Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: You're listening to the Motorsport Prospects Podcast.
Hey, it's Mark from Motorsport Prospects and welcome to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. This is where we dive into the world of motorsport with the people who live and breathe it. From driver coaches and sponsorship experts to team owners, pro drivers and more. You'll hear real stories and practical advice and insights you can actually use, whether you're just starting out or already chasing success on the track.
Now, before we get going, people often ask me why I started Motorsport Prospects.
I founded Motorsport Prospects and the Verified by Motorsport Prospects designation in the directory simply for one reason and one reason alone. I've had a lot of parents, drivers, aspiring drivers who ask, who can I trust?
And it's a simple question, but it's a complicated answer.
So many of these people are struggling to find reliable guidance. So I created Motorsport Prospects basically to help them make more informed decisions.
The professionals I feature on this podcast represent that trust.
Quality drivers say that it's really difficult to find.
So, you know, I decided based on that I would put together a little white paper, if you are a motorsport professional, to offer just a little bit of guidance.
Essentially the, you know, it's practical advice which is called the three Essentials for Motorsport Business Owners. And it basically states that, you know, you need to be clear about what you offer, you follow through on your promises and you need to genuinely care about what your client's goals are. That will make all the difference.
I go into a bit of detail on that in the white paper. So if you want to check it out, it's free. You can download it in the show notes or on Motorsport Prospects.com so, enough of that, let's get started with my guest who is Rob Howden.
Rob is a 30 year industry veteran who is the commentator and series development director of the USF Pro Championships as well as the publisher and editor in chief of ecartingnews.com the hub of kart racing in the United States.
Rob's unique spectrum of focus positions him to follow and support young racers all the way from karting through to the professional ranks in IndyCar, NASCAR and IMSA. Welcome to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. Rob. Great. Great to have you on Mark.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Great to be here. Awesome.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Now, you know when I talk about veteran motorsport professionals, you are.
You are the guy you've been doing this for.
Well, for as long as I could remember because I do remember ecarting news and your name has always been as synonymous with, with, with karting and also junior racing in North America.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I was very lucky. You Know, back when I was a younger guy in the early 90s to hook up with Performance Racing News, the newspaper out of Toronto, you know, it was that, you know, that one thing you had as a motorsports fan, it wasn't the Internet back then. All you had was the newspaper. Performance Racing News. I got a chance to work with them early in my career, sold advertising, was able to cover races. And that kind of led me down a path that I eventually found karting in Ontario. Covered a lot of carding through Performance Racing News, and eventually kind of worked my way from there to have my own karting magazines and formula car magazines and eventually ecartynews.com the website, bought that in 2004. I've had that for 21 years now.
And I've been, been lucky to work with Dan Anderson and Michelle Kish at Anderson Promotions with what was then the Road to Indy in 2010. It's been 15 years since I've been working with them with what is now the USF Pro Championships.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: And I'm sure anybody listening right now and hears that voice, if you watch any USF Pro Championship racing on YouTube or on, on, on network TV, you recognize that voice, that deep voice of Rob.
So, Rob, it's very simple. This podcast. I have one question.
Based on your experience, what would be the one most important piece of advice you could offer a current or aspiring race driver?
[00:04:25] Speaker A: You know what I have, I have two, but the one that I always kind of lean into because it really separates the drivers that make it as a professional and those that eventually stop racing and go on to doing something different with their lives. And, and it's, it's hard to get across to the parents and the drivers. But I always say this. I go the, the only way you will not become a professional race car driver is if you quit.
Because everybody I've known that's stuck with it eventually becomes a race car driver if you stay in the sport long enough. Let's say you're in the USF Pro Championships or any kind of level of that where you're kind of working your way up through the development levels. It's a lot of money. We know how much money gets invested into it, right? And I hate to see families invest so much money. Then eventually the kid, maybe the parents don't have enough money to make the next step, or the driver loses interest or wants to go in a different direction. Whatever it may be, if you stay at it long enough and stay in it, you will become a professional race car driver. You'll you'll eventually become a coach and then you'll meet some drivers and you'll be a gentleman driver. You'll. And you'll end up racing, whatever it may be. But if you can become a professional in the sport, as long as you don't quit and that's, you know, work ethic is the one thing that you can control as a driver. But it comes down to that mark, if, if you don't give up on your dream, you will eventually do something full time in sports, in motorsports. Yeah. You may not be IndyCar or NASCAR or running a prototype in IMSA, but how many drivers do you know that just didn't quit and now run with a gentleman driver? They run imsa, whatever it may be. I know lots of guys that, that as long as you don't give up, you will make it. And I think that's the one key thing that people give up too early in the sport, in my, in my opinion.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely, that, that makes complete sense. And you're right. Like, I would talk to, you know, especially young drivers and I'd ask them, what is it that you want to do? And they might say, an IndyCar champion, F1. You know, I'd like to race F1, but I used to say, you know what, it's always important to aspire to as high as you can get. But at the end of the day, do what do you really want to, to be. And if they say I want to be a professional race driver, then I know, okay, good. They have the right mindset because in this business, opportunities come where, whether you might not realize it or not, something might come out of left field. And if you're so focused on one thing, you might close yourself off to a potent, a potential opportunity that might lead to something. Yeah, maybe in sports cars versus open wheel, but you have to be open to that. So. And you can only be, you will only get those opportunities if you work hard. And I absolutely agree. Yeah.
