There are times when Kevin Miller can only shake his head as he ponders all that has transpired since he took the helm of the United States Auto Club on Dec. 1, 2007.
Shortly after he settled into his Speedway, Ind., office, he recalls staring at a photo of all the past presidents of USAC. In a moment of reverie, he wondered how the late Dick King remained in this post for so many years. Now, Miller’s 17th anniversary with the club is at hand.
It was a curious set of circumstances that led Miller to this job, one he was not seeking. When he signed his first contract, he figured he would remain for a maximum of five years. Then, when he dug deeper into the finances he wondered if USAC could possibly survive even one year. Now that the crisis has passed, Miller’s personal goals are far more aspirational.
Like many leaders he longs to leave a legacy and ensure the long-term stability of USAC. Such goals can often be more ephemeral than real, but Miller can boil this down into quantifiable terms.
“I want to leave USAC with a strong sustainable future,” he said. “That means the new office headquarters is paid off with a sizable reserve in the bank.”
Long before he even gave USAC a passing thought Miller was in an executive position with Mopar and comfortably settled in the Detroit automotive scene.
“Things were going well for me at Chrysler,” he said. “I was in charge of the Mopar brand globally, along with motorsports and business planning.”
Of all things, it was midget racing that set the stage for a major life change.
“We were in the middle of developing our midget motor with Gary Stanton and at the same time Toyota was developing a motor and Ford also had one in the works,” Miller said. “Then, I got a call from Steve Lewis who was all worked up because USAC had changed the rulebook. They gave more cubic inches to the Esslinger and Fontana prior to us coming out with our engines. We had just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing these engines and then they changed the rules.
“I decided to find out what this organization (USAC) was all about, and maybe just try to buy it,” he said. “I sent a letter to the board and Johnny Capels (the president) invited me to dinner in Indianapolis. We had a long conversation and he said they were looking for a new CEO. I told him I wasn’t interested.”
However, the automotive industry was in a bit of a meltdown.
“Daimler had bought Chrysler and then they sold it to Cerberus, which is a breakup company,” Miller explained. “I thought, ‘What am I doing?’ Smart people are leaving Chrysler, and I don’t want to be the last person to turn out the lights. One of the things that always bothered me was that the guy who hired me as a young kid turned 55 and retired.
“I watched him leave the building, go to the parking lot, get in his car and sit there for an hour. I thought no one would remember this guy tomorrow. Sure enough, they take your badge, you can’t get into the building and you’re gone.”
Miller was determined that this was not going to be his story.
“The USAC offer started to become appealing and I thought maybe there is something there,” he recalled. “So, I sat there in 2007 and thought, ‘Wow, if I could turn USAC around that could fulfill a marketing challenge and leave behind a legacy.’”
Miller met with Capels and USAC board members Jeff Stoops and Tony George and signed a contract with USAC at the SEMA show in Las Vegas in November 2007.
There was no time to rest as he was immediately confronted with several vexing problems. One, he wished to alter the image of USAC as a stodgy, inflexible and retrograde organization. Secondly, he needed to change the internal culture of his club consistent with his new vision. Finally, and most critically, he had to find a way to keep USAC financially afloat.
Miller quickly rehired Jason Smith into the USAC fold and the pair headed to the PRI Trade Show in Orlando on a mission.
“We tried to make a statement that we are here to change things,” Miller said.
Meanwhile, he was shaking things up in the USAC office.
“On my first day the office manager brought me the employee handbook,” he said. “It covered what you were supposed to wear, what time you came in and things like that. I went to a staff meeting and told everyone to throw them away because we aren’t operating that way.”
Perhaps the most eye-opening moment came when a member of the staff brought a catalog to his office and told him to pick out what clothes he wanted to order. He was stunned. Looking up he said, “Do you know what this company made last year? She said probably a couple of hundred grand.”
That was one of several disturbing revelations.
“I walked in and was told we have five years’ worth of money in the bank and in my first week we closed the books on the fiscal year and there was a $700,000 loss,” Miller said. “In 2008, the market collapses and we have only $600,000 in our portfolio and I am doing the math and I’m thinking wow we are negative $500,000 in our line of credit, we have $600,000 in our portfolio and we lost $700,000 last year. We aren’t going to make it.”
