Talk about some highlights of the 2020 season and new developments on the horizon.
Doonan: I think nearly all 50 years of IMSA history has had Porsche as a partner. Their single-make championship now is going to be aligned with their Carrera Cup global formula and bring that to the U.S. as part of IMSA’s portfolio.
We’ve announced Mazda’s MX-5 Cup will be coming to us, which is a terrific entry-level platform for young drivers, young teams, young engineers who aspire to be in the WeatherTech Championship or the Michelin Pilot (Challenge) championship. You’ve got a great steppingstone with them, and that sets us up quite well on the single-make side.
Out of the pandemic has also come an opportunity to do some eSports and eGaming more than we have before. So iRacing has taken a leadership role in our future in identifying the next generation or putting our product in front of them in a virtual world, which is really special.
Going from that entry-level piece to the top category, back in September at Le Mans, we announced the final regulations for LMDh, which will be the top-level category (in the WeatherTech Championship). So, in terms of the racing content, we are really positioning ourselves well – from getting people involved in the sport and then at the very top allowing manufacturers to showcase their brands in overall victories in the Prototype category.
Also, as part of our portfolio in 2021, we’re adding LMP3 (Le Mans Prototype 3) to the big show. It is a great platform for both young drivers as well as drivers that aren’t professional in nature. A driver participating in a Prototype category like LMP3 as his or her hobby and partnering them up with a young rising star is going to create some really unique opportunities for us in those cars in the WeatherTech Championship, starting in Daytona.
From the content side, I think we have a ton of momentum. I’m really excited about where we are right now. The next two or three years is going to continue to see IMSA grow and also give our teams the opportunity to participate with platforms that are global in nature.
We’re really in a good position. We don’t rest on our laurels very well at IMSA; never have. And I don’t see us doing that going forward, but there are a lot of positives that we need to celebrate very quietly.
What would you consider the most noteworthy rise from a challenge this season?
Doonan: For sure, the ability for all of us to get back to racing. I think it was March 12 when travel bans began to hit and stay-at-home orders went into effect. I think all of us were concerned, what does this mean state-to-state for our promoter partners? Will they be able to hold events? Will they be able to hold events with fans? Will they have to cancel events completely?
I would say being able to get back to racing, for all of us was probably the biggest priority and biggest accomplishment.
One of the things I’m really proud of is the ability to get our international participants back to the U.S. We literally had meetings face to face – with masks on – with the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol to say, “Look, we have a lot of participants outside the U.S. They are all top-level athletes in their sport whether they are a driver, an engineer, a mechanic, and we want to be able to get them back in the U.S. to be at our events. What can you do to help us?”
And they have been tremendous partners. Knock on wood, we have not had a single participant turned away. There have been a few late-night phone calls to help some people. But everyone’s been able to get back and forth safely, so we’re really proud of that.
Most of all, I’m proud of our staff for sticking with it and our corporate partners from WeatherTech and Michelin – who are real pillar partners – to all of our automotive partners, 17 right now and a few coming.
Toyota already announced it’s coming to the Michelin Pilot Challenge with the Supra next year, so we’re going to turn the corner into 2021 with more automotive manufacturers participating than we did to start the season. And, based with the pressures of the economy overall, that’s something that I would have never imagined.’’
Is there a certain pride you and your team can take in the overall successes this year during such unprecedented circumstances?
Doonan: One of the things I really appreciated was I had a relationship with so many of the folks at IMSA already from being a competitor, so there weren’t a lot of icebreakers needed in that regard. From being in endurance sports car racing, you’re used to facing a lot of challenges. We tried to break it down to No. 1, do we have events? No. 2, what are we going to need to do to rethink how we have events – from the way people enter the track, to medical screenings and temperature checks? My first call, frankly, was to our medical liaison asking, “OK, should I be worried? And if not, you tell me when I should be.” And they really helped.
Certainly, the collaboration with NASCAR (was beneficial). They were the first to go back of any professional sport, which we have a lot to be proud about in Daytona. But it was just methodical. We set up a Back to Racing Task Force at IMSA and ended up having nearly daily conference calls to start off. Then it weaned back to every other day and then once a week. It was just methodical.
IMSA, really our core business all these years has been to execute professional sports car events at the highest level. We didn’t forget how to do that, we just had to transform the way we’ve been doing it in a difficult environment. Really, just being methodical and staying calm. Because every time you’d wake up and have a plan for the day – in the early months – you thought you had everything done and by noon there was a different date or you could not have fans, or you could have only so many fans.
It really challenges the business model of how we go about it, but in the end, it’s all about relationships, partnerships and communication. And I think we’ve done a particularly good job of working together with our stakeholders be it the race teams, be it our media partners, track promoters and all the other sponsors that allow us to be able to do what we do.
And we did it in the end. Those are the key words: We did it.
We still have Sebring, but when the checkered flag falls on that one, I think there will be a huge bit of relief; but don’t rest at the end of that. Only 45 days later we’ll be doing it again at Daytona.
I feel very fortunate and honored that Mr. (Jim) France (IMSA chairman) and Mr. (Ed) Bennett (IMSA CEO) gave me the opportunity to lead the team. We’re going to keep pushing hard and I think three or four years down the road we’re going to look back and realize we weathered perhaps the most difficult storm anyone could have imagined in their careers. And that will be a proud moment as well.