Yeah. I've. Every team principal I've ever talked to, I ask them what is the most important aspect of the driver and you assume the answer will be they have to be fast. Now that's, I think, almost a given. But the number one answer is always they need to put in the work.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm very lucky, I think, because early on in my career when I was as a journalist, and this is a story I'll throw in here because he kind of set this template, this bar for me is I work with then a young driver from Michigan named Mark Miller and I don't know if you know Mark or not. He's been a journeyman driver. He ended up doing The Le Mans, 24 hours of Le Mans with Bill Riley. But when I was first a young journalist, Mark and I met each other through carding.
Didn't have a lot of money. I was kind of his manager. We kind of worked together to try to get him to go racing. And there was no cash, literally was no money. We ended up wheeling a deal in something, a sponsorship deal I put together to put Mark.
We tried, we thought about Skip Barber and it was going to be 27 or $30,000 or something back in 1998 for him to run the regional series, right? We end up running Formula V in Canada. We did the Formula 1200 series up in Canada. We ran with Mike and Lance Coon. Redline Promotions was the name of their team. And Mark came in his first time in a race car and he was a fantastic Carter, multi time champion. Ended up, I think we finished second in the F1200 championship. But that started Mark on a path because another thing I'm sure you'll echo, this is one of the keys to success is the people you meet, right? Networking people. Because you never know someone you meet on the way up is going to be the guy that eventually takes you somewhere. And I got, I have to write an article, I have to write a story about Mark's story because it's amazing.
So we did. So eventually this I'll quickly try to run through this. But anyways, we met some people there. Dave Connelly was a driver who was racing in Formula V with Mark.
We did the Formula V. We came up with some more money to be able to do a test in a Formula Ford. We tried to run Toronto with Britain West. We ran with Adams Racing at one point, got taken out the first lap. But Mark kept pushing and he learned everything. He learned about graphic design. That's what he did with me when I had my first magazine shifter card illustrated. I just launched that magazine and Mark was my graphic designer. He sold advertising for me. So we understand the business side of things, right? How to sell, how to sell himself. He learned everything about data acquisition, AIM sports, the micron at the time, right. So he learned all these skills that made him valuable to people. He eventually started working for an SCCA team that did the spec racer Ford.
They had him help with that acquisition and graphic design. They gave him a ride.
Eventually the guy that he met and shook hands with and raced with in Formula V, Dave Conley had a Cascar team and Mark ended up running that for him on the road courses with Carhartt sponsorship. So there's Mark out at Mark's work warehouses, you know promoting Carhartt before every road course race. And we just kept, he just kept moving forward, racing whatever he could.
We built a, we built a supercart, a 250 super cart for the magazine shifter card illustrated and at the race that we ran, we debuted that we ran in that at Barber Motorsports park in this 250. Well Bill Riley was there from Riley and Scott in his 250. And of course Mark making contacts, knowing how to network, knowing it, became good friends with Bill Riley eventually keep going down the line. Bill selected him to run his viper at the 24 hours of Le Mans. So Mark just everything Mark did to be able to become a professional race car driver was number one, never giving up, right. He was 100% going to be a professional race car driver from the very get go. That's what he was going to do. He knew with the money we had he wasn't going to IndyCar. He wasn't you know, but he made something happen. Ended up you know, with C.J. wilson, did the Mazda program and now races on a regular basis as a sports car driver in some of the, you know, he runs sro, he runs imsa, whatever it may be. So Mark's just a perfect example for me of a guy started with absolutely nothing, never quit, used networking and learning all the skills that you could use and you could bring to a team to be valuable to a team and that paid off for him. It's just for me coming out of the gate having Mark as the guy that kind of set the bar, right. He was the template for me. If you don't quit you will become a race car driver. But you have to put in the effort. Mark, we talked about that, right. You have to put in, it's, it's the only thing you really can control is your work ethic. And Mark just never gave up. And now he's a, you know, he's a 40 something year old professional driver who gets to race every other weekend professionally.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: And actually that's a great way to state it. It's the only thing that you can control. And that is exactly right. And you know you touched on networking. I have said that from the get go that it's so critical. I'll tell drivers, especially young drivers, for example, if you're, if you're in the airport, wear your team polo, a team jacket. Wear something that identifies you as a driver because inevitably a conversation will get sparked. Whether you're waiting for your plane or you're on your plane. Somebody will ask what's, what is that all about? Are you a race driver? And then, and you don't know who that person might end up being or they know somebody or, you know, but you have to be open to networking and it's critical. And that actually that story, it perfectly illustrates because it does get frustrating.
