Let's Fix North American Auto Racing - /shakedown

[MUSIC PLAYING] [CAR ENGINE] LEO PARENTE: Guys, I need your help to come up with the content for a new show. Here's how I envision this next show. IAN WHELAN: OK. LEO PARENTE: With all the politics going on in racing, all the personal agendas, I want to start the next "SHAKEDOWN" with this subject. DRIVE "SHAKEDOWN" is going to design the ideal North American racing, the collection of races and race cars that will grow racing, reduce the clutter, motivate the influx of money, media, and fans. So I need your guys' help to figure out how we fill that up. What racing-- was is the ideal that we want? MAX SEEGER: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: You've been through "SHAKEDOWN." Thank you for joining the team. MAX SEEGER: Oh, my pleasure. LEO PARENTE: But we've done stuff-- the Michael Johnson thing. MAX SEEGER: Yes. LEO PARENTE: Race of Champions. MAX SEEGER: That's right. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: And you seem to have this passion for racing outside of F1. IAN WHELAN: Well, I'm mostly an F1 fan, but I can appreciate other racing. And I think that there are certain things that I like about F1 that maybe we could apply to other racing or maybe things from that past of F1 that we could apply to other racing, because I don't necessarily think F1's at its peak right now. LEO PARENTE: So I want to pretend this is like Hot Tub Time Machine," where it's all new. It's all fresh. We can start over. And I know there are some rules of reality, but we're going to wipe it clean. MAX SEEGER: OK. LEO PARENTE: And I want to focus on North America only. Let's not try to chomp off the world right now. IAN WHELAN: OK. LEO PARENTE: And without getting too much into the criteria, I think we should talk a little bit about what we think racing needs to accomplish to be more popular, and then cut through the elements of the action or the cars or the venues or the media or whatever. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Let me start with just that. What do you want racing to be to be better? IAN WHELAN: Well, I think racing needs to be a little bit less opaque. Right now, I see cars running around tracks that I can't tell how they relate to any real cars on the road. And I'm saying that as an F1 fan. I actually love the crazy technology of F1. But I think aside from that racing, there needs to be-- the lower tiers or the sports car racing, I need to be able to relate those cars to things on the road. LEO PARENTE: Why? IAN WHELAN: Why? Because I think if you're a fan of Porsches or you're a fan of Fords-- you're a fan of something, you want to root for that kind of thing. You want to have an allegiance. LEO PARENTE: OK. And I think racing is in that interesting spot where no one cares, really, about the soccer ball, or who made the baseball bat, or how it's constructed. They watch the sport. But because the tool is so integral to racing, I guess it does matter. Max, you're looking at me. I know you've got something. MAX SEEGER: Yeah, yeah. Well, no, because the thing is, for me, I understand that there are a lot of subtle things happening on the track. And I appreciate it, totally. But-- LEO PARENTE: Don't pander to me. MAX SEEGER: OK, no, no. But I don't know if it's enough for me. So there are a lot of things that I'm into where you have an appreciation of it. You get really into it. So I don't see-- unless someone gets really into or understands How important it is to get the tires up to temp, because there's no such thing as doing a lap at speed if the tires aren't up to temp. LEO PARENTE: *** Adrian Newey. MAX SEEGER: Oh, my pleasure. So for me, I think that getting an appreciation for that sort of stuff, maybe there's a shortcut, maybe there's not. LEO PARENTE: So this came up once before. For you-- and there is no wrong answer here. For you, watching a race car go fast, it's not enough. I could watch an R18, e-tron-- whatever the hell they call it-- around Sebring, and I could catch the nuances and be entertained. But at the end of the day, maybe you're just watching highway traffic. MAX SEEGER: Right. LEO PARENTE: So there needs to be more? MAX SEEGER: Yeah. I don't want to put it down. I'm not putting it down in that-- LEO PARENTE: There are no disclaimers here. MAX SEEGER: OK. Well, and also, just going fast isn't really enough, because when I was in Bangkok for Race of Champions-- LEO PARENTE: Hanging with Vettel. MAX SEEGER: Yes. LEO PARENTE: Yeah, I heard that. MAX SEEGER: That's where we met each other, hung out. I actually didn't talk to him at all, so I want to clear that up right away. LEO PARENTE: You blew in his ear. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Webber's a ***. MAX SEEGER: Yes. LEO PARENTE: Yeah, OK. MAX SEEGER: That name doesn't really mean anything to me. [LAUGHTER] MAX SEEGER: So a guy goes out, gets some air on that first lift. LEO PARENTE: Oh, it was that race? MAX SEEGER: Yes. LEO PARENTE: The Race of Champions, the bridge, the whole thing. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. They're setting up. And I'm rolling. I get it, because I'm a professional, OK? But then they put a chicane in there. LEO PARENTE: Yeah, because it was dangerous, I guess. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. And then it sort of got less exciting for me. Not that I wanted someone to get hurt, but air is important. LEO PARENTE: Wait a minute. Let me write that down. So they took away the thing that was interesting you. And then it was time to go home. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. Well, then I had to stay there up until midnight-- IAN WHELAN: Keep shooting. MAX SEEGER: Yeah, And keep shooting against my will. LEO PARENTE: OK. So actually, I'm going to use that as a little bit of a segue then. So let's start defining the action. Jordan Taylor went on about to him, racing is passing. And I just negated watching a car go fast. At some point in time, is it enough? IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: And you were talking about jumps. MAX SEEGER: Right. LEO PARENTE: God knows what video game he's got in his mind. So let's define action. What do you want to see as action in racing? MAX SEEGER: I think that I just want to see pushing the envelope. And maybe to me, that looks like one wheel's off the ground or something like that, because I don't know if I can really gauge how fast something's going. IAN WHELAN: Yeah, or how on the edge they are. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: If they look like they're not really on the edge from the outside. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. Maybe it's as simple as facial expressions of a camera right at their face, because we're used to seeing straight out. But maybe we need to see some gnarly faces. IAN WHELAN: That's a good idea, yeah. LEO PARENTE: Well, you know, the old guys used to talk about how, F1, you could watch Nuvolari and whoever actually steer the car. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: And you could see their movement. You could see them working the car. I like MotoGP because you can see the rider working. IAN WHELAN: Right. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Now, Tony Kanaan's a little tired because his head is tilted to the left. And David Hobbes goes friggin' ballistic when the car goes one degree off angle, because that's an F1 slide-- Kimi excepted. Are you on that page? We need to see more of it? IAN WHELAN: Yeah. I watch F1 all the time, but I can't even pick out some of things they're talking about when they're-- LEO PARENTE: They're just making [BLEEP] up. IAN WHELAN: They might be, yeah. Sometimes, it's like they're talking about things that are going on there with-- like you said, they're off a few degrees. I can't even tell on TV. But to them, it's a big deal. So I feel like we need a little bit of a closer connection to what's really going on in these cars. LEO PARENTE: So that makes me think of something else that we should probably cover up front as a little bit of a criteria. So you guys think I'm deep into the bubble. You're a fan, knowledgeable. MAX SEEGER: I'm around it. LEO PARENTE: I'm going to be polite, but you're around it. You're more of an outsider looking in. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: The nuances work for the die hard. But who should we be looking at? Are we looking at a bigger audience? Or are we looking to make a generalist more of a disciple? You know what I'm trying to say? MAX SEEGER: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: I think we need to have a little bit of both. Racing needs to expand, probably for business reasons. And there's a lot of people who are casual fans that maybe if they could learn a little bit about the sport or find a way to become more engaged, they could become a higher-level fan somehow. LEO PARENTE: What do you think? MAX SEEGER: Maybe I'll tell this quick story of-- I overheard-- so I skateboard. LEO PARENTE: Wow. Really? MAX SEEGER: Yeah. Come see if we're-- LEO PARENTE: And that's in addition to the band you have. What's the band? The Price of Bandages? MAX SEEGER: No. The what? LEO PARENTE: I don't know. MAX SEEGER: The Mayor of Bad News. LEO PARENTE: I was close. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Yeah, OK. Go ahead. MAX SEEGER: So this kid's skateboarding. There is a game called SKATE. It's like HORSE for basketball. So one person does a trick. The other person does a trick to match it. LEO PARENTE: By the way, I'm old, not dead. Keep going. MAX SEEGER: OK. All right, fair enough. So there's your, I guess, dominant stance. Maybe it's right foot forward. But you can also do things with the other way, and that's called switch. It's like rediscovering skateboarding. So the one kid goes to the other kid, hey, you don't do any switch tricks. And then that kid goes, switch tricks don't impress my parents. Because to them, it looks like the same thing. So I feel like maybe that's why I want to