As well, NASCAR withdrew its support of USAC Silver Crown racing after having helped develop the controversial next-generation Silver Crown car. As Miller and Smith, who had left USAC to run the Premier Racing Ass’n, which competed with the old-style Silver Crown car, prepared for 2008, only one pavement race was on the docket.
With Smith back in the USAC fold, the duo made the move to go back to the old cars. The move delighted some and enraged others.
These were desperate days. Miller recounts digging through the USAC basement and finding old officials’ shirts and Indy car pop-off valves to sell on eBay. Did it work?
“Year one we made a $19,000 profit,” Miller said. “When you show $19,000 profit you’ve got no cash.”
Yet, Miller decided to take a different tack. USAC was going to negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness. There was a name here, a history and a level of prestige. If there were co-sanctioned events, USAC took the lead. If there were major races in their wheelhouse it was important to be at the table.
As he did his due diligence at USAC Miller found sponsorship agreements that had little to no money attached to them and situations where others seemed to pull the strings and make critical decisions. It was time to flip the script.
Opportunities seemingly arise when one least expects them. In 2008, Smith attended the annual promoters’ workshops and met off-road racer Ricky Johnson. At that time Championship Off-Road Racing was live on NBC but was going out of business. Johnson was trying to resurrect the series and USAC agreed to do a one-off race at California’s Perris Auto Speedway.
From that, Johnson arranged a meeting with a group of off-road racers and The Off Road Championship was born. In the inaugural season, Monster Energy owned the title, but with drivers pushing premium TV coverage on ABC and ESPN, the group lost $4 million. Once the season concluded, the series fell into USAC’s hands as Monster Energy management no longer wanted the risk.
It was a pivotal moment for USAC. Miller had support from the series’ key sponsors AMSOIL and Traxxas, but one matter still nagged at him.
“I put the numbers together and I thought I could do this, but I can’t afford television,” Miller said. “Then when I was back in Indy I was lying in bed, and I have a new flat screen television on the wall. I was thinking about how to do this when I was clicking through the new HD channels. They had some car shows on, so I thought maybe I could create a new type of coverage.
“Randy Bernard was at IndyCar and helped make the TV connections. In the past it was about $250,000 for one episode on ESPN and I made a deal with HDTV (Velocity) to do 20 episodes for the same price. We were not going to be live, but we were going to be on every Thursday night at 8 o’clock prime time with a West Coast repeat at 11 for 20 weeks straight. We hired a company that had never done television and what we ended up with was reality-style coverage for off-road.”
The first episode was scheduled to appear just before the major Labor Day race in Crandon, Wis. With no coverage throughout the season, some sponsors had already announced they were pulling out of TORC and throwing their support behind a rival series, including Johnson’s primary supporter.
In a moment Miller remembers fondly, USAC secured a big screen television to show the new production to a live audience at Crandon. It was an instant hit. Within 10 minutes of the airing, Johnson sought out Miller with his phone in hand. His major sponsor had called to say that not only were they committing to TORC, but would support additional teams the following season.
TORC was a labor-intensive enterprise. USAC was sanctioning events, providing staff, cutting commercials, building tracks and selling the series. They weren’t making money, but nor were they losing. More importantly they were now active in a new motorsports segment and beginning to tease out the framework of a business plan that could pay dividends down the road. Watching from afar, Robby Gordon reached out for help with his stadium series, and while the revenue didn’t set the world on fire, these steps were key to USAC climbing out of a deep hole.
Bigger sponsors were coming on board, but Miller says they were still spinning their wheels. He searched for a way to build on their traditional role as a sanctioning body. He felt that the quarter-midget world was the future for USAC to explore.
Little did Miller know that a previous relationship with Quarter Midgets of America had ended on a sour note, which explained why no one from QMA would return his call.
Miller hired James Spink from 600 Racing and USAC built a youth program from scratch. It was based on three basic principles — fun, safety and cost.
“We literally had five clubs signed within a week,” he noted. “In year two we had nine clubs, and by year three we were up to 13. It kept growing. Now, we have 60 clubs in what is now the NASCAR Youth Series.”
