Seeds of IndyCar Capture: APEX Brasil Edition

We tried to warn citizens about the emerging strategy. Now, regrettably, seedlings of APEX Brasil Deep Capture are beginning to appear. The behemoth is unintentionally undermining all hope of remaking IndyCar into something that the market will accept.

The first step toward Deep Capture is enabled by the Brazilian Trade and Promotion Agency's Business Support Center in Miami.

Sell it if you got It

IndyCar has demonstrated that it is not interested in remaking its product to please consumers. However, IndyCar is interested in distributing free tickets to the Miami race to those who sample Brazilian foods at Sedano's supermarkets in South Florida.

Attendance at the Homestead-Miami event is typically mediocre and occasionally lousy. We suggest that IndyCar fans get used to it.

APEX Brasil obviously purchased the Homestead-Miami tickets from the International Speedway Corporation. The project value lies in the sampling of food. Will the recipients of the freebies even use the tickets?

That's supposed to be the really cool thing. It doesn't matter. ISC wins, APEX Brasil wins, and the IndyCar Series collects its sanction fee and leaves behind the stench of another subpar event. Guys like Terry Angstadt revel in pulling off deals like this. They are fools.

Then, when television ratings are released, exposing the ugly and undeniable truth, IndyCar teams, secure in their self-aggrandizement, will blame Versus. Angstadt is left to defend his television partner. Perhaps those attempts to circumvent market demand weren't so smart, after all.

Recall that this is Terry Angstadt's plan for "raising the value of the IndyCar Series."

Here's a rule of thumb: if it is free, then it is worth nothing.

I will concede that shenanigans such as these are a good idea only on the day when Roger Penske determines that the best way to make money in the truck rental business is to sell barbecue sauce. Until then, I shall consider it a fool's errand.

Is it any wonder that Homestead-Miami was included in the 2010 IndyCar schedule? It will be profitable, fans or no fans. The emerging strategy is unfolding before our eyes.

How is it that this silly little plan apparently seems like a good idea to the members of the IMS Board? Would they rather the grandchildren become custodians of the Greatest Race in the World or sales reps for exotic foods?

An Important Distinction

Before we continue, I want to make something perfectly clear. Brazil has every right to aggressively market its products and services in the United States of America. The South American nation is poised for substantial growth in the global economy. This is largely the result of hard work.

Brazil has earned the opportunities that are before it because, unlike the IRL, it has addressed its fundamental economic challenges, in particular a historically skewed distribution of purchasing power that favored a tiny, well-connected class of industrialists and bureaucrats at the expense of everyone else.

Sound familiar?

If you think that correcting this problem was easy, then we suggest that you attempt to accomplish something similar in the United States. It's no picnic. The difficulties that Brazil has overcome were much greater.

And, so, congratulations to the people and leadership of Brazil. The Indy Idea welcomes your fine products and services (and impossibly gorgeous models) to the United States.

However, we do request that you not recapitalize and therefore perpetuate an IndyCar racing product that the market has rejected. The United States is already home to dozens of Zombie Banks. It does not need a Zombie Racing Series to increase yankee misery.

Tough Love

Bankruptcy - comprehensive market failure - can be a very good thing. It breaks down silos, strips bare vested interests, and allows for cancelation of contracts that are not beneficial to the insolvent firm. The IRL is not likely to go bankrupt in the legalistic sense because it is owned and subsidized by the Indianapolis Motor Speeedway Corp.

Frankly, that's too bad. If not for its corporate parent, the IRL would be in Chapter 11 as we speak. It would have to cut costs to match its market value. It would be subject to market discipline. And it would be much better off than the operationally bankrupt Zombie Racing Series that it is today. Without subsidies, this wounded animal would come to know mercy.

APEX Brasil has good and noble intentions. But its benevolence is cruel.

There is no doubt that the IRL needs APEX Brasil much more than APEX Brasil needs the IRL. We reach this conclusion because we assume that APEX Brasil has products that people actually want to buy.

Furthermore, what does IndyCar have to do with APEX Brasil's mission? Are race tickets necessary to convince grocery shoppers to sample free food? The logic seems confused.

The real value to be derived from the IRL/APEX Brasil partnership will ultimately be domiciled not in the racing, but rather in the derivative distribution contracts. And so I ask again: have we learned nothing?

We would wager that Brazilian products and services are of sufficient quality to be effectively marketed in the United States without having to endure the shackles of a Zombie Racing Series that refuses to fix its product.

So it seems that tomorrow shall be Groundhog Day in the IndyCar Series once again.

Will somebody at the Indy Racing League and the World's Greatest Race Course please stop this madness and give consumers what they want?

Roggespierre