see more air stuff. LEO PARENTE: So have you watched Global Rally Cross? MAX SEEGER: Accidentally. [LAUGHTER] LEO PARENTE: Do you like that stuff? MAX SEEGER: I guess so. I do like those-- the Gymkhana video in San Francisco. IAN WHELAN: Right. That feels like you're on the edge a little bit, right? MAX SEEGER: Right. That feels-- IAN WHELAN: What if there was a race on that course that Ken Block drove through San Francisco? Wouldn't that be cool? MAX SEEGER: Yeah. That would almost-- maybe race tracks are too sterile. LEO PARENTE: Funny. And I missed it. That's my disclaimer. But at this last X Game, they had a new event called Gymkhana. And they basically did what you just described. And I guess it was like drifting is, plus I guess there was a combination of speed or racing measurement as well as gymnastic type judging, did they do the trick or whatever. So again, if it is exciting and interesting, am I drifting toward it for the kids? MAX SEEGER: Well, that's-- see, I don't want to ruin racing for-- LEO PARENTE: Yeah, but this is the point. There's no definition of ruining racing, because I feel like the traditionalists are clinging to traditional things. Indy Car, for example, thinks it's an epiphany that instead of having practice, qualifying, and the race on Sunday, they're going to have two races Saturday and Sunday. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: La-dee-freaking-dah, OK? That's not a big epiphany. But if that works to attract more people because they actually watch racing versus cars going round, so be it. So you're not ruining racing. We're kind of argument that racing is a little bit broke and maybe getting more broke as no new people come to the sport because they've got options. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: And we're also talking about different-- we're talking about a whole sanctioning body with different types of racing under it. So maybe certain types of racing appeal to younger people. And then it feeds them up along the way as they get older. Maybe they kind of graduate to the more technical stuff that is not maybe as wild looking, but there are other nuances that they'll pick up as they grow. LEO PARENTE: Well, that's where I was getting to. And I'm going in my notes. So under some of the objectives I scribble out, in no particular order, one, the cars are the stars. I think what the cars are attract people to watch this and are probably going to be leading why we need more than one just racing series in this collection. IAN WHELAN: And that goes back to what I was saying at the beginning about relating to the cars. I always know there's a place for the spaceship cars. I love them. But I feel like even when we have cars that look like real cars, you still can't connect to them as well. LEO PARENTE: Yeah. And the corollary to that is somewhere along the line, the drivers have to matter. Action is key. We already talked about that. I think we've got to address technology, because somewhere between dumbing it down and spec cars and all this stuff-- NASCAR-- versus people loving the technology and making it relevant, at the end of the day, we're having the discussion about what the fans want, the venues, where this is, how it's set up. Everyone loves traditional road courses, but something new and different may be a better way to go. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. Like we were talking about, a street course on some crazy-looking terrain in San Francisco. That looks so cool in a lot of different types of racing. I know it's difficult to do, but-- LEO PARENTE: Well, and that's the part where we're not getting way too ahead of our ourselves. Is it real or is it virtual? There will never be a New York Grand Prix. But virtually, I can get on the sim and I can run around Columbus Circle in a race car. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: And then somewhere along the line, media has to factor in. MAX SEEGER: Right. LEO PARENTE: I love banging on the TV guys, but-- or even doing internet, but maybe. IAN WHELAN: Well, the media thing connects with the drivers as stars aspect. To me, those two things are related because I think that, especially in this country, the media coverage of these people who are driving these cars is kind of lacking. I've watch some of the Sky Sports coverage in the BBC, and they do a much better job of letting you get to know these guys. And then you feel more of a connection to them. And I think that's important. When you watch football-- I'm not even a football fan, but I know that people have their favorite players, and you're rooting for these guys. LEO PARENTE: So I would argue that the roadmap is out there. You can take an entity that may be complex and nuanced but make it play at a couple of levels. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: You can make the personalities matter. You can break down what's really going on. And you can do things. As much as everyone hates PKs and all that stuff in soccer, you can break it down and make excitement, I guess, if you have to, as long as you manage it so it respects the game. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: And actually, that leads to who's going to run this thing. And the simplest way that I'd throw it out is that you've got to follow the money. The tools are there. The manufacturers have the most money, the most vested interest, probably sponsors and probably media. So there should be this little Mafia collective of these people. They throw their money in, put the kitty in the game. That's the money to fund the type of media that needs to be done, the type of commitment that needs to be made, whether it's a kids' program or a junior program to bring young *** into racing rather than Rich Dad 101. And then, they're the ones-- frankly, as a benevolent dictatorship, they're the ones that start to make decisions. But we're playing that role. That's the role I want to play right now. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: So if that sounded too serious, I apologize. But now, it kind of cuts to, so what racing series should we have? IAN WHELAN: Well, for sports cars, I want to see something like Can-Am again-- LEO PARENTE: The old-- IAN WHELAN: Yeah. MAX SEEGER: What is-- LEO PARENTE: Which part? No rules? IAN WHELAN: Yeah. I like the-- MAX SEEGER: What is that? IAN WHELAN: Can-Am was a series-- what is it-- up through the '80s. I know it started '60s. LEO PARENTE: Yeah. The good stuff was '70s. IAN WHELAN: And it was basically like an unrestricted racing series. These guys had-- they could do anything they wanted, basically. Were there really any big rules? LEO PARENTE: There were minimal rules. It was an open formula with them. IAN WHELAN: And it was popular in America. A lot of European guys came over to race, and they built these cars that were just wild. They were just completely wild. LEO PARENTE: Chaparral put wings on it for the first time, aerodynamically. McLaren, to catch up with Porsche, for example, were running 8-liter, 9-liter motors. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Anything went. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: If you could build it within the box, freaking let it go. IAN WHELAN: I think you could have something like that now. But maybe you just restrict the amount of engines they can use per season. Let them run 21,000 rpms. I don't care. Let them put turbos. Let them run 12 cylinders on the car. Anything goes. I want to see a mix of different things from the manufacturers who can profile-- show off their own technology in their different ways and say I know how to do this better than you guys over there. LEO PARENTE: So to that point, do you think WEC with the P1 cars are close to that, or F1? IAN WHELAN: Well, the P1 cars are cool to me, but there's still not enough of them. We need a whole field of those cars. LEO PARENTE: So the problem's going to be, not to be neg, is safety and budget. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: But that's where-- IAN WHELAN: What's safety? LEO PARENTE: Well, to your point much earlier, I don't think you can negate danger. You've got to make this feel special. If anyone thinks they can just jump in a car and act like they can drive with a sim, then you've lost a bigger part of this. Slam any sports guy you want, including Mr. PED. We know we can't do those things, so we watch because they're gods. MAX SEEGER: Sure. LEO PARENTE: And from a race car standpoint, if it's too easy to friggin' drive, besides the fact that it's probably not appealing, the drivers will tell you, it's too easy to frigging drive. And there's no allure there. MAX SEEGER: They'll say that now? LEO PARENTE: Oh, yeah. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. The WEC cars-- I think they're really cool, but they look like they're easy to drive. And I don't know if they are, but-- LEO PARENTE: Yeah. I'd have to ask Mich. IAN WHELAN: I don't know. From the outside, though-- it goes back to what we were talking about before. If you look at these spaceships going down the road at ridiculous speeds, it just seems completely undramatic. Whereas something like Can-Am, everything looked like anything could happen at any moment. LEO PARENTE: So his definition of Can-Am, do you like that idea of having something unlimited? MAX SEEGER: Yeah, that sounds like-- because I think-- more than like seeing somebody get air or something like that. LEO PARENTE: Go ahead. MAX SEEGER: Because I mean maybe that's a little low com denom. LEO PARENTE: WRC-- rally-- those cars fly. MAX SEEGER: But I am that, because it spoke to me when that guy got air at Race of Champions. But I think creativity, to see people express themselves within racing would be something that would appeal to me. IAN WHELAN: Well, that actually brings up something. Like the old days of F1, when you had these constructors who were building their own cars, that was amazing. And there were so many different things these guys were doing. The things I said about Can-Am-- I want to see similar rules in F1, like the old days where you had four cylinder cars going up against V8s or V6s or whatever, or V12s. I know that probably with F1, if you had that first season, you'd probably see the next season, everyone would just figure out what happened, what was the best way and they'd all go that way. LEO PARENTE: But that happens anyway. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: So actually, the creativity, like you were talking about the F1, what my mind thought of was "Time Attack." IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: All these kids love "Time Attack," because they can be creative. They can build their own car. All the racing that I see, even the amateur stuff, especially the pro, there's so many rules and regulations and limitations. And to your point, once someone comes up with a good idea, they all need to follow that good idea, so everything looks alike. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Here's what I was thinking. North American racing only, we probably should have a number of premier racing series to satisfy all these various needs of action and whatever and technology and tradition. And I'm going to throw this out, and then we can kind of beat it to death. Everything below that is either to learn the craft or is a feeder series and really shouldn't distract from the specialness of this. So honestly, not all this [BLEEP] should be on TV, because there's too much clutter. So here's my short list. I think there needs to be a premier open-wheel series in North America, Indy Car evolved. I would it would be very high tech, open spec, and be technologically related to F1 so there can be some crossover. I'd even go so far as to suggest the Indy 500 should be part of the F1 season. IAN WHELAN: It's like the old days. LEO PARENTE: Like the old days. IAN WHELAN: And the old Indy cars actually were all different and high tech for the time. They looked cool. LEO PARENTE: They had turbines. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. They had all kinds of crazy stuff. And you had the F1 drivers coming over and driving cars on a one-off basis. Or, like you said, it was part of the whole world championship. LEO PARENTE: I'm not going to get caught in the details. Somewhere along the line, there should be a connect the dots. But Indy Car should be the fastest cars in North America. IAN WHELAN: Right. Right now, I'm not interested at all, because they're spec cars. LEO PARENTE: The next one is, for me, there should be a premier production car racing series. And that's got to be NASCAR. And I'm not sure it's all that broke, having NASCAR. MAX SEEGER: OK. LEO PARENTE: What do you think? MAX SEEGER: I don't really have an opinion about NASCAR. LEO PARENTE: OK. MAX SEEGER: It's sort of just there. LEO PARENTE: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. MAX SEEGER: Right? IAN WHELAN: I think they focus too much on the wrong things in that series, but that's a whole other discussion. MAX SEEGER: But maybe I could-- I didn't like broccoli at a certain point. That's kids and all that. LEO PARENTE: Got it. I'm with you. I got it. IAN WHELAN: All right. I don't know if there's anything that would really get me too excited about NASCAR. But I think at the very least, if the cars were production-based like they used to be in NASCAR-- and if you don't have a rear-wheel drive V8 car in your lineup, then you don't get to race in NASCAR. You're going to fail. And if you want to homologate cars like they used to do, that would be cool, at least. LEO PARENTE: Well, and then it makes cool, special edition cars for sale to the public. IAN WHELAN: I love-- exactly. And that could go across all the boards, except maybe F1 cars. But I love the old days with homologation specials and all this stuff with racing, because it gives people a real connection with the race car. LEO PARENTE: So my three were-- MAX SEEGER: Just before you do that, what is homologation? LEO PARENTE: Oh, OK. Sorry. Go ahead. IAN WHELAN: It's all right. Homologation is when there's a requirement of, OK, you want to race this car, this extra-fast, bigger-displacement monster? Well, then you have to build 500 or 5,000, whatever, street cars that the public can actually buy to say, all right, this is a real car that you make and you want to race it. LEO PARENTE: So the quick story is back in '70, '69, the rules for Le Mans racing changed. And the big engines were thrown out the door, and they were going to have little 3-liter F1 engines. But you could raise a 5-liter production car if you built-- I think the number was 250. So Porsche literally built 200, 250 Porsche 917's, lined them all up, had the sanctioning body come and see the cars. So Ferrari-- holy [BLEEP], Porsche has got a real race car at five liters. So Ferrari invited everyone over. And the story is they built 100 of the cars, showed them the 100 cars, set the other 100 over here-- let's go to lunch-- moved the 100 cars to another warehouse, and after