Miller considered each step taken along the way as “additive.” From his perspective everything began to truly come together in 2015 and 2016. First, International Snowmobile Racing, the major sanctioning body in this field, needed help with insurance and licensing. USAC jumped in and in the process gained experience in an entirely different branch of motorsports.
After a few years of the arrangement USAC ended up buying the organization. Then, after several years of active pursuit, USAC began sanctioning, insuring and licensing Global Rallycross and SRO racing, by providing services unique to the industry.
Miller discovered an advanced third-party tool that allowed USAC to provide white label solutions to basic series needs. It was a value-added service.
“We picked up other series because we could provide services and help others run their business and it gave them data they never had before,” Miller explained. “Next thing you know we are working with ULTRA 4, King of the Hammers and Rally America.”
From their first steps into streaming to the stunning breadth of their involvement in so many areas, Miller feels strongly that technology enabled the business to take off.
“This is what USAC is doing today,” he said. “We can be nimble and quick, and by keeping our staff low it forces us to find solutions that aren’t people driven but driven by technology. That has been our secret. We were able to go to people and say not only do we want to be a sanctioning body for you, but we want to be able to help you run your organization faster, cheaper and better.”
This is not your grandparents’ USAC. Perhaps the greatest stat is that the organization’s traditional sprint car and midget members account for less than three percent of their current annual membership.
USAC’s reach can be captured in four segments — circle track, off-road, road racing and power sports. This includes USAC ownership of the American Rally Ass’n, International Snowmobile Racing, the NASCAR Youth Series and Porsche Sprint Challenge programs.
How long will Miller hold the helm at USAC? Recent management moves, including naming Jason Smith president of USAC Racing, signal that change is coming. Miller is preparing the organization to run without his daily oversight.
One visible manifestation of the new USAC is the redesigned office in Speedway, Ind. Not long ago, to step inside the building was a trip inside a time capsule. Its appearance matched the reputation of the organization. Miller ordered the building gutted and designed on an open workplace concept.
Tenants include ACCUS, SRO, Toyota TRD and other organizations. The new open space has hosted dozens of weddings, funerals, birthdays and other events. As well, the building is generating a positive cash flow for USAC.
Yet, before he departs, Miller has a list of goals to accomplish.
Adding an electric powered class to quarter midgets is among them.
“Not every parent knows how to tune a carburetor,” he said. “Here you pull out a couple of batteries and charge them. Dads would no longer need to struggle push starting the cars, just push the pedal and go.”
USAC recently entered the online gambling arena.
“Behind the scenes we have been working for two years. We have about four of five things checked off and we have over $200,000 invested in it,” Miller said of the announcement that was made at the end of May.
Miller also hopes to expand the merchandise program and secure long-term contracts in sponsorships and streaming for all series. He desires to set up long term success for new leadership in the future.
What pleases Miller more than anything is that he feels he has the right people in place to run the various racing disciplines, which allows him to focus on business matters.
“We are doing things the USAC way,” he said. “We want to be technology leaders. We want to develop things that work for us.”
When he speaks about where USAC is today there is pride in his voice. Why not?
“It has been a fun adventure,” he reflected. “Thinking back to that dilapidated building and how we fought off all that we faced. We didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and yet we broke through it. We’re a nonprofit organization and a lot of people think you have to operate like a nonprofit. That mindset is not how USAC is run. It’s about protecting the future of one of the greatest brands in all of motorsports history.”
Miller’s impact on the sport cannot be argued, and he has emerged as a visionary leader. His foresight led to some of the most prestigious and lucrative sprint car and midget races of all time. He initiated the development of the Mopar sprint car and midget engines that have enjoyed tremendous success. He forced rev limiters on midget engines against an irate majority owner group. He orchestrated building a dirt track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, overcoming IMS board objections, and finding the funding to build one of the best tracks ever for midget racing.
And the new USAC headquarters at 16th and Georgetown will serve the next generation of USAC racers. What’s next for Miller? Be certain of this — he has no plans to stand pat.
THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE June 19 EDITION OF SPEED SPORT INSIDER
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