You know, we're only human and sometimes you get, you know, people will get down and are kind of doubt themselves. But I think the way you, and using Mark's story as an example, yeah, it's going to be tough. But you know what? Life can be tough. You just got to keep pushing. You got to, if you're passionate about this sport and being a race driver, you just need to push forward and really, you know, keep doing it.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Hey, let's be real. Race racing a car is hard.
Only one person can win, right? You know, it's going to be hard. If it's not hard, it's not realistic. It's going to be tough all the way up. You're going to be battling all the way from, from start to finish. So get used to hard, get used to failure, right? That's, that's when you find more success anyways. When you have failure, you learn and that the bottom line is you just can never stop and you keep learning every time. And I think that's, that's the key. It's going to be hard and you may not get exactly what you want, but if you keep digging, you'll find yourself in a fantastic career. Mark makes good money right now. And any, any, let's just not focus on Mark Miller. But, but any of these journeyman guys that have been around a long time, you see running, you know, the second seat or the third seat at Daytona for the 24 hours or whatever, these guys, you know, they're, they're getting paid as driver coaches on, on off weekends and they're getting a chance to race cars for a living. That's what it means, that's what you know as a young driver coming into the sport, whether you're in USF Juniors or anything here in the USF Pro championships where you're in the Mazda program or anything in the early steps of a driver development ladder where you're kind of just getting your feet wet, you know, get ready to get punched in the face a bunch of times, keep digging and, and do what you can you know, be in the gym, be the strongest guy in the paddock, be on the sim the most, and man, learn about motorsports marketing. Like if you don't know about. If you're not learning about motorsports marketing, if you're not an expert in motorsports marketing, you. You're leaving something on the table. It's as simple as that.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Absolutely. So now you've mentioned USF Pro Championships.
Where will people find information on the series? And I mean, I'll be posting all this information in the show notes, but where do they go? Where would they go to find more information about the series?
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Yeah, well, first and foremost, we have an informational website called USF Pro Championships.info There's a lot of great videos on there that teach a lot about what we do, why we do it, the intricacies of the series itself. Each one of our series has a website as well. USF juniors.com usf2000.com and USF pro2000.com each of them, of course, focusing on each series. There is an about section with a lot of. A lot of information there. You can always contact me as a series development director. That's kind of my.
One of my roles is to be the liaison between anybody brand new, any families that are coming up through carding, whatever it may be. You know, the funny thing is, Mark, in over the years, it's always been carding, right? People have come through karting to get into. Into Formula Ford, whatever it may be, eventually into what was then the road to Indy.
It's so interesting now that, you know, rolling off the Drive to Survive show on Netflix and just this crazy support of Formula one. Right now we're getting a lot of drivers that are coming into the program in USF Juniors that have no karting experience whatsoever. Right. They find out about the sport, they're like, wow, this looks really cool. I want to do this. They go to a racing school and all of a sudden they're testing for a race team. So.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
Sorry, go ahead.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: It's just a really interesting place that we're in right now. It's, the drivers are all coming in with, you know, 10 years of experience in a cart before they get to a formula car.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And the great thing about the all the USF Pro Championships is they're all available. You guys have an app. You can watch it on YouTube.
And one of the things I want to comment on because I love this idea, often on the broadcast you will have a driver. So if you're. If it's a USF Pro 2000 race. You will have somebody that would. Raced in, that might be now in Pro 2000, that was in USF 2000. And you'll have them as a kind of. As a color commentator, giving their input and feedback on what the drivers that are racing in that series are, are going through based on their experience. And I think that's brilliant to do that.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Well, for me, it's a couple of things, Mark. It's a couple different levels. You know, we're a driver development program. So, yeah, we want you to drive as a, as a race car driver. Right. You're doing, you know, you're in that car in the seat, so you're a driver. But we also do a lot of media work, right. We want the kids to learn about me. It's about teaching them everything. So although sometimes they're a little awkward when they first get into the booth for the first time, but when they're, when they're done with, with a, with a race from the booth, they love it. They're always like, oh, I want to come, I want to come back again. But first and foremost, yeah, for the broadcast itself, it brings some insight for somebody who was maybe just on the racetrack right there. Tell me what the track feels like, what their session was like. I love to ask them, hey, what would you do at the start here? We had a blown start. What's your mindset? You know, I get them when there's an incident on track. I get them to go over the incident. For me, though, it's a double thing for the driver as well, because they get an opportunity to, to be in that seat, that experience that they haven't had before. So, you know, I love it. A lot of the times when a season starts, Nick Yeoman and Mark James from IndyCar Radio will message me. And they, they said, we just had this guy in the booth, Rob, well done. Like, you've trained this kid, right. By the time they get to Indy next for content days at IMs, Nick or Mark will inevitably drop me a text or give me a call, say, listen, you've done a great job with this young kid because he already primed and ready to go. So that's one of the. It's not the racing side, right. But it's. There's so much a. A part of racing again, that's another deal, right? People think that they're going to be a race car driver. It's all about racing. No, no, no. 25% racing, 75% business. When you get to the top levels of racing. Right. It's more about the business than it is about being in the car. So yeah, we tried, we tried to train them up as best we could and to have the drivers with me in the booth as my color commentary. My driver analyst is always fun on race weekends.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: And of course USF Pro Championships have the scholarship program which enables. Now, you know, it's not going to pay for everything in your budget, but it's definitely a healthy chunk of your budget that you could essentially allow you to graduate to the next level. And the next level, which I, you know, I can't think of too many series that have such a well developed scholarship program as USF Pro Championship.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, there are others that are kind of adding better prizes, I think, to their champions, but nobody does it like we do with the USF Pro Championships. No drivers getting a significant amount of their budget to move to the next level, whether it's coming from USF juniors to 2000, 2000 to pro.
And again for the drivers coming out of Pro, the budgets, as we know for Indy Next are getting higher and higher. So it's a good amount of money to go to their Indy Next program.
For us, I think one of the big, you know, calling cards for us, what we're super proud of, Mark, as you look at the champions that we have had From USF Pro 2000 and see where they've gone, right.
For us, it's huge, right?
The last eight, five are in IndyCar. Right?
You've got Louis Foster now Christian Rasmussen, Stingray Rob, Kyle Kirkwood and Renus VK. Those drivers all in IndyCar. The other three, the most recent three we know, are going to be starring in Indy next this year. Miles Rowe and Lockheed Hughes are both going to be battling for the championship this year. And our most recent champion, Max Garcia, we expect him to be in a run as well. Max very likely going to work his way up to IndyCar. We know the drivers have support, so we'd love to see all eight of them of our most recent in IndyCar in 20, 27 and beyond. But man, we're just super proud of the success we've had, right Those drivers. If you win USF Pro 2000, you're very likely going to be an IndyCar driver in the future.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely.
And you have the evidence to back it up. And I encourage anybody to, to go on the website and you'll see, you know, the, the, the alumni of these racing series is, is quite spectacular.
Before I let you go, one final question.
This is a fun one. Favorite track? Current or historical? What's your favorite track?
[00:20:18] Speaker A: All right, it's interesting. I, I, I, I hate to give you a double answer again. I don't get a chance. I haven't got a chance to be back in a while. Just a pure racetrack.
I love Groton Raceway in Michigan. I don't know if you've ever been to Groton before. No, I have not. It's a fantastic track. It's a club track. I ran Formula V and Formula first there. Amazing. But all told, as a racetrack, I would say probably Road America is my favorite track. I've raced there myself numerous times. It's just, Listen, it's America's national park of speed.
It's long straightaways, tough corners and just everything about it, right? It's a festival when you go there. The food, the atmosphere, the people, the fans, Road America, there's just really nothing like it in North America.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: And you have to follow Rob on social media as well, because if you like food, Rob will definitely clue you in on all the best places to eat at every track that they go to.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna get a lot about racing, but you're gonna get a lot about food as well. I, I don't like to waste a meal. Listen, I figure, you know, a third of your life is eating right. You sleep for eight hours, you work for eight hours, and you essentially eat for eight hours. So don't waste a meal.
Great advice.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Well, I really appreciate you being on the show. Loved your insight and yeah, absolutely. We will put, I'll put all the details about the USF Pro, the links, how to get a hold EKN as well. It'll all be in the show notes.
Yeah. Well, that's it for this week. This is Mark from Motorsport Prospects reminding you to stay fast, stay focused and keep chasing that checkered flag.
Thanks for listening to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. For insights, advice and the latest news racers can use, visit Motorsport Prospects.com.
