One of the best parts of motorsports? Roping in new enthusiasts. | Articles

At the time you’re reading this, it’s mid-August. At the time I’m writing it, it’s late July. At the time it was actually due in David’s inbox, it was early July, but that’s irrelevant to the discussion and we shall never speak of it again. 

Anyway, somehow it’s been nearly a couple months since I got back from my 15th trip to the Nürburgring 24 Hour, and I know you’re already saying to yourself, “Is he blathering on about that event AGAIN?” 

[6 reasons why the Nürburgring 24 is the greatest endurance race]

And yes, I am. Well, sort of. First, it’s awesome and you need to go. But really, I’m not so much blathering about the event as using it as the jump-off for this month’s column, where I’m going to talk about how motorsports is just one big, wonderful multilevel marketing scheme–in the best way possible.

As I mentioned, 15th time. I kind of know my way around the place at this point, both geographically and logistically. The Germans have their ways of doing things and organizing things that I suppose make sense to them but can seem a bit obtuse to a noob. 

I’m getting so good at navigating the labyrinthine processes of media credentialing and finding lodging and getting to photo spots that our friends at Hyundai lean on me a bit for some knowledge during their media trips over there. I’m kind of the unofficial chaperone for the rest of the invited media, and honestly, it’s one of the most fun parts of my last couple trips over there.

There’s this transition that happens when you start to love a thing so much and become so familiar with it that it almost becomes more fun to share the thing than to do the thing. Like, you’ll never get to do it again for the first time, but you’ll get to see someone else do it for the first time, and that’s really, really cool. This year, I got to take Autoweek’s Mark Vaughn and YouTube’s David Land into the camping areas, and into the hot pits, and see their minds get blown by the immense spectacle of the event.

But I also got to do other cool stuff. At dinner one night, Bryan Herta Autosport’s Katie Brannan, who is technically the team’s PR rep but is also basically the den mother of the American side of the squad, was lamenting that she’d have to make a 90-minute-plus drive to pick up some tennis racket overgrips for Robert Wickens’ hand controls in the Elantra N TCR he was sharing with the rest of the North American squad. 

Weirdly