Latest / The Racer on Demand Show / Episode 22 | Promoting the Big House (ft. Marty Fiolka)

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Episode 22 | Promoting the Big House (ft. Marty Fiolka) · The Racer on Demand Show

• MARTY: maybe sometimes your storytelling isn't always about the flashiest, coolest thing. Maybe sometimes it's talking about, losing. look in the camera and say, Well, I I I screwed this up today, I lost. And I here's why, or you know, here's what I learned, or you know, we're not perfect, or you know, I I I don't know if I can Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Racer on Demand Show. I'm Amanda Vanden Elsen here with Megan Meyer. Hi. Megan: Hello. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Today we are honored to host a true Titan of the off-road industry. We have on with us Marty Fioca. Marty is the man who wrote the book on off-road history and produced the sport's most legendary documentary, Dust to Glory, which I might say is Chris's favorite movie of all time. MARTY: Yeah, mine too. Could be. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Today, as the promoter for the big house at Crandon, he is the architect of the biggest event in our sport of short course off-road racing. And today we have the opportunity to pick Marty's brain on everything from world-class corporate activations to the fundamentals of storytelling. So as you listen today, I know this is a little off base of the guests we typically have. But I want you to be thinking about how you can draw connections between Marty's high-level strategies and your own race programs. So whether that's learning how to move from banners on a fence, basically stickers on your car, out to memorable fan experiences or figuring out what specific things you can do in the pits to become an indispensable asset to your own home track and partners, this conversation is really sure to get your ideas flowing. So thank you so much, Marty, for joining us today. Megan: Yes, welcome. MARTY: it's a pleasure, like I said. Thank you, thank you. It's I'm obviously c here in the in the famous VIP bar downstairs in the barn at Crandon. And I'm sure be a lot of people can recognize it. And yeah, it's a pleasure to be here and nice to be able to take a little break from from all the prep work we're doing and finishing up contracts and whatever else we're getting done here at Crandon. I'm usually here most well this year almost all of June and all of August. I have to go home for a couple of weeks this time. That makes it a little easier. Keep keeps everybody happy at home, right? Megan: Right. MARTY: My beautiful wife and the dogs and everybody. So that part's good. But yeah, we're it's we're full tilt now, so we're getting ready for for Labor Day coming. Megan: Yeah, crunch time. MARTY: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. I can only imagine when this episode airs we'll only be about two weeks off from the big show. So you guys are definitely down to the wire right now. MARTY: Yeah, it's it's you know, people what people don't understand is that, you know, it's it's the dynamic of this place and this business is that, you know, we're basically open like eight days a year. That's it. And you have this four hundred acre facility to maintain, you know, the not much happens in Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: the winter, but you know, outside of the the clerical things, all the things that Kennedy Flannery does here. But it's you know, it's much more than that. And then when you get to the summertime, you know, it kind of comes alive and we have people, you know. putting fixing fences, building things, mowing grass. And it's always funny here that that you hear people talking about, well, you know, we sh you know, there's somebody posts online that they well maybe the tracks should just rent, you know, rent the the tracks to the series and, you know, but maybe pay twenty thousand dollars for that. I'm like, you guys have no idea what this place costs to run. That's not even our fuel bill for the summer. That's even close, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: insurance, all the things. So yeah, it and what what's amazing though is that how much gets done here, at the level it gets done with the kind of a little amount of people. It's a small town, you know, so all the Flannery family's here, like Cliff's here. Flannery's the president. He's here at five thirty every morning. You know, he probably leaves at five. Jason Flannery's here almost every day in the summertime. Ty is here. So it's all all hands on deck. We have a bunch of great younger pe people come in and learn how to work machinery and work big machinery. And Cliff that's one of the things Cliff loves to do is basically give back to the community by teaching young people some skills that they can take on in their lives, whether they become, you know machine operators are not, they learn a work ethic here that's, you know, it's it's Cliff can be tough on it, but it they walk away from here and they they have a great experiences. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. That's so important. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Just to get people some experience in the workforce no matter where that is or or how that shows up. That's awesome. MARTY: Yeah, I mean some of the couple of a couple of kids have been here since they were, I ten, eleven and they just come and Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: nice. MARTY: dip it. They come down they yeah, they're they're growing up now in the last four years. But yeah, they've they came and just they they live up the street and they take the side by side and come down and they just, you know, fla they're doing bigger things now, but before they just they were kind of s tail with Cliff and the U T and you Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: know, weed whacking and doing whatever whatever it took. And so you know, but again it's a lot of property to maintain and and we like to You know, we t we work hard at to to make sure we have the best facility that we can for the racers, the fans, obviously the the sponsors and take a lot of pride in, you know, what we build and what this place looks like. And you can see it's g something gets built every year. Something gets expanded on or grown every year. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yes. Well, you know, Marty, I think a lot of the people listening might not even know who you are or what you've done or what your role is at Crand and and you know, we know that your name is attached to some of the most iconic chapters of off road history, but today you still wear a lot of hats. Tell us a little bit about the roles you hold now, the projects you're working on and and what your main focus is in the work you're doing right now. MARTY: Yeah, so it's it's it's been a very fortunate career. not many many people can say they actually earn a living at off road racing that aren't actually racers. and Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: that's a very small group too, as you guys know. But yeah, I just from from my early days of off-road racing when I was, you know, a teenager still and working on Volkswagens, which I still do, to you know, eventually getting a job at Bosch and you know, being in charge of their off-road motor sports program at like twenty-three years old to You know, w whatever it's been, you know, got got to do some big public relations work for Nissan for many years, Nissan Motorsports, which took me to Indianapolis 500 and you know, 24 hours a day, Tona Lamont, you got to see all Indianapolis especially taught so Megan: That's cool. MARTY: much about how they deal with their history, right? How they really embrace history there and they're all they're the Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: legendary drivers and cars and the museum and You know, it it kind of led me down the path of you know, in two thousand that we don't you know, sport doesn't have any history written anywhere. It there's great Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: history. And so in two thousand I started the Thousand Miles to Glory book, which was basically the history of the Baja Thousand. I had raced in it by that point a little bit, I actually by that point quite a few times. And, you know, just digging through and there's you know, it took five years 'cause there was no history in one place. You know, the back of the book was nothing but the the the the you know, the basic results from the races, who, what car, what number, how long, you know, there are times and that took a long time to compile. And but the book was the first real like history and we that kind of was combined with an event I did at the Peterson Museum in two thousand, which was before the Baja two thousand. And that was when we we brought history, we brought the like thirty cars to the Peterson Museum. And we had, you know, we had Jackaroot at that time was a f famous announcer announce it and we had, you know, I don't know, eighteen hundred people show up. We expected like eight hundred and It was just a it was just a you know that the sport just needed some focus on how great of a history it had and it just always shied Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: away from it. So the I pretty much the career has been spent trying to get the spotlight on off road racing the right way. Didn't matter if I it was when running Dirt Sports Magazine or Dust of Glory or not even a Crandon. you know, everybody talks about trying to get mainstream, like we gotta get mainstream. Well, off road racing still suffers from not being even mainstream motorsports. It's gotten Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: better. And certainly, you know, participation of things like PRI, even last year when we had Jimmy Henderson's truck there and and all you know, the and the guys at King of the Hammers had an area there, and we're trying to set up a display this year. It just Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: it it it you know, it it's all very subtle growth that that for us has taken a long time to get to. You know, everybody can look at all our sponsorships and we have more, and you know, we just are are renewing with, for instance, with with Polaris for three years, and Red will be coming back, and this is a year. eleven for the Red Bull Cup race here and you know, doing more with Toyota and some Optima batteries, some other things. you know, but it's just takes a while. It just it you know, and Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: and the challenge of Crandon is the fact it's in Crandon. You know, somebody we had talked about that with a with a a a vendor the other day is, you know, in the w on the West Coast where I'm from, you know, it's easy to get the King of the Hammers. It's easy to get the mid four hundred, it's easy to get the Ba Thousand, it's easy to get to the SAN Sport shows, you know, SEMA. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: You know, all that stuff is there and all the companies are there. So getting a bunch of activation at King of the Hammers isn't difficult except for the amount of time that those people are there. But here, like you gotta wanna get to Crandon. This is a special trip that you know, luckily a lot of the a lot of it's now tied into more Midwest activations or events or East Coast. So it's not as bad. But you know, it's it's it comes at a cost. I mean it it takes time, it takes people and it takes an effort to get up here. It's it's a long it's a long way from nowhere, kinda basically. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: I love it up here, but it's it is. I mean, so that that's a bit of a challenge we have here. But it's but even so, you know, our fan zone's full, you know, big activations coming this year again and and you know, we must be doing something right. I don't I don't know, but I it it's just I think it's just it's just you know, it's now it's almost FOMO, right? Now it's like these comp now they know Labor Day is if we're gonna put a stake in off-road in the Midwest, Currenton is like what represents the Midwest. Now there's obviously The series, it's it's that's that's all separate. But if I've had the heard that conversation where hey, we we need to do something in the Midwest. We're gonna go to Coran because we know it's a big event and we're gonna bring some dealers or we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that, because if the companies feel they have to. It's easy out there. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: Like they have a choice of events in the West Coast. And yes, there's more activity, there's more market there. I understand that, but with the side by sides and certainly things like the Ford Bronco, that's all, you know, much more part of what's happening now in terms of the the the space and you know the Midwest is cr slowly growing and like we know this is Polaris country up here. I they this is the biggest market for Polaris is Wisconsin. So Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: that also it's also part of the the mix, right? Megan: Yeah. Well, so last year was our first time going up to Crandon. And it is a 12 hour drive for us because we we bring our motor home, we stay at Camp Crandon, got our spot reserved. So we will be there this year. and Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: you know, yeah, Adam and I were s like we loved it. Like just hearing what Chris and Amanda told us about what it was like to be at Crandon and and all the other racers and people that we talked to, they're like, you have to come to Crandon. And so so yeah, last year we made the trip and we were like, we will come back here every year, no matter if we're just spectators or, you know, one day maybe we'll have the opportunity to come race there. Like that would be a dream come true. Yeah, that's true. We'll see. Yeah, we'll Amanda Van Den Elzen: Next year. Come on, Megan. Come on. MARTY: Yeah. Yeah. No it Megan: we'll see if if the stars align. MARTY: I always love hearing that from first time, you know, visitors, right? it it it's a special place on to its own, right? It's it's it's a special town, it's a special facility. There is definitely a vibe that we feed into, by the way, a lot. Like we feed into this Megan: Yeah. MARTY: this kind of rough but polished but Midwest kind of hospitality mentality. Yeah, there's cheese curds and moonshine here, but you know, but and it is, it's all of that. Megan: He MARTY: And the and the parties out in Camp Cran, that's all part of the mix. We don't Megan: Yeah. MARTY: want to take that away, but the same time, you know, that but that's what makes it special. And when you know, I tell the story often when I first got here in twenty fourteen, I think is when I started here. Yeah, so it's twelve years ago, you know, the I almost want to put too much of a polish on it, make it too corporate. It took a Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm, mm. MARTY: minute to realize that Corandon isn't built on being corporate at all. It in fact it's the opposite. It's like we're gonna get out of the corporate thing and come to Crandon. And you know, we see that a lot more and more now with with like we have a a really great activation started a couple of years ago. It's the gold meadow camp and it's essentially our partner VIPs. So the president of Polaris is there, our Red Bull contacts, Toyota contacts are all camping around this met this meadow and this pond we have back there. And we we've expanded it this year to to like 30 trailers. It's a lot. But they want to stay here. They want they want if they're here, they want to watch you know the stuff going off in the background there in the in the ultra cross track back in Cranon land. They want to you know, sit by the campfire, they they wanna be here. And and I remember that too when I was coming here just as a journalist or whatever. I it's so much fun. And it was such a great vibe that when it was over, and I we had access to all the bars and everything, but when it was over it's like, I don't want to drive the hotel. I don't want to I don't want to leave. Like Megan: Yeah. MARTY: it just Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: it's just so fun. And and yeah, that the vibe here it you know permeates the it you can't replicate it. We can you can expand it and you know kind of how we've curated it a little bit. And like this year we're going all in on kind of the maricana red, white, and blue theme with, you Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: know, for a couple of reasons. Obviously, it's the 250th anniversary of of the the country. It's also, you know, we feel like we're if the Indy 500 is Memorial Day, well, Labor Day is a current in. So we kind of book in the summer that way. You know, Polaris is now the American Power Sports Company. They're leaning into that too, you know, kind of opening ceremonies we do, especially before the Red Bull Cup race with you know, God bless the USA with singing that we do here, which is a really touching moment. you know, we we're leaning all into it. So it's I I'm glad you felt it 'cause everybody comes here and feels it and it's it's beyond any of of us who who put this on that it you know it just kind of creates itself now and you know it's and it I I I d I think the the thing that's a that's the biggest secret here is Cliff Lannery was he's been here you know all fifty seven years. you know, he didn't build this for racing. He didn't build all the extensions for all the for the sport. He built it because he wanted to have hospitality. He wanted people Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: to come and have a great time. Like, come here, you know, he likes he says, we're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time. And that's one of his favorite sayings. And he literally doesn't matter if it's the bar down here or the the pavilion up there or however it's done, fire anything, part of it, the parade, it's all done because he just wants to host people here. And I think You know, it at as core that's what he does, right? He's yes, he goes, he sits on the machine every day and he loves to move dirt and all that, but it's only because it's making his facility better. Right. I mean, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: the the upgrades this year when we signed the agreement with Ultra Four, immediately he was on the earth movement equipment back there, building out a double triple sized c you know, hill and obstacles just for the Ultra Four guys, just because they were coming. So now Megan: Nice. MARTY: it's now it's even better. And now, you know, it's it's just part of what he does and you know, it just lends itself to well, okay, we're gonna have two nights of ultra four racing, let's let's go run the class elevens back there too, because we can go around the rocks and it's just gonna be a more fun event for the class eleven guys 'cause one they'll run, you know, run the the ultra cost course and then Sunday they'll run the medium sized track, you the regular track at Crandon and that'll make it more fun for them. So again, you know, it's it's never the same It although although we try to make it the same, it never is the same. Every year's different. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I think the way that you talked about like leaning into the intentionality of some of these things, you know, the intentionality of being, you know, the bookend on the on the summer, the intentionality of being like the American experience. And also, you know, the intentionality of it being about the fan experience more so than it is about the racing. You know, I think these are all things that racers could really take back and see that these are not things Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: that you just accidentally stumbled upon and it worked. These are things that with intention, you guys are crafting to bring in the right people over and over again and create an experience that people relate to on on kind of the most base level of like this is who I am and this is how I identify. MARTY: Well, you it's it's funny, yeah. I mean and well that's f a funny story. When we start expanding the the gold meadow camp, it was undulating, so some problems getting at the trailers and we needed a level and it just was getting bigger. you know, the c the conversations, well, Marty, we can just put down you know what to do the dirt and put granite down like no, no granite, no dirt. It's all about the grass. Like like what what Cran d took a while to understand. I joke about it's doesn't matter. The reason is ever the racetrack looks beautiful in in our television production or photography or whatever is it's green. Everything's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: green. It looks like the field of dreams, right? If you're used to watching going to like Glenn Hell and Lucaswell races, that was just dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt everywhere. But the it's the green, even the campgrounds are green. There that's all grass. I said, That's what people love to come to. That feels like to us, to especially the West Coast people or whatever, that is makes this place special. It's like a park. We just Megan: Yeah. MARTY: Fact, we just went down to Road America last weekend to have a an activation down there just just to kind of do it, right? We're good friends with with the their team now and we have a great alliance with them. But that place, if you've ever been there, that's the most beautiful racetrack in America by far. And it's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: just a big park with grass and trees and it's I mean, it's it's amenities are beautiful. They have big races there. They they they I mean they're us on steroids for sure, but the the philosophy for them is the same as us. One fan at a time. It's the fan experience, as much as we can do it. And and they have big staff to do those things. Because again, they they run IndyCar races, IMSA races, you know, big NASCAR races, they run big races there. But but Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: again, it's all part of like when I get here, it's not, you know, when it especially like when like I don't know, like Saturday of the Labor Day weekend. Sometimes I'll go to the the suites on the other side. And we always intentionally keep those races like it's sunset or when the pro two, pro Megan: Mm. MARTY: four have to be kind of when the when the there's like that golden hour light. Why? Because it just looks great. It looks great on television. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: And you're standing there as a fan and you're looking down and it looks like the field of dreams. It just looks beautiful. Like if the weather's nice, which we always pray for, it's like, wow, look at that. Like I there's no place I'd rather be than this place right here. And and that's part Megan: Yeah. MARTY: of it why we again why we do that, why we run night racing. Why you know, there's there's a why for everything here. It always is. It just in this we know Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: it's creates things. well if we did that, now we can do that. And that's, you know And you start especially when you start factoring in the fact that now Crandon, me well, I'm the executive producer, but we produce, you know, nineteen hours of live television for Racer here on Labor Day weekend, from the from the preview show on the parade all the way to the Red Bull Cup race. Everything that's not champed is produced by us. It's the same crew, but it's our our talent, our production, our game day trailer, our you know, all the features that we do, you know, we do that separately. But you know, when you when you get to that phase of doing things, then Things like what does it look like? What does it look like? And you know, what's what's funny is I I once Chris Carlson is the is the owner of ERX. And one of the things I told him that there's magic at his racetrack. He doesn't even understand what's magic. The magic part is they schedule the pro twos and pro fours right when the they're getting back lick lick dust off that's that's there's a split lane there. And if you watch it, it looks like wow, look at that. Like that's that sun is going behind the dust, it's gold making everything gold. And it and it it it just makes everything look so dynamic. And he said, Really? I said, Yeah. That if you're watching television or watching the live stream, that's what's gonna is gonna strike to you more than anything. Look at that. That one shot. It's interesting. And so, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: yeah, so now, you know, of course, we're not we're not, you know, sitting still either. So now this year, it's crazy, but one of our producers, Bryant Lambert, who does a great job on a lot of our features, he's really, really good. He's been here a long time. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, he is. MARTY: Yeah, and we worked together on some storytelling. We've worked together for a long time. Anyway, Brian called and said, Hey Marty, so I I'm at stagecoach or Coachella, and they're I'm using this insane 4K camera that rotates and does all stuff on a c it's a cable cam. I said, Okay. He said, Well, I want to bring in cable can to Crandon. I'm like, okay, well, how how what are you talking about? He said, No, no, it's like a it's like a now we're measuring it's like almost a two thousand foot run. from a cable that's gonna be hanging from the suites all the way past the Argonne corner. So you're gonna have these shots Amanda Van Den Elzen: Holy cow. MARTY: that are just like and be in s like insane. It's no, it's not it's not Megan: That's cool. MARTY: a drone shot. It's it's it's much different. And I think it's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: you know we had to go find a sponsor for it, which we did. And you know it but again it's just one of those things. And and that's what people I think miss is those details and the ability for us to kind of take a lead on things like that and just find a way. Like we're gonna find I okay okay Book it now, now it's up to me to go find some money to support it. It's just like the Class 11 deal. You know, it's we love Class 11 here, like those Volkswagens, the fans love, the kids love. There's no doubt, and they're part of the family here, you know, after this being our sixth year as a world championship. But in order to do that, you know, the the racers were saying, Well, you know, we're coming from the West Coast, and hey, you know, we could use some support on that. And we understand that. That that is a truly kind of except for some. people like you and Mandar who have cars here. There's there's a handful of cars here. But there's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, there's three of us. MARTY: three of you guys and you're all racing, but the but the majority are coming from from from California. And look, they don't have a sanctioning group. Like they don't have one guy you can go to and say, okay, bring the cars. That means you take care of tech. That means you take care of all the you know all those rogue Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: racers, which they they kinda are by nature, which is fine. So Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: so so, you know, but then we granted have to go take care of tech. We have to go bring in, you know, Liam from USAC and get some tech people here to take care of that and then go find some sponsorship to help, you know, you know, help those guys and we have a sponsor who's gonna deal with the racers directly and hopefully g get that signed up here in the next couple of days just to aid in some of their travel. I mean it's it but but no other racetrack I know of, at least off road race, is gonna go to that level. Like they're gonna say, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: Well, here's here's a race, we're gonna schedule for you guys and show up and here's where you're gonna be, you know, it's it's deeper. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, and here's what it'll cost. MARTY: Yeah, just a little cost. You know, when in in in Korean it hasn't for class eleven it hasn't had a ever had an entry fee at all. Like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: you guys come, that'll help with your entry fee. And you hear you get two wristbands for your team and and you know, doing what we can too. That's that's in fairness 'cause we have obviously a lot of other race teams here. You know, but Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: you know the but the the ch most of the champ teams are f based here either base here or, you know, come here for the summer to race here, you know, for on that side. And then, you know, the Ultra Four guys are coming from kind of everywhere. So we even now we're trying to help the EMC classes and trying to, you know, because we love watching those guys and you know, it's not always Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: the Unlimited guys, it's it's the guys who are, you know, it's all that superstock tri it's just all it's it's just it's this big mix of you know, what we're doing here. And I I'd love it. Now we have Rally X here too, so and vintage Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: cars in June and you know, so we've we pretty much are tapping out on whatever we can bring here, at least in terms of off in terms of off road motorsports. There's not much left. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yeah, maybe Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: some two wheeling. I think that's about all you're missing, right? Megan: Yeah. MARTY: You know, what what happens if you open this up to bikes? You know, we've had bikes here in the past. I mean, that that that was not anything new. In fact, the June race, we had a couple of the original, I think somebody brought Johnny Greaves' original motorcycle here. Right. So so so again, w you know, the the hi the historic stuff is something that's new. I think it's gonna catch on more. We had like eighteen cars here in in June and you know, we have some time in the schedule to do that. And it's just part of it, you know, and again, you know, where are all these tru where are the trucks and cars? They've gotta be out there. like all over. you know, I restored one of Art Schmidt's super buggies or pro buggies, which I love that car now. It's just we took it to Road America and it was amazing because that car got as much attention as Corey Winner's Pro Two ride truck. Like the the Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: old buggy, my old car did. And you know, an Arts with Megan: That's awesome. MARTY: Art's old car. But it it's it's you know, that's cool. It's just nice. I Amanda Van Den Elzen: It's so cool. Megan: Yeah. MARTY: mean next year some guy saw it and he he he has Arts Pro Light and he's I think he's in Georgia. So he's gonna get it running, bring it up next year. I'm gonna convert my car back to art's colors and I think maybe we'll make art like the Grand Marshall or something. Just you know, that's what we're gonna do. I don't know if how that's gonna go, but again, we w nobody else is gonna do it. So let's try it. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: Right. Yeah, that's cool. MARTY: Yeah. Megan: Yeah, I'd love to to ask you more later about Road America. But I would love to know, you know, a little bit kind of more of your role with the sponsorship. So you kind of mentioned like, hey, we're got this new camera, we need to find a sponsor for it. So is that kind of how it works? Like they're, you know, you have an asset and then you try to find a partner to kind of cover that, or what role does sponsorship actually play in your work and the projects that you're leading? MARTY: Yeah, so as a promoter really it breaks down to a couple of things. Like I deal a lot with this with the sanctioned bodies. You know, I I do a lot of the the scheduling work for the weekend. Well, that's all coming. And then almost every national almost every national sponsor that's here or partners here is all you know, yeah, I brought them here, I deal with them all year long. Doesn't matter who it is, it's Polaris, Method Wheel, Yokohama, you know, the list is is on is long and it's not, you know, the thing that happens here, which I think It's great. But and what's what they're looking for is if they want to come here, it's a great event for them to shoot activations and content, right? That's what they want. Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: And you know, we we facilitate a lot of that. Like it's not just we'll show up and you guys do it. And I'll explain some things in a minute, but there's that. There's the, you know, basically being a a spokesman for the track a lot. you know, and it's also now At this point, it's writing press releases and those type of things. And then also the television side on Racer too. I produce a lot of that, which I enjoy the most, but I don't have much time to work on it. But I have great crews to take Megan: okay. MARTY: care of that. You know, but now we're going to minute by minute rundowns of, you know, like the parade and who's gonna be on. And it was all we w we kind of winged it before. It's like, okay, grab this guy and put on. You we don't I don't want to Megan: Right. MARTY: do that anymore either. So because we Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, it's MARTY: we didn't make mistakes, it's it's work and it looks great. It's probably the you know, Racer says it's some of the best content they have on their network, period. It doesn't matter what motorsports it McCrandon, the Megan: Wow. MARTY: what's that we produce, they they love it because it's just such a high level of execution. You know, it's not, we don't treat it like a live stream at all. It's a television broadcast in the old-fashioned sense of we Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: got great announcers, we're gonna bring in, you know, we're gonna do some storytelling here. We're gonna have Bryant do some great features that that tell the story of here. And it's television as as much as we can afford it, right? I mean, it's still limits, which we had more. We need a bigger truck, we need a lot more, but we do a lot with a little and it look, it shows, right? It's like the cable camera. And we brought in-car cameras here for the first time a couple of years ago with the Star Stream deal. That didn't happen before. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, MARTY: So, you know, it's all that. That's a lot of fun to do that. I mean, I really enjoy that part of it. And and looking at it afterwards, like, yeah, that turned out really good. So but that's that's kind of my role. I I I run an agency called the Ren Sport Group. I do other off-road projects from time to time. you know, I just we're just relaunching a brand called the Jack and Wheel, for instance. Jackman was the first off a wheel company ever, like like back in the late 70s, early 80s. And they were famous in the in the the the Jeeping world and the mini trucks and certainly Baja bugs and Volkswagens. And they had this distinctive style of artwork that a guy named Dave Deal was this legendary graphic artist, kind of cartoon art that he created. And I had a friend who had just sold Method Wheel. He had he and his son had sold Method Wheel. They started KMC too. And they were looking for the next thing and I knew that this brand was out there. They were trying to make it a goal, but another guy from Texas, a gentleman, and wasn't gonna go. And so I got in touch with him. I got in touch with the the Jackmans who are still alive, sh Harry and Cheryl Jackman are still alive, and basically took a year to kind of bring the the trademarks and the rights and all things together. So they're they just launch and they're gonna be, you know, become a bigger brand. But th sometimes on those things, if I have a chance to do those kind of things, I I like doing those. And otherwise You know, it's I'm trying to actually slow down a little bit if if that's makes sense. I'm still racing, still building cars and bikes and you know, doing all that stuff. But it just, you know, I I like focusing on this. This is this Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: this is to me now, especially l you know, I basically feel like I run like the Indianapolis off of off road racing. Like this is the Indy Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Yeah. MARTY: and it feels I don't have to feel like that. And, you know, it's that's a pretty great it at the end of a long career, it's a pretty good, you know, kind of way to end it necessarily. I don't know if when that's gonna be know I'm still here. But the great part is now is that I've got like the you know, before it was basically the office manager and Cliff and I basically doing a lot of everything, right? It's a lot. Now, you know, now you know Jason Flannery, Cliff's son is here as a president. Now you know Jason's, you know, kids are here, right? You know, they're you know, everybody's here working. So it's become much more of a of a family business. It's become a lot more structured. Which is nice on some some level, which takes up a lot of it Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: off of what we were kind of putting fires out. But also it it also has given me the opportunity to kind of mentor, you know, the you know, Ty Flannery and and Jason just here, this is how, you know, at first they didn't, you know, it's easy to kind of look at it and not understand the nuances of everything. Right. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: There and but they you know, when they finally start asking questions, it's like, look, there's a why for everything here. There's a there's a why, why is this, why is that I can explain everything. It may have started ten years ago the Y or the two months ago or why this is intersected here, here, and here and we're putting the puzzle pieces together. You know, that's that's how it works. And just it's hard work. You know, it's we're the only off road track I I know of that has, you know, at least a a facility has a full time promoter. Nobody else does. And that was Cliff Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. You know. MARTY: taking a chance all those years ago. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Since Jason and his kids have really kind of stepped in over the last few years, honestly, it even shows on the racer side. I mean, Ty calls Chris probably every couple of weeks after any race, and especially after we're at Crandon, and he's like, So what did you think? Where can we improve? Like, what is your viewpoint from the racer standpoint? And you know, that's not something that I think Megan: That's awesome. Amanda Van Den Elzen: you guys had the capacity to do previously. There just weren't enough people. MARTY: No, no, no. I I there were enough people and certainly I had my con you know, I had my inside people, hey, I'm gonna think about doing this. What do you think? Just kind of run it by them. But no, we did. I mean, I was too busy on the on the other side. that's I mean, that's the kind of stuff I'm glad Ty's here to do, right? And you know, we're trying Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: to factor it all in. We're never it's never perfect, and we know, you know, it'd be easy to just like in June, just run a champ race. But we've you know, and because it basically it's just turning the opening the park on and just letting it go. And you know, it it it there's no there's not much room for growth here. Because you you have this facility made for this. And you either Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: we're pretty much tapped out. We're up, I think we're ten campsites away from s being sold out for Labor Day. And the schedule's full because well, we just like to host a lot of racers and we like to give the fans a lot of, you know, entertainment. And now we have, you know, a ability to actually broadcast those races through Racer. Like so Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: Eleven, Rally X, Ultra Four, and all Red Bull Sundays all on a basically on our network, as it were. So Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: that so that we keep that because that's content for them, but it's also giving back to Ultra Four guys and the racer, you know, it's all part of the mix. And you know, but yeah, it's nice to have Ptai be able to do that because you know, we just there's just not no time. We we tried. I mean look, and the racers are you they're a fickle bunch, right? They're they're they're hard to please. I mean, I I Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hm. Yeah. MARTY: I've come to learn learn that I mean by comparison the desert group. is much simpler to please, much easier. I mean they're they're Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: they bitch and moan a little bit, but you know, they they're going racing, they're going to Baja. You know, as long as that the trails are there and marked and, you know, it it they're simple, it's not as it's here it's it's a kind of a thankless job in a lot of ways. It just is. And you know, you have to kind of get a thing thick skin and I'm I'm just gonna move forward with this or we're gonna move forward with this because be again the why? Because because this is where it could lead us, right? And that's kind Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: of where we're at. Amanda Van Den Elzen: And I think, you know, here in the Midwest, I don't have a ton of desert experience. You know, we were out there for the Mint 400, we've been out to Hammers a couple times, but MARTY: yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: you know, here in the Midwest, I see a really stark contrast between the grassroots and the pro level racers. And I don't necessarily mean the sportsmen versus pros. What I mean is there are two groups that are looking for incredibly different outcomes from their racing. Sportsmen or grassroots racers or even some of the pros are looking for more seat time. They want to go out there and win. And then, you know, what I would call a true professional racer is looking to be that fan-facing experience for the fans that is out there to bring value to their partners. Like it's a really different outcome that they're looking for. And those two things don't always look for the same kind of thing from tracks or series. MARTY: No, I mean i it it's you're right. And and I I understand, you know, like the seat time issue. I I think I understand it because I'm watching these short course races and to me however many ten laps around this place seems like a lot. I mean, how much more are you guys gonna go? How how much further racing do you kind of need? I mean, I I you know, I unless we race three races a weekend, I mean, I don't know what from the from from the technical side, like what more? So if I added five minutes of the race, would that matter that much? I don't know. I don't know if it would. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: I I don't know. But what what the challenge though is it it's not from a promoter's perspective, it's not this like we we embrace the sportsman here. We love you know, we keep that that camp there specifically for them, that's not touched. You know, we don't have Ultra Four guys camping there or class eleven guys there or any or rally X, it's all for sportsmen, like we have Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: it. And you know, Pro Pits are the Pro Pits and that's not gonna change. And you know, we're the only track who puts in additional money for the sportsmen every every race weekend, right? It's not a a lot, but when you break it down, but it is something you know, trying to make them happy. Yeah, the pro guys have a different conversation. And you know, it it but even that gets you know gets kind of watered down a little bit. And I yeah, it's it's understandable, but you know, and but but from a promoter perspective, certain things move the needle in turn in terms of selling tickets or keeping Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: fans entertained, right? And as much as We love watching youth racing here, which we do. It's it's the future of the sport. And we're actually doing some things this year to kinda even promote the youth classes. but it doesn't necess that's not what necessary the the general public is necessarily coming for, right? And so Amanda Van Den Elzen: Right. MARTY: so Alter Four back there, the rock racing thing that happened Saturday night, now Friday night, yeah, that's a fan favorite. Class eleven, yeah, fans love that. So it's always that mix and then you have the the the challenge of the series adding more classes too. And then you're like, Well, we're We're we're running the schedule basically like you guys do every other race. Like the the track time's the same, the practice time is the same. It's the same. It's the same. but except for Red Bull Sunday, obviously we we run laps there. There's more time on Sunday to do driver introductions and do what Red Bull Sunday is supposed to be. It's just pros. It's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Right. MARTY: only nine races. It makes life so much easier on the scheduling side and the television side. Now you can do much more interviews, much more storytelling, right? But Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: But from a promoter's perspective, it's it's difficult, you know, and and it's hard. And the thing you have to remember is the fan, the fan sitting at the in the grandstands or on the grass. Sure, of them are hardcore, especially here, especially laboratory, they'll watch everything. But a lot Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: of them, if if they they're coming for a casual coming for a Saturday with their son or Sunday, you know, Saturday especially, when they have all this racing going. Remember I have fifty five races in three days. So Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: so if you add it up, so but but you know, then maybe they're watching you know, the youth classes or sportsman classes or whatever and they're not getting they don't understand that the pro classes are coming and that's what, you know, we don't know a pro two and pro four and and all the pro classes kind of really are the with the excitement part on this racetrack, especially the twos and fours 'cause the noise. We know that. But but you're asking people to spend eight hours sitting there waiting for that instead of Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: just saying, Okay, here's what sportsman block, here's a butch, this is what we're doing, I think, Labor Day. We got the youth block, the sportsman block and the pro block on Saturday. They're all together. that way. So so Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: so it becomes easy to easier to understand, right? It and it's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: it's easier to say, okay, now we understand what it is. And and I I think, you know, that's a tough thing on the promoters too. That and and the racers can complain. But you know what? And they they what's funny is they always say, well the late models, yeah, that's one class. The midgets, one class. Spree cars, one class. They may yeah, they're Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: gonna get a lot of money because that's only one there's one winner. Or th Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: first, second, third, whatever that is. You know, here, how many Even the Red Bull Sunday, they're nine winners, right? And we give away, you know, quarter million dollars on Red Bull Sunday, and still, you know, guys still saying it's not a well who else is even close? No, nobody. Nobody. Thanks to Red Bull and players, we can do that. And it's not going to the racetrack altogether. It's going to production too. But it goes right back. We did it for the racers, for the purse, right? And Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: that's that's often a challenge too. You you know, I've s laughed about that. You sit there and at the at the driver's meeting like on Sunday and you rattle off, you know, a quarter million dollars in, you know, cash and prices, which includes the polaris that we give away. And it's dead silent. Like it's become to be expected. Now you sit there, go, what other what other entity in this sport, what other day pays more? There's not one day in offer racing that pays more than we do on Labor Day Sunday. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: Not one. So but it's you know, they you don't see them excited about it. It's weird, but that's how it is. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. You know, you're talking a lot about how the partners are involved in this, Polaris, Red Bull, obviously putting in big money. And I think what racers tend to see most or or what they notice most or maybe expect most for those partners is, you know, banners on a fence or, you know, the the name on the on the arch over the finish line or or things like that. You know, they really We find that a lot of grassroots racers really believe that like that sticker on the car is their primary value and a banner on a fence is what a track is giving these partners that are bringing in you said two hundred and fifty thousand dollars were given away in one day, right? What do you think about that kind of static exposure? Is that what you're selling to your partners or do you sell more valuable assets to them? MARTY: Well, for me, the sales process is certainly not a menu item. We don't have a menu of okay, here's our goal package. We we d I just I just don't wanna have that discussion because it's it's limiting. And it's also Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: essentially saying to the sponsor, look, we're not gonna pay any attention to what your needs are. Our needs are to make money through the sponsorship and here's what we have. I found that doesn't Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: work at all. Some of these partnerships take years. I mean literally like IBOC now Megan: Yes. MARTY: this like this year we we we talked about we're gonna you know they've taken over the the victory podium, right? That's been a th I've worn known Wilford IBOC for twenty five years, but working with IBOC that's it's been a three year bring him here, see it now. You guys have this idea, you have a winner's circle like thing c thing that you're doing for for your for your customer base. It's like a promotion, it's called the IBOC winner's circle. Let's bring you a real winner circle. We have this asset to do that against. That's a better way to sell to me. in terms of yeah, the the the the signage, it's not as much it's it's important at some level, but that conversation is almost less and less. It's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: packaged into space. Like, you know, some of our partners have you know they get the they get their space and they get a billboard. Okay, that's packaged into one thing. they like that. to some it doesn't matter. To some it's the ability like yo the most creative company probably Polaris has gotten more and more creative. Yokohama's definitely gotten. been creative. They they come, they take Cranon and they activate on whatever thing they do. Like a couple of years ago they they brought back their original livery from 1989. I was part of that that race team too. But all the cars here, all the Yokama cars have the same red-white historic livery for Yokama. That was cool. I thought it was really cool. But then last year they brought a a bass master fisherman right we we did some activation around that. We had a a VIP like fishing tournament Saturday morning. At the round the pond, but he was there. And and then we had a kids' tournament when he was there. That's cool. And they're bringing back a female version of him now this year. actually a person I haven't met yet, but apparently she's from Wisconsin. She's a bass master, H E R, and she's gonna give a seminar to women on fishing. Like we're gonna have, like she's gonna interact with the public. Megan: no way. MARTY: So again, you just have to say, okay, well, we have a pond. Now, the problem is, or the challenge is every time you stack that stuff up. Now for us or for me specifically, it's like, God, how are we going to keep track of all these activations? They can't just go back there and do it. They need to be, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: you know, they need it needs to be announced. It needs to be, you know, maps made to how to get there. We need to have fishing poles. It's like all that. It just adds, you know, more. And so it it's it's what we love to do. and you know, now it's it's be it becomes, you know, something where, you know, Ford Racing brings our simulators, but Toyota is a beautiful booth here. You know, they they like to do just be Toyota as Toyota being big and bold and that's a two-day job just to set their booth up, right? It is, it takes two days. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: So they come in a big way. it's just it varies, right? Now, you know, for instance, we have a a a kind of a consortium here of Optima batteries coming for the first time. You know, they're gonna be back in the in the VIP camp, but they're set up from cameras or bar setup, which is super cool, called Sparky's Cantina. And then they bring an eighty foot tractor trailer. The fan zone, but it has a deck, and Hellas now has a deck. They have a deck set up too. So all the VIPs go up on the deck, then that's also part of Yokohama's deal. So those three companies are working together because they're bringing some dealers, right? Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: And by the way, yeah, we want Marty, we need to get Corey Winter on some time on the track to give our dealers rides in the ride truck. Okay. So it it's just what I think people don't understand is the level of work to really do it right, and and the fact that You know, yeah, the the the track needs support to to have a me or have any one of our staff be here to actually help execute that, right? That's part of the job. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: And and a lot of times, you know, I I think sometimes I remember a friend of mine, Mark McMillan, who's a with his family's been desert racing forever and McMillan racing. They've they've been here a couple of times too. And but he once looked at me, I talked about sponsorship with him, and he looked at me and said, you know, for the amount of time most of these take, the amount of effort most of these take, it's not worth The juice isn't worth the squeeze, right? It's just not, there's not much there. And I think, but the other hand, like for for sportsmen, let's say, especially, you know, what I don't see on behalf, and and it doesn't matter. It it it I remember having this conversation with the Pro 4 driver years ago. So Krandin sets the table. So the table is set with 60,000 fans over three days. Now it's more, and now we got a parade of about 15,000 people. That's separate. And we're giving you, we're giving you the world's best venue. We're giving you the biggest crowd. We're also giving you the best purse with Red Bull Sunday. And now we're adding at that point it was NBC television on with the Red Bull signature series. We set the table. Now if you guys can't take advantage of the table, that's not our fault. Like if you Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: can't sell that, well there's no other place you can go that actually has that table to give you. And so sometimes I also kind of challenge back like, well, you know, how how come? I if you want to get a a local you know, let's say it's a a a a buggy racer, right? A sports buggy racer. Well just, you know, maybe it's just a matter of going to the to find an enthusiast that owns a body shop and bring him here and let him see that and you know, in exchange for, I don't know, an entry fee and some paint. I you know, it's it's it's even to that level, right? The the big sponsors aren't gonna, you know, be there. You have to but that also caused an investment in social media. They have to make yourself, you know, it's it's a kind of a catch-22 situation, right? And Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: it's just it's a challenge and you know, but but I don't hear see people ever doing that. It's like they they they don't they don't know how or they don't want to make the effort or but it's not and on my level where I'm looking down it's not it isn't even pro racers like, look, we we do everything we can to make sure we have the largest race in the on the series and you know we're kinda right there on our second race with Bark River the way I see it, right? In terms of spectator Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: count and all that. So, you know, here you've got, you know, some really good numbers to go to go against you and and we'll just do a one-off. You know, just start the relationship with a one-off at Labor Day Crandon. And hey, we're gonna change, we're gonna paint this car, whatever, whatever livery you guys have, or we'll come up with, and we'll do it just for the you know, the two races we race or even the pros, you know, the pro light, pro specs are gonna race three times this year. So, you know, it's just gonna be for those three races, but if we got television here, we got this, you know, then start with that. And I also said this too, and this is very important when I was racing too, still on, but but but product is money. So if a if a tire company comes Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: and they're going to give you free tires, that's not free to them. Yes, they're gonna Megan: Right. MARTY: they're gonna put a retail value on. Hey, we gave you a thousand dollars retail of tires. We know it costs X amount less to actually make the tires, but that doesn't matter. In their minds, that's what they're providing you, right? And so Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: I always the racers always make a mistake that they kind of damp by well, they'll just give me product. Well, okay, but you have to pay for that product. And and if you do well, it doesn't mean they can't you you know, we can't pretend to get performance bonuses. Whatever it is, if you do well, you win a certain amount of money. But don't look that d don't ever, you know, look down on that because that's you know, it doesn't matter what you get what you're getting in terms of that. You know, y that's what I mean. It's more than a spa a decal on the car, it's a lot of communication with that particular company, it's what do you what do you guys want? Do you want, you know, do you need a nice nice photograph of the car or a photo shoot or do you need to, you know, whatever it may be, but it's always starting from that, what can we do for you? Always first. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: You know, and I, you know, I use this a lot of times when I sit across a table, which I like to do a lot of personal meetings. That's another thing. I like I'll fly anywhere to have a meeting with doesn't matter if it's Lucas or at one time. Megan: Really? MARTY: No, no, no. I I I I'll fly to Polaris, Minnesota, in Minnesota from California just for a two hour meeting. Absolutely. It just feels better. Like Megan: Wow. Yeah. MARTY: I made the effort to come here personally. And when I go there, I want to be the guy that they actually want to talk to and see. Like I we we Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: take that approach like we're gonna be approachable, we're gonna be super flexible, we're gonna be creative, we're gonna do what we say to the best of our ability. And the best our ability means even staffing, right? or whatever it may be. but yeah, I th that's that touch makes a big difference to me. And there's another thing we do here too. Which it's been very effective. very effective. We actually every year come out with a what we call a brand book. It's essentially a hard bound book with beautiful photography, amazing printing, presentation box. All the stats are in there. Photography, you what we're gonna do next year. You know, it's all in one, I mean, hardbound, beautiful book with like metallic paper and it we have we have made overseas, and they still cost a reasonable amount to pr print and send. But it it it doesn't matter because when a s like as sponsorships work and you guys know this, most of the time you're dealing with director marketing or you do or in some cases you're dealing with the the agency, right? Like let's say, you know, Red Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: Bull has six speed or Polaris six speed. We deal with six six speed at first and then we start dealing with you know we start dealing with their agency and then now their events people start coming and now their executives are coming, right? But it's taken a minute to get there. But A lot of times they'll say, Marty, this book is so valid because they ask why are we a Corandon? and I just show a book. And they're this is why. And th they Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: most of the time they don't even read all of it, but Megan: Love that. MARTY: they just sort of like, Okay, that they get it. Because it it's exudes a sense of professionalism and quality that we Megan: Yes. MARTY: try to maintain as much as we can. you know, again, it's there's always limits to everything, but you know, that that's a big effort to do and and but and an expense, but you know, it's paid off. It's paid off in in subtle ways, it may again take a year or two to kind of you know, blossom. It doesn't doesn't happen all the time. And and patience is probably the one thing that has been especially looking back, and patience is the one thing that's probably the the biggest key to success for me here is understanding Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: just as clips of what you gotta get here first. Sometimes that takes two or three years. You gotta get here. They gotta see Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: it. No Megan: Yeah. MARTY: matter how good the book is or how much they're seeing on of our videos on on television or whatever. they they gotta get here. And then that's the first step. And then you can come back. And then okay, now what are we gonna do f with that? And you know, and then and then the other thing that we've creatively had to do here is break up break the whole pile up. Like so Red Bull Sunday was the first thing, right? The when we said to the the old series, hey, we're taking back our Sunday. It's not a points race, you know, but it's a lot of money and it's all the great television and we're gonna get guess Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: we're gonna do. We're gonna make East Coast and West Coast rules come together because at that time You know, the West Coast guys couldn't race pro two and pro four here because of some my fairly mild rules that were not like ends of the earth stuff. So we brought in, you know, one of the best tech guys in the business, a guy named Tommy Morris, who's been around forever, and made him our tech director and ra came up with a balance of performance rules. And now, you know, Kyle, you know, Leduc could come and the the Ro the Anderson brothers could come and Bryce Menzies could come. And now we got now we have off road racing world championships the way it's supposed to be. Like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: when the Running against themselves, that's not a world championship race. And they admitted it too. So now we've got competition. Well, at first that that that was almost that was sacrilegious. Like nobody liked it because they were missing a points race. But at the end of the day, would you guys rather win a points race, or you would rather win Cran and Labray Sunday? Like that's Super Bowl Sunday to us. So that's all Megan: Yeah. MARTY: gotten now. But that so we had to break that piece apart, which let us basically also bring different sponsors in because it wasn't associated with a series, right? That was the opportunity to do that. And then at that kind of blossom. Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: And then, you know, even then we were able to like have Amaz oil here, but have Lucas Oil here for a time too, right? Well, that's the Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: race trip. Yeah, it's an Amaz oil series, but but we can do whatever we try we change branding from Saturday night to Sunday or early on a lot. Like we're putting up different bands for Sunday and Megan: Yeah. I noticed that. MARTY: the series off. Like you well, nope, you this is Sunday. We we can't, you know, the fan zone of Switzerland, anybody can can display there. That that then nobody can hold that exclusive. But the other thing that helped now now we've got Ukrainian land. Now we've got the Ultra Four deal. Well that's almost separate. That's that's that you know, we can do separate things back there which aren't part of the front track, and that allows Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: us to do some some different things back there. That's where you kinda have to get creative too. And we have done that and yeah, there's there sure there's problems and there's there's there's challenges and some, you know, some of but nobody really feels like they have exclusivity of over the whole thing, right? Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: Polaris knows that like CF Motor is going display this year and KM's coming with Ultra Four, but it's still a Polaris weekend. You all you see is Polaris, there's Polaris everywhere. And so, you know, eventually that comes down to we want everybody to s to come to to our table, right? We want to serve dinner to everybody. So, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: so but but i it's it's it's sometimes you have to be very careful with that, obviously. And you know, there's obviously big things up with Red Bull with pouring rights here and some other things like that. But they've been a partner for twelve years. I mean I never thought, never thought when we first started sitting down with them or I started sitting down with them that that was gonna last that long. I had no idea. And now it's an Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: it's a as as Racer calls it, this is a ten pole event for them. Like for as and it's you know, it's a more regional still. It's not like a national, like let's say a a an activation with Red Bull down at like the Miami Grand Prix, which is a huge, huge cost and a huge building that they're building. This is a little more down home, Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: but But our main contact at Red Bull, she says this is her favorite event of a year. Like she goes to everything Megan: Awesome. MARTY: and this is her favorite one. And so when I hear that and they're, you know, just got off the phone call with them with the you know what they're doing, it's really that I think if there's one thing that I also take away from this is that's success. If you can if you can have these companies come back and come back and now we have we've sure we've lost a couple. Not many, but we've lost a couple. Then for instance, the Lucas O thing was great for a long time. Until Forrest Lucas died, essentially. And then Megan: Mm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: the family shifted and we didn't know it until p right after PRI was the last so so we didn't know that was Megan: Yes. Same. MARTY: right. I mean, so so you know it was it was a fairly big program for us. I mean, at one time LucasO was LucasOll and Mav T V. They were joined. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: So that was a b a even a bigger conversation. Thankfully we were able to bridge the gap between Mav T V and Racer, because I hadn't known Racer for ever since they started as a magazine at that time. And you know, we're able to make this a temple event for them now. And they they they love this event. But you know, but sometimes you're gonna lose. Sometimes, you know, but but you have to also look back and think, you know what? We had five good years with them. They they came and and and you know allowed us to you know build some buildings and do some things here that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. So you can't look Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: at it with any regret corporate stuff shifts, you know, and and that's you know that Megan: Mm. MARTY: And I think, you know, the one thing that's funny that the Thai Flannery talks about all the time now, because now he's starting to see it, is that of these big companies, people like change. So the people you've been talking to for a year and a half, yeah, they guess what? They're gone now. They're or they they moved on to the position. Megan: Yep. MARTY: You almost have to like literally leave the book with them and and or get a contract in place for a couple of years so that you're safe and you can make the transition. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: And there's some recently as we have too, you know, the the the it's so obviously some companies were people there for a long time. Right, long time. But a lot of times they're not. But Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: the bigger the company is, the the more that happens, right, for the most part. And so Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: you have to be aware of that too. You know, it's it's a shifting all the time. And it can be frustrating sometimes too. And you gotta start from scratch and no, this didn't happen, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: or we were this close, but guess what? He left he left, or now there's a tariff or there's a budget shift, or you know, and so yeah, you know, Megan: Yeah. MARTY: all that stuff. Amanda Van Den Elzen: No kidding. We had so we've been with Nex Entire. I think this is our sixth year with Nex Entire. And in that time frame, we've had four different marketing teams that we've worked with. And I can tell you with utmost certainty that if it was not for the fact that we had negotiated some multi-year contracts in there, I think we would have gotten a lot. Maybe, maybe not cut, but like I think we would have gotten a lot more scrutiny before we had the chance to prove ourselves to the new teams. So you are spot MARTY: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: on with that. MARTY: Yeah, right. I mean it it you're right and that happens and that's why you also try to ingrain yourself like like with us with Polaris. You we we definitely have relationships within the within their brand amp group. But you know they've come been coming here for years. You know, you try to realize it's not just the one guy, it's all the people. And it's even the people like Polaris, he's even the people who are just bringing the track tractor trailers. Like last Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: year, we I went over to Polaris 'cause cause Sunday night at Crandon is our you know World Cup party and that's when all the all of us get to go and just No. It it all depends. There's a different temperature reading. Last last year I knew it was going to be off the hook because Cliff calls, yes he does. Hey Marty, you get that damn you know Anderson down RJ Anderson down here. And he bring me to bring his bring the damn cup down here, which is Cliff's way of saying we're gonna we're gonna party. And so Megan: Ha ha ha MARTY: I call the RJ say, hey man, it's on, you know, bring it down and you know the tradition here obviously is when we pour it full of beer and we Cliff Sitzer and MCs with the microphone brings racers and our staff and you know to drink out of the cup. We did it during COVID too. 2020. We did it. So the point is here, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. yeah. Megan: yeah. MARTY: you know, I I kept thinking about Polaris and all the guys who were working to clean up the, you know, the it's a big activation they have. Loaded lo loading the machines and the tractor trailer and tearing down. I went to our main events guy, said, Hey Ben, you know, why don't you invite all those guys? Come in and have a beer with us, you know? And and Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Yeah. MARTY: that, that bit of hospitality. That's what he talks about when I saw him last time. That that allowing him to extend that invitation to them was the big deal. And and again, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: that's that's a a big thing we find. And the other thing that actually works here quite a bit is like our our our gold meadow camp, that's B2B at its best, right? You put the Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: Toyota people, the Red Bull people, the four and then the rule is there's no selling. of anything by anybody. There's no pitches. There's no anything. It's gonna be we're gonna have good time. Sure, we can talk about that later. Yeah, we let's talk about that when I'm done. Or let the let them organically come up with their own collaborations, whatever it is, and Cranon brought them together. And it may or may not benefit Cranon, whatever they're talking about, but the fact that we brought them together and started a relationship that way organically is powerful. It's really powerful. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: It's actually a a kind of the secret sauce that we didn't really understand a couple of years ago. And it's it's it's we actively work to get some of these people here. Like, hey, we got a trailer for you. You know, you show up, it's all done. I mean yes, they they they cover the cost of it, but they don't do anything. Like trailer's set, ready to go, beds in it, you know, we have a campfires and food and a bar and you know what you know, we shuttle things and you know it again, I you know, sometimes I think the racers miss that. It's like let's get these guys together and let them just introduce them and Let them let them Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: go and you know they'll they'll build Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: something around that. And you know, it it it that's another secret. You know, there's all kinds of things, but as you can hear, it's it's it's subtle. Like a lot of the a lot of things you learn is just super subtle. And like I said, sometimes you lose. Sometimes I delay putting a proposal in because I I'm waiting for this piece of the puzzle of maybe commit more or this this you know, this overhead sign is available now. It wasn't like three months ago. And but yeah, we're waiting to to give this to you 'cause I think that's what you want. But And I've made mistakes that way too. I've made mistakes of waiting. Well, if you have you had that yeah, I no s but it generally they c they come back anyway. Or we a lot of times you have to be d also kind of really flexible and sometimes in how the the the structure of the deal is done. Like we've done a lot Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm. MARTY: where they come in th they're through their budget cycle, well, this year we'll do this. We agree to that if next year we go kind of the level we're supposed to be, or we'll we'll we'll make the next two years of after the first year add up to three years. You we've done that as well. Where you just say, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Sure. MARTY: hey, it's a three year deal. This first year we're gonna do this, but then we're gonna, you know, we're gonna average it out over the three years. And then the next two years if they're paying more, but it's at the end of this contract, it's all the same. you know, we we have the ability to do that. Not everybody does, but but again, that's part of how we do business here. It's it's just being hospitable again. Just not, you know, it's not it's not the hard sell. We try not to be anyway. I mean at some point you have to kind of say, hey, we gotta we have to get this done or not, just to I'm I'm in the middle of that right now trying to make sure we can execute in time right in the next three weeks. So Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: Yes. Yeah. Well, I would love to go back to the cross promotion that you had mentioned. So being at IMSA in Road America. And so you said you had Corey Winter's Pro 2 truck out there. You had your old car out there as well. So MARTY: Yep, advanced for you. Yep. Megan: yeah, so to a lot of people who are, you know, they're like, Well, how does that even work? You know, you have kind of two different contrasting racing with road racing, it's kind of more more high-end. And I and what you had said, like off-road is that rough but kind of polished. So what was the goal in mind that you had with that to to bring that to that crowd and resonate with the that brand new audience who probably had never seen a pro two truck before? MARTY: Yeah, no, they hadn't. And or a buggy, like that was alien to them. But it it it's it's it's also Megan: Yeah. Yeah. MARTY: it goes back a little bit to a couple of things. You know, a couple years when when COVID came, I reached out to Road America because we are both in Wisconsin. We were gonna we were gonna go racing in COVID because we could in Wisconsin. And so I took Tina, our office manager, the time down there, and I said, We're gonna go to Road America and just see how they're doing because they they probably will do it better and we're gonna learn everything. And in fact, we learned everything. Like we went there and said, okay, they did this, took pictures. And I was al I tried to do enough a kind of more of reliance back then. It didn't quite work out. But then at PRI about four years ago, I met the president of Road America, Mike Kircher, and great guy. Like just we hit it off. And I said, Hey, next year, why don't you come on Red Bull Sunday? Just come up for the day. You know, it's only three hours away. So he made the trip by himself and you know, gave him the VIP tour, let him especially go on the infield in the special spy, take you there's a special spot on the racetrack I can take people that's that's unlike anything else in racing, anything. Is it doesn't look like anything from the grandstands at all. But the hi the the calamity corners is called when they're racing and you can put a guy already three feet in front of a pro two, a pro four, Megan: Yeah. MARTY: it's like and especially in the cup race, it's like literally mental. It's like it's like you can't even fathom what you're seeing. It's so Megan: Mm. MARTY: loud and violent. I remember taking Rob McCachrin there one year and he said, I look like that? Man, this isn't scary. I said Yeah. 'Cause inside the truck it probably doesn't look like anything either. But when he was standing there, Megan: Ha ha. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: Mike fell in love with it. And then we saw each other again at the PRI show and we just kind of, you know, started h forming an alliance. Like, hey, you know, he knew that I had a sports car background, indie car background. So I I really respect all that, especially IMSA now with all the manufacturers. That's like the series to me and the state. It's just the best Amanda Van Den Elzen: We have. MARTY: thing. And and Road America, it's like it's like us if we had a ton of money. So so anyway, Mike Mike started coming up. He bought a house up here, here in Tomahawk, a summer or s cabinet house. And so he started come up here a lot. And then he last year he brought some of his management team and we started saying, Hey, why don't we do something for you guys? And so we played IMSA commercials here or Indi IMSA commercials here on our screens. And then he gave us a space down there. And I wasn't sure it was gonna work. I'm not sure it worked, considering all of it w you know, all the time it took, but Here's what's great about it is, you know, again, why not pref if if we're the best racetrack in off road racing, and I think they're the best track, maybe outside the Indianapolis Motor Speed, but in the United States, best best road course by far, the way it's run, the way it looks. Why not? And they're both in Wisconsin. Why not have an alliance? Why not get Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: us? Why not? Because it it's the it's we're Megan: Yeah. MARTY: not we're the best. Well, what we do, they're the best at what they do. So I'm never afraid of going there because we'd rightfully have a fifty, seven year relationship, you know. We've earned that over fifty seven years here. You know, and he he knows it, he loves it because it's just not like what he does. But he might the crowd that he might he's looking at the production, he's looking at everything, he's like this is for the your what you guys do, this is pretty amazing. And so yeah, and so so he this year he's coming up, you know, he's br he's got a suite now, he's bringing ten of his mandars up to kinda s enjoy the weekend. And, you know, I wanted to go down there and he wanna reciprocate. So the thought of getting it the getting the truck on the racetrack for Corey, we got we're able to work out a schedule Saturday, so he basically went out and did took one of the and here's the deal. It wasn't for our sponsors. We didn't do that for them. We wanted to take one of Mike's sponsors. That was why. So then he got to take an executive from Motool, which was a big sponsored, you know, an oil company, a big sponsorship with Road America. So we gave Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: her a ride in the Pro Two truck. Now it was it was a parade lap, but didn't matter. Just like, my God, this is awesome. And Mike was so appreciative because it was for him. Like that, like what that's what we should be doing, is it's trying to make your business better by what we have. And and then Megan: Yeah. MARTY: and that that was interesting, but then the crowd reaction was also interesting, right? There were people Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: no idea what the hell we were doing. There were people who we've heard of Koran, where is it? And it we're three hours away. We're right here. And Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: it was crazy. And we had some some of our champion racers show up that hadn't seen any of this stuff for years. And we had some, you know, people have well I had one couple said, Well, we're going to Bark River. Okay, have you been to Kran? No, we haven't been to Kranan. It's an hour and a half away. Like, do you know that? And it's and it's this, this, and this. maybe we should go. Yeah. I remember saying, look, here's my name, here's my card. If you come and don't have a good time, I'll give you your money back. Like, like you're gonna joy enjoy this, Megan: Yeah. MARTY: right? And look, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: a lot of time it's just one it's one customer at a time. Are they gonna show up? I don't know. But again, we're trying to make it mainstream motorsport. So showing up at something Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: like that. It's it it's a little thing, it's a big thing. It's a it's a deserved thing for both sides, right? And and you know, they they were great to us, we're great to them. We bought some some VIP bathrooms from them here recently, you know, because they have older equipment, they cycle through their equipment and we're the first ones they call. Hey, you guys interested in this piece of equipment or you know, this or this? And you know, they're there's working even even at that. So they're making us better, you know, we it's it's a great relationship. I that's all I can say. Hopefully it answers your question. Amanda Van Den Elzen: That's awesome. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Megan: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I think, you know, there's obviously a lot that you described there. Not just the the learning from each other, making both of you guys' programs better, but also being able to bring in new people that maybe hadn't considered coming to Crandon previously. And I think Cross promotions, collaborations, those are obviously one way to get to a new audience, but I've also seen Crandon leaning into another avenue for getting new eyes on the event, too. I have seen a lot more social media coming out of the Crandon account, Megan: Yes. Amanda Van Den Elzen: and it is really good stuff, and I'm excited to see it. Obviously, Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: social media is really accessible for most people, but I think a lot of racers underutilize it as a tool. I'm curious from your perspective as a filmmaker, storyteller, journalist, what is it that makes an audience just stop watching a race and start emotionally buying into that? MARTY: That's a good question. And it's one the social media effort here at Cranon really stems more from the planner grandkids, literally, you know, because I I used it the way I knew how to use it. Like I I'm still old school. I write press releases that, you know, get read quite a bit. They look, but they look professional, right? They have to look like, that's Curance. We can tell that's a Curan press release. It's written well, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: there's beautiful photography, custom graphic headers. It looks like a professional press release. And You know, the the only tenant I had in it was well, make sure that what we're putting out is also quality, meaning the best, you know, the best, you know, video we can use or the best photography. Don't just put up crap to put crap up for crap's sake. Like I I I and and I tend to be on the conservative side of probably not doing enough of it and didn't do enough of it for sure. You know, we and then we brought Bryant Lambert in to take care of that for us too. I mean, he obviously has seven years worth of footage from here. that he shot and we haven't used it all. I love the the video, like the viny like the two and three minute like film stories, like the stuff, you know, the God made Cranon video or the the home videos we lasted with us at home. I love that stuff because Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: that's better than anything I've seen the sport do is that. Like just to have the audacity to say God God made crayon. Well, kinda God did make cranon. So we're gonna we claim that years ago and it was based on an old radio spot or thing about you look him up he was had he was like the voice of radio and he would tell stories like that and he had he his one thing was God made a farmer and it was a whole thing. God needed a man who could it was a whole lead up. And so we kinda took that took found a voiceover guy who could do it and kind of created that years ago and then we refreshed it last year. But I love those. Like I love those. Now That's I'm older, so maybe I could I can lean into the storytelling a little more with that, right? They're they're cinematic, they're beautiful, they're it's like poignant music. It's some if you look back at the ones last year, it's still the American flags and downtown Cran and all the vibes that we want to put. Yeah, and then there's beautiful racing shots too, and all that, but it it tells a story. So I love that stuff. Now, the other vignettes, the reels and some of those things, I don't quite understand in terms of, but I know people are seeing them. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: And we have great, we have great numbers in terms of viewership. You know, it's it's fair the way the numbering the accounting system works in that from what I understand is fairly, you know, they may not have even seen it, but it shows up on their page and shows up as a as a statistic, right? The question though, and we asked ourselves that too, is that okay, that's great, but what did it do? Like what what's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: the w yes, w comes on social media, but did we sell more tickets? Did we sell more, get a bigger audience? Did we, what did we do? Did we did we raise did we raise our our level of of of you know professionalism or or whatever it was? I'm not sure. I'm not sure of that yet. But but you know, but but look, there are people out there, as you know, you know, the Blake Wheelcase of the world and those guys who've made their life social media and they're really Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: good at it. And you know, there there's something, you know, that's something to be said for it because look, even like Polaris this year, which is crazy to me. They have a new machine out now, the the that one they just announced, the boost, the turbo boost car. And they're bringing influencers in, I mean real ones, to Corrandon, or to to Polaris, to Minnesota, and they're gonna take a a two day drive from there to here. They're coming to Carandon inside by side from Megan: okay. MARTY: Polaris. And you know, clearly out of whatever five people are, there's clearly value there for that. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: There's clearly value in bringing influencers in here. Red Bull's doing it too. Yokohama's done it before. You know, the travel splendidists the world have done it. So, you know, but but i i but in the in the grand scheme of things, it all it all it all matters, but it just how much does it matter, right? I I'm I'm not sure. I I'm not really sure. I think it's a collective all of it, right? It's it's what ha what what happens before, what happens when people get here. You know, that's also part. What's the experience like for the racer? What's it like for the fan? And we we can always do better with that, right? It's big facility, but don't have enough, you it's hard to get enough security. It's all those things that make it still kind of wild and untamed as I as it were. But it's kind of craned too. But I the social media part has been, I'm glad you noticed that 'cause it's been a big part of the last year or so. And so we'll see. And we're gonna we're dive diving into it pretty hard here in a couple of weeks just to get us ready for this weekend. So coming up. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. I think what's really interesting to think about what you've said there is there's kind of two aspects to the kinds of stories that you're telling there. You're telling the story that already exists, right? The God made Crandon and, you know, these cinematic things, the captures that you're getting from the racetrack, from what's already organically happening there, versus the more influencer side is almost these manufactured stories, right? Like what is the thing that we could do that would tell a brand story like taking a two day trip from Minnesota to Crandon for this event, you know. MARTY: It's great idea. I mean, it's a great idea. We want to do that long ago to have flying her into Green Bay and taking the trip, which you can making a side-by-side too. Yeah, you're Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: right. I mean, you you're right. I mean, there are organic stories that come out of here, like last year, you know, we had you know the Wyatt Miller story. Okay, that that's really cool. And then the the you know, last year, which will lean into this year, and RJ Anderson's big win last year here at the Red Bull Cup race when Walker Evans passed away. That that was a great story. That that all comes, right? That that we don't plan for that. But Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: there's still a way that we tell it. Like we like I we I lean away from the from the heavy metal rock and roll like you know action in your face thing. I I I it's there and it's obviously it it broadcast stuff is there. But when you get into like some special story about Crandon or you know, even you know getting the best announcer in the business to me is is Ken Stout and having Ken Stout take over part of the log cabin restaurant, which is the only place in breakfast in town here, and having the interview with with Wyatt Miller and his mom, that's a They didn't just do they didn't just do it here, we went there, and we Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: got to do it. So there's even that is a way that we like to go about doing this. It's just not standard just cut dry stuff. It's getting the best voiceover guys or whatever it takes, but we're gonna we're gonna try to get there like the wire camera, you know, the cable camera. It's all those things. But to me, if if if I look at the brand book or I see some of our features that I that still I still have a watch. The 50th anniversary recap is so good that we did with Kid Rock and you know, it took 50 years to get here. It's so powerful still. That makes me really happy because that's because we built the reputation here on on some of those things. You can't help but watch those things and not get what you look, Indianapolis is the same thing. Their lead up show before the race is better than the race. If you watch what Fox does, their features and they did it in World Cup too. Fox said the World Cup, all these little vignettes on this soccer player and From this country and that it was amazing. I mean that that was that's the the best of the best. The thousands of people I'm working on that. So I I take that to heart. And I think I think there's some of that stuff that again, I know I'm an older generation, I get that. I think some of the younger people could learn from that a little bit more. It's not always about maybe sometimes your storytelling isn't always about the flashiest, coolest thing. Maybe sometimes it's it's talking about, you know, losing. You know, look in the camera and say, Well, I I I screwed this up today, I lost. And I here's why, or you know, here's what I learned, or you know, we're not perfect, or you know, I I I don't know if I can afford to the buy the parts to fix the car now. That that's as compelling as if you want to me, 'cause now you you kinda want root in the sky to to buy the parts and get back and go racing, right? I think I think that's part of it. I think that you have to remember what what story am I telling? Does it affect anything? Does it at least move the needle in terms of you personally watching it or why Flannery, look at this, what do think of this? And you know, wow, they move sometimes they get moved to tears, right? Well that if Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: you're moving somebody to tears on a video, we we're doing our job. And I remember Barbara Rainey, who used to run the off of Morrisburg's Hall of Fame, said, Marty, you're the only guy who can make me cry by watching Cliff Flannery on a grader. And we we just Amanda Van Den Elzen: Ha ha ha. MARTY: have when we did Cliff's his his Ormhoff video, it was Feel the Dreams music behind him drive and so That music and that slow mo of cliff on the grater made us all kind of tear up. You'd never think it would, but again, we didn't use a rock and roll background. We used the Field of Dreams. And just yeah, that that soundtrack is pretty powerful. And so you just take you just do stuff like that. And I think I think everybody can learn from that a little bit, you know. And again, there's the opposite side. If there's the Blake Wilkie's and the the Eisenhower's and all the fun stuff that they do, you know, they they're really good at some of those things too, right? They're really good at it. know there's long form stuff now that they're doing in Baja and you know that that you know the Povardis do and the Menzies do and the McMillan's do. That's all really good. But it's kind of really telling their story behind the scenes of, you know, in in five minutes, right? But it's it it's Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: expensive to do. It's a lot of work for that five minutes to make it good. I mean that's that's hard, but they're all doing it. And I think that you know I think as as producers we have to take a page from that too and just say, hey, what are we going to do to to maybe be a little more cutting edge? What's kind of the trend on I don't look at TikTok, but what's the trend What what are the like are the videos that these people are doing? Let's emulate them. The best guys who do that, by the way, no doubt about it to me is the group over at Method Wheel. They little Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hmm. MARTY: take, you know, they do those deliveries that look like the Miller Pan or the they'll do it, they'll do up all these tribute retribution tribute things. And I mean they do it they do it great. And they it it it it captures everybody's imagination. So what's happening here is that Boyd James, who runs Method Wheel, is a director of marketing, I should say. He's one of my oldest friends. He and I started working together years ago. And he said, What can I get for Grandon? He goes, I want to, I want to wrap the bus that takes people from the campground to downtown as a shuttle. I said, No. I said, No. I said, basically, no, because you can do that, but it's actually we they're taking kind of taking people away from our racetrack. So it's like that's I can't endorse that. But here's what I do have we have an authentic Disney people movement. That was built in Anaheim, an old one that was in the parking lot of Disneyland or Disney World moving people around. So we it's a it's you've probably seen it, man. It's a it's a it's the Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: truck and the trailer. So now we're leaning all in on that. So he's going full Disney graphics. We're gonna have the the operators have like the vest with the with the white name tags, we're gonna go AI with the soundtrack of Mickey Mouse, Welcome Memory to Disney. We're going all in. That see if you go to that, that's cool. That that's about as good of a fun activation as you could possibly have. And we're taking all the VIPs in it. From the camp to the parade, they're gonna be in the parade and I mean that but again, w you know, we we kind of came up with it, I'll admit it. It was my birthday a couple of three weeks ago and Boyd and I were together at at the at the beach and of course we were drinking. And so we c it just kind of well, let's do that. yeah, I remember that. So we're looking up on our phone, like, yeah, that red vest, they had those and the name tag with the name and Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: the home tablets, we can copy those. And so that's where sometimes the the creativity comes from too. But yeah. Once in a while, yeah, it does. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, some loose juice always gets the good ideas going. Megan: Yeah. MARTY: Yeah. And he's I mean look, they're like that anyway. He's just one of the most creative people I've ever met. So you know, they've done a r a really good job with that. But again, they're Megan: That's awesome. MARTY: they're they're carving out their part of it, right? That that's what they're Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: doing. They're they're putting in they tr what story we're gonna tell? How are we gonna tell it? I mean, look, when he built the when they built the the cardboard trophy truck at last year's SEMA show, if you ever saw it, it was so Boyd Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. That was so cool. MARTY: yeah, Boyd literally went to the RCRO to Ryan RCR is another friend of ours who runs one nine industries herbst. And he basically gotta tell them what he wanted to do. He got a he got basically the drawings and a scan of of a real trophy truck of theirs, the body and everything. And he went to some builder and they built that truck out of method cardboard boxes. And the that was the whole display. There was not there was not a product in it, there wasn't a brochure in it, there was nothing except that truck. And that truck got more attention than anything else at the show. And everybody was sitting there going, How did they figure that out? Like it was so subtle and so not corporate and so not like obvious that it was really obvious when they did it. So, you know, I'm saying that that kind of creativity is hard to find, but but they're really good Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: at it. We like to bring some of that here too. That again, just fun. It's just fun. It d it doesn't matter. It's just you know, we called the cranoland, I call it cranoland for a reason because I wanted to be like Disneyland. Now we'll go full on with with the cranoland fonts that looks like Disney because it's kind of Disney for for off road racing. So that was a couple of years ago. I didn't think about the people mover until this year, but it's gonna be pretty fun. Amanda Van Den Elzen: That's so good. MARTY: Yeah, really. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I love that. You know, as you're talking about these creative activations from method, that does not go unnoticed from the spectator side either. I'm thinking about the the drone show that they did last year was absolutely Megan: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: phenomenal. And I think a lot of racers maybe miss where the value is in that for method. You know, we see the activations for things like the RAM RHO, where people are literally taking a stock truck off of jumps. MARTY: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: And there's a direct correlation, right? You're selling the truck. But what are brands MARTY: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: getting when they're doing these things that are so outside of the box? MARTY: I think that's what you just said. What can they do that's outside of the box? Meaning how are they gonna it get attention and in a lot of it, how do they craft their brand to be something that people want to be part of? Or they feel welcoming or or that's just kind of cool, right? That that's yeah, the drone show last year actually started when they had it set up that whole alien thing they had set up for King of the Hammers. And then when they saw all the the all the stuff happening at King of the Hammers, you know, up Yeah, we went to the all the fights and all the stuff that you could see on social media, which is really unfortunate. They said we can't be part of this. But we has we've already paid for it, so let's bring them to Crandon. which of course everybody loved that, right? That was a but it was Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: a expensive deal, but it worked well. But there again, everybody saw the method drone show, right? That's what they saw. And you know, what do aliens have to do with selling wheels? It doesn't really matter. They're they're they're they're cool Megan: He MARTY: and and methods just cool the way they've gone to market. From a long time, not I mean not just with when Boyd was there, but you know, they continuously kind of raise the bar and that. And I think I think one of the things that that racers need to do, they need to just look around and they need to study this stuff. Or and they may need to go to Road America and go, Wow. Because I guarantee you, if I had taken the series guys, some of the bracers, you know, and to take them there and walk them to the pits, walk them to the paddock where there's just all this the the money that's being spent there and how they go to market. However, America, you can learn a ton just by paying attention to that stuff. And some of the stuff, look, there's no harm on file if you're just essentially just copying them. It's just you're just gonna copy whatever they're doing essentially, right? And just learn. We you're taking bits and pieces all the time. I mean, there's kind of nothing new under the sun anymore, really, where you're just taking this piece of the hit of the past or this idea, or watching an you know, Fox lead in you know, broadcast in the five hundred and say, hey, hey, that the way they they shot that, or the the music they use or the how they did the voiceover and you know, I I I can s I can take that same that moved me. I can take this here, copy this essentially, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: you know, in your own way. But but you know, d that's how you and I'm that's I think the one thing that I do all the time. I'm constantly looking around, constantly trying to figure out. You know, that's why I go to all you know, I go to H Hammers, I go to C PRI, SAN Sport Show, Off Road Expo, just A to B there, but B just to kind of learn. Like What what's the n what's the latest trend? What are these guys doing? And you know, it's a very applicable to what we do here. So it's always a Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: learning thing. You never you never you never stop learning, I guess. And and you know, there's people who can do things certain things better than you can and or s and some things they can't, but some things you go, wow, that was really good. How do I apply Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: that to this? And I think that that's w where people miss too. Megan: Yeah, well, I've got an idea for you. So this was something MARTY: Mm-hmm. Megan: that that Amanda and Amanda Van Den Elzen: Ha ha ha ha. Megan: I kind of have as a running joke on the show. But so I have a son who just turned five. And so last year at Crandon, we had bought the tickets to be in the grandstands and it worked out for about I say he sat there for maybe two hours and then he just he just could not sit still. So thankfully we were able To get some tickets to the skybox, which was perfect because then there was room for him to actually run around. So, MARTY: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Megan: but what I saw at Wheatland this year for the champ race was, and I don't know if it was a vendor, but someone brought a bouncy house and they had it right behind the grandstands. And then right next to that was a coffee truck. And I was like, that's perfect, because then the kids can, you know, burn off some energy that they have. the parents can get some caffeine that they need to last MARTY: Right. Maybe, yeah. Megan: for the rest of the day. So do you think that's a crazy idea or do you think like, hey, we need a bouncy house at Crandon? MARTY: I thought about it. I mean I have. I I have thought about we you're right. We we we that that's one thing that we're starting to really kind of also understand more is that, you know, the kids have a certain now they like racing, that we have the R C track, you know, which is actually more of a pain than it is. But but but but kids love it, right? but I I think it's a great idea. It's just a matter of where and d did they charge for it by did you did you was it free? It was free. Megan: No. No, it was free and it was just like a honestly it to me it seemed like it was just someone else's like a family had brought it there because there really wasn't like a vendor or like anybody specific running it. It was just kind of like a mom and dad and MARTY: okay. Or it may it look it yeah, it may have been it may have been Jamie Devney who runs the track. You know, he's a great guy and pretend like it came from him. I I I wouldn't be opposed to it. I have to find a place for it. I I do under understand that's Megan: Right. MARTY: also a reason why like now we're s seeing some food trucks here, right? That that's new Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: for Koran. That that was always kind of controlled and it took a while to understand. Look, people the tastes have changed, the RVs have changed, you know. I I joke about all the time, but Koran when I got here was Nothing but converted school buses with stripper poles and surplus army pets. Essentially that's what it was. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: In the in the campground I'm talking about. Now they're Megan: Yeah. Right? MARTY: staying now we're people come Wednesday. Right. Right. They're coming Wednesday because we're racing Thursday because we we had to expand the schedule Monday. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: And it's working. So now it's practiced. It allows us to do so much more. And and they're coming Wednesday. And most of them are leaving Monday morning now because they have These comfortable campers and they Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: just want to be part of all of it. It's great. I love seeing people show Megan: Yeah. MARTY: up Wednesday afternoon. It's just the best thing 'cause they're they're showing up for the weekend. They're coming, right? And Megan: Yeah. MARTY: you know, but but again, that you know, things evolve here and the same thing, you know, they don't necessarily want to eat, you know, our great fries that we make here or our chicken wings for four or five days. Like that, you know, they and they don't want they don't want to drink beer all you know, it was exclusively beer for years here, right? And some hard out now they can actually eat cocktails here all day. because that's what they wanted. And yeah, they're good now. That was Amanda Van Den Elzen: And those margaritas are good. Megan: Okay. MARTY: a mistake I remember when I first got here, the board they were they were they understood the margarita machine. They understood, but they were using the worst tequila, just the rot gut tequila. And the problem was of course is when people drank them, they didn't they didn't answer the bell the next day. Like they were out. Like they're done. Like they they're Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: done. And so we we've gradually now gotten our alcohol You know, better. Our you know, Luke is w is our is also a flannery, you he's he's married to McKinsey Flannery, but he is our food and beverage manager. We make sure that that there's there's good alcohol here, you know, 'cause some people not everybody, but some people want that. And so we need to have Amanda Van Den Elzen: yeah. MARTY: that. We you know, for a while we just took treated everybody kind of the same and try to keep prices low because that's what we do here. But at some level, no, let's let's bring in alcohol. Yeah, it's gonna cost here, but people will pay that. It's not Certainly not any more than going to a Packers game. It's way it's way less than all that, right? But Amanda Van Den Elzen: Way less, yeah. MARTY: what you know, but I'm saying is that you know, we look around at the competitive side and say, Yeah, okay, but at at the race track what what are they charging, right? What were they charging down there? And and you know, it's just because it's a convenient thing. And but now we have food trucks here that are changing things up a little bit and you know, we're evolving all that too. It's all part of it, you know, just like corporate hospitality we're getting better at, you know, building more suites now again, potentially we're gonna make, you know The barn here, which is the famous, and we have a big deck that's kind of underutilized. Someday the barn will be a museum and the deck will be broken up into 10 and 20 seat spaces Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. MARTY: so that people can, you know, they can have a VIP experience. Just some. It doesn't not for everybody. They'll have their own bar, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: their own bathroom. That way, you know, they can have a VIP experience that nobody else gets, that then there's a handful of people to pay for that. Not everybody, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: but but some, and so we need to remember that too. You know, there's people. out there who come here with these big buses, they want whatever the best that they can get is. So, you know, we we're seeing that too, which is nice. And but we but but we still work hard to keep prices, you know, as reasonably can for for families coming here. And, you know, it's it's it's tough. I mean it's it's hard to do and and certainly things got more expensive. And, you know, thank God for our volunteers who come here and help us, you know, flip burgers and make make French fries and do all that 'cause we couldn't live without So that's a that's a big part of here too. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Absolutely. All right. before we set you loose to the world, Marty, we have one question that we ask all of our guests. And that is if you could give grassroots motorsports athletes one piece of advice based off of what you've learned working in this space, what would that be? MARTY: always remember while you're there, take every race as a gift, right? Nobody's nobody's forcing you guys to race, nobody's twisting your arm, you know. Enjoy every lap, enjoy every pass, you know, and and remember you know, take that in for what it is every time. Every time I got in a race car, it's like I'm I'm at some point in the Baja Peninsula, I'm like, I'm so blessed to be right here, right now, driving this car down this road, and it's it's worth all the effort, right? You gotta remember that first and foremost. 'Cause it's it you know, it's very difficult. If you take it too too seriously, you're not gonna have any fun anymore. And you gotta have Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. MARTY: some fun. You know, and you remember the juice has to be worth the squeeze. So have fun, make it work. And then, you know, really just kind of look around and if there's something that you see that somebody's being successful at, whether it's how they present their pits or how they do their livery or how their race team looks or how their social media is, you know, emulate that for yourself. I mean, it it's not like you have to start from scratch. If you look around Or maybe it's it may fit your favorite NASCAR guy, or maybe it's a a a football player. Whatever it is, there's people out there that you kinda want to associate to be like, or hey, he does that really well. So find that within yourself and find that I can relate to that and I could take that whatever he's doing and apply it to my program and you know, and learn and and s never stop learning and you know, realize that, you know, it's a it's it's a difficult business. But man, you know, racing's still the most fun thing you can do to me. You know, it's still the best activity Megan: Mm-hmm. MARTY: ever. So I I still love driving race cars. I still it's still fun. I mean it's it's supposed to be. Right. So that's that's that's kind of my my advice, I think. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I love that. Thank you so much, Marty, Megan: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: for joining us today. The takeaways that Megan: Thank you. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I hope our listeners are are going home with, I think are incredibly valuable. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise. MARTY: I enjoyed it. Didn't realize didn't Megan: Mm, yes. MARTY: realize it was already an hour and a half of me talking, so maybe you can edit this down. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Ha MARTY: no, I'm looking forward to see you guys soon and back here in Labor Day. And yeah, I'm looking forward to having fans here. And like I said, I'm pretty accessible most of the time except during race weekend. So if anybody out there wants to reach out, Megan: Right. MARTY: I'm happy to offer whatever advice I can. I mean, it's it's really it gets down, it's there's really no secrets. It's just applying, it's learning, and it's just hard work. It's just hard work. It the whi Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. MARTY: whatever you're doing, it's just hard work to be successful Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. MARTY: in anything, but this this game especially. So Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, and the more we work together, the more we all grow. Megan: Yes. And being creative. MARTY: That's true. That's Megan: Yeah. MARTY: right. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Awesome. Well, to our listeners, we've got another episode coming out in two weeks. We release a new one every other Thursday. We're so glad that you chose to listen through this episode with us today. And we love you. Bye. Megan: Hi.