, as well, and a plethora of other partners, and our main focus, like I said, is to serve the communities that are needing to be built back up and serve the individuals that are needing to be built back up, but we're also doing it with a conscience, meaning we're trying to recycle anything and everything.

If you're from this city and you're moving around this city, anytime you see an individual with a vest on that's cleaning up litter, we call them "litter control specialists," those are our guys. We partner with the city and Keep Indianapolis BEAUTIFUL to be able to move around the city and make it a cleaner space.

This contract here with IMS allows Keys2Work and Recycle Force to kind of put it at a higher level to say, hey, we will successfully work with a major organization to be able to not only recycle in real time but show that it can be done at a huge sporting event like what's happening in the month of May.

THE MODERATOR: We'll leave it there. Thank you so much, Mark, Doug and Glenn, as well, another important day in the history and journey of Penske Entertainment and sustainability.