lunch showed them the 100. And the guy said, oh, yeah. 200-- you got it. OK, that's good. MAX SEEGER: Wow. LEO PARENTE: Homologation. Anyway, I digress. So more road racing for NASCAR, I mean, honestly, if Australian V8 supercars have shown us anything-- IAN WHELAN: Right. That's a perfect example of how NASCAR could succeed-- and WTCC, another example. LEO PARENTE: And I bet you when I babble that in the show, there'll be a ton of commentators saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. In my less redneck Southern drawl, I mean, stop making it this little-- IAN WHELAN: Good old boys thing. LEO PARENTE: In the Walmart parking lot. IAN WHELAN: The whole heritage connection with the moonshiners and stuff, come on. It's been a really long time. There is real technology and there is real advanced stuff going on in these things. Let's-- LEO PARENTE: Bingo. IAN WHELAN: --bring it up to modern day. LEO PARENTE: Yeah. Third series, I need sports car road race. I think we need a GT class that can be as open tech as it is. Everyone talks about the Corvettes we see at these races. If they took the restrictors off, how freaking fast would it be? IAN WHELAN: Oh, I'm fine with that as long as it's actually based on a real chassis. LEO PARENTE: Bingo. And I can think if they want tech in it, they can have tech in it. I think there should be a prototype class, no offense to the F! cars. I know I'm talking too much, but-- MAX SEEGER: No, no. IAN WHELAN: No, I think it's fine if there's prototypes, Can-Am style, that they're almost like F1 cars with body work on them. LEO PARENTE: Now, I'm going to drag you into this. MAX SEEGER: OK. LEO PARENTE: So all these road racing cars, what would make road racing appealing to you? MAX SEEGER: I guess the thing that would make it more relatable for me, if it was in a place, like you said earlier, like San Francisco or something like that, or just something that's tight, kind of like a tighter race. LEO PARENTE: So what if they had eliminations? What if it was literally every weekend was a playoff, and it took all of the entrants and cut it down to the two finalists? MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Would that change your thinking? MAX SEEGER: I don't know. IAN WHELAN: I don't think the manufacturers are going to like that too much. LEO PARENTE: It's our Etch-a-Sketch. I don't know. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. But then, by the end of the year, you have what we have now with WEC, which is two manufacturers-- LEO PARENTE: No, no. I mean on the weekend. IAN WHELAN: Oh, OK. LEO PARENTE: 15 cars show up in the field. IAN WHELAN: OK. LEO PARENTE: Instead of qualifying, there are a certain number of elimination races. And at the end of the day, maybe that Sunday, you still have an elimination race with everyone in it. But at the end of the day, we take the two finalists and they go head to head, somehow, some way. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: OK. LEO PARENTE: And I know everyone's going to-- MAX SEEGER: So this is two and this is one on one? LEO PARENTE: Yeah. At the end of it, that's how you'd stay interested, that you watch this bad version of "American Idol" happen on a racetrack. MAX SEEGER: Well, I guess what would be interesting, maybe, would be a back story of the racers with a shot. Each one gets their lead up to this race. IAN WHELAN: That's a-- you mentioned "American Idol." That's what they do for all these contestants. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: They have a back story so you feel like you have a connection with these people even though you've seen only a three-minute little video about them. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: And NASCAR actually tried to get there with this whole take the gloves off the drivers and let them fight with each other and have that type of conflict in personality. IAN WHELAN: That seems contrived to me, though. LEO PARENTE: Thank you. OK. Because that's the other part-- somewhere in here, authenticity. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: We're going too long, and I apologize for this meeting. But the other thing in sports car-- I want a GT class that's just the traditional, low-tech grunty cars without all the driver controls and ABS and traction controls so that people can get back to the roots and enjoy just a real rough house-type race car. MAX SEEGER: OK. And what kind of track is that on? IAN WHELAN: On a road course. LEO PARENTE: Road course. But to your point, we need to have something that's rally, dirt, sliding, jumping. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. I feel like I'm coming across like this adrenaline junkie. LEO PARENTE: No, no. But you're not alone. IAN WHELAN: But you like what you like, and that's why you're here. MAX SEEGER: Yeah, yeah. LEO PARENTE: Let me tell you something. There is hundreds of millions of dollars-- a billion dollars-- thrown at it, and Indy Car will run a race on the weekend, and they'll get what? Maybe a million people in the US, of 330 million people, watching. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: So don't think you're the exception. You're the friggin' norm with the other 229,999 million. IAN WHELAN: Right. And in Europe, rally racing is very popular. It's up there. It's up there with F1. I don't know the numbers, but it's big compared to here. It's not so popular. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: So I know there are rally events here in America. And I know the Global RallyCross has done a pretty good job of getting manufacturers engaged thanks to ESPN and X Game. But somewhere along the line, with this dictatorship of all the OEMs running racing, they just need to commit to have a bigger racing rally presence. And this goes back to the media. Whether it's digital or TV, it just needs to be out there so that people know these are the special classes of racing that define racing. The last one-- something for bikes. IAN WHELAN: I've watched MotoGP. And the funny thing about that is even though I love F1 and I like MotoGP, I think it's actually more interesting when the bikes are more like World Superbike, where they're a little bit-- LEO PARENTE: Production based? IAN WHELAN: --more production based. Because motorcycles, even the regular road-based ones that you can buy at the dealership, are so wild with the tech and stuff, you're already up there in technology. So just to be able to actually have a real connection seems even more important in that case. LEO PARENTE: So we were on the same page with production based. I was going to throw something out there, and I don't understand why this is. Why can't I have a racing weekend where there's car racing, and if the track allows it-- and a lot of tracks do, like Laguna Seca's-- why don't they have the weekend with bike being one event? IAN WHELAN: Yeah, why not? LEO PARENTE: And by the way, have the cars go to a bike event and be a support race to them. Are the fans all that different that they don't-- IAN WHELAN: No. I think there are, obviously, support races already at different types of race events. But if you had more top-level racing at one event on one weekend, that could be pretty interesting rather than the gentlemen drivers running around in their Ferrari Scuderias and then the F1 cars come out or whatever. LEO PARENTE: Does racing include video games? Does this whole redesign involved video games more than just having licensing? IAN WHELAN: I think it has to. I'm not a big video game fan, but I think that it's important for the aspect to bring new people into the sport. LEO PARENTE: Should I even mention it in the show? IAN WHELAN: I think you might have to. MAX SEEGER: Would this affect video game sales? Or what are you saying? LEO PARENTE: No. Would I integrate video racing into this redesign of what racing should be in North America? MAX SEEGER: As a competition? LEO PARENTE: Yeah. IAN WHELAN: Or just to allow the fans to play a sim of these different kinds of racing so they can feel more involved. MAX SEEGER: Right. LEO PARENTE: And by the way, I don't know how far it should go, because in Europe, and I guess in a little bit of America, Nissan has their whole GT Academy looking for young guys and girls to become professional racers. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: Ordonez-- if I'm pronouncing it right-- he's raced at Le Mans. He raced at Spa. Ford has their little online version of Octane Academy, trying to find talent. I don't know what they're going to do with them, but they've connected the dots between virtual and real racing. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: And rather than just sell more, how could racing use that to get more fans into this? And perish the thought that you have a competition where I get to race Vettel or Dale, Jr. On the sim as part of some other version of "American Idol" that keeps ringing in my head. MAX SEEGER: Hold on, one second. Would it be possible-- LEO PARENTE: Go ahead. MAX SEEGER: You have your guys out there on the track. And then you have some kid in a virtual car racing them at the same time. LEO PARENTE: I don't see why not. Someone tried to do that years ago. And they were way ahead of the technology. MAX SEEGER: How would that work? Yeah. IAN WHELAN: You're using the video feed from the race or some sort of telemetry to show where the cars are. But you're in the race as well-- the real race. That would be cool. LEO PARENTE: It would never interfere with the real race, and just have the sim respect that if you bumped into one of the real cars, you bumped into the car. IAN WHELAN: Right. MAX SEEGER: Right. IAN WHELAN: That would be really cool. LEO PARENTE: Would you want-- screw watching. Would you do that? MAX SEEGER: No, I don't think so. [LAUGHTER] IAN WHELAN: But it sounds like a good idea for people. LEO PARENTE: OK. Why did JF put you on the "SHAKEDOWN" team? I'm kidding. The only one I haven't figured out is drag racing. But guess what? The news is Ford cut professional drag racing. They're dumping John Force. They're going to just do grassroots. But I don't know what to do about drag racing, and I can't ignore it. IAN WHELAN: Well, I don't know enough about drag racing, but-- LEO PARENTE: Nor do I, I guess. IAN WHELAN: I think, again, people have more connection to the cars that they can relate to when they see a really-- I'm thinking back to the muscle car days. When they can see a car going down the strip and then buy a car just like that, that's pretty cool. So that's all I can say about it. I know I'm repeating myself. MAX SEEGER: All right. How attended are drag races? IAN WHELAN: Professional ones? LEO PARENTE: I haven't been in a long time, but I know the races on the West Coast, they get a big crowd-- 100,000. MAX SEEGER: They do? Wow. IAN WHELAN: Wow. That's a lot. MAX SEEGER: So it doesn't seem like there's a problem. LEO PARENTE: No, no. To that point, I don't think there is a problem. They would argue differently in terms of sponsorship and what's going on. But at the same point in time, what I don't want to do is allow clutter to seep back into this pushing racing forward. MAX SEEGER: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: But I'm the bad guy who said, oh, yeah. Drag racing, forgot about that. And I'm just throwing it out there for them. I want to throw it out there for the crowd when they talk about it. MAX SEEGER: Right now, as it is, are there any events where they have this thing that you were saying, where it's more like an Olympics kind of thing, where if you're watching from home, you watch the guy in the rings, and then it goes to-- LEO PARENTE: I think the closest are Race of Champions and the X Games. MAX SEEGER: OK LEO PARENTE: Yeah. MAX SEEGER: Do you like that? Do you think you'd stick around for the whatever you don't like event? IAN WHELAN: Well, this reminds me-- not to cut you off. LEO PARENTE: Go ahead. No. Someone should. IAN WHELAN: With all these different racing types within the sanctioning body, if we could encourage the drivers to cross over more often, that would be helpful, I think, because if you start following a driver and you only like that one style of racing, you might open your mind once he goes over to this other one. LEO PARENTE: I think that's necessarily brilliant. That has to happen. IAN WHELAN: I feel like that used to happen more often, not under one sanctioning body, but-- LEO PARENTE: Well, and to that point, this is where I'm going to put too much pressure on the manufacturers. But since they are being allowed to run this thing, look at Pat Long. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: They shopped Pat Long around to various teams. What we're saying is go back to the old Andretti days, and this weekend, you're in the rally car. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: Next weekend, you're in our open-wheel car. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: Whatever. IAN WHELAN: Right. LEO PARENTE: Yeah. I think that would interest you. And it would build the personality of these guys-- and girls. I keep saying that. IAN WHELAN: And it would show how well rounded they are and their strengths and all that, weaknesses. LEO PARENTE: And this week, I'm watching rally, next week I'm watching Indy, because I'm following my guy. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. MAX SEEGER: So are we done? LEO PARENTE: Yeah. Another five-minute meeting with Leo. Thanks. IAN WHELAN: Yeah. LEO PARENTE: No. Yeah, I think we're done. And I think you gave me stuff to work on. MAX SEEGER: Cool. LEO PARENTE: So let me go write this damn thing. IAN WHELAN: All right. LEO PARENTE: Today, on "SHAKEDOWN," let's redo racing and create the ideal North American racing set, the collection of racing series, and race cars to get more fans, to keep the hard-core enthusiasts happy, and to bring in new followers without dumbing the racing down or sensationalizing it into some version of-- I don't know-- Ricky Bobby's Death Race 3000. So why this show? Well, frankly, I've had it with the auto racing politics, personal agendas, and nearsighted compromises in racing that never seem to get us the best solutions or the best racing. And why a North American racing redo versus taking on the globe? Well, I've got to start somewhere. This first, then we'll take on F1 Bernie and/or the FIA. So today, let's design a series of North American series with the cars, the action, drivers, technology, the traditions, the tracks, the format of the racing, and the media that would make racing be what you want and what more people would want to follow. And like every "SHAKEDOWN," we'll be doing our racing redesign with your ideas and input. We're tipping the North American auto racing Etch-a-Sketch and turning the *** "SHAKEDOWN" way, all with your input. So come back, and let's see if we can out think the Indy Car people, outsmart the SCCA, and outfox the Frances of NASCAR and the United Sports Car Racing. [CAR ENGINES REVVING] [MUSIC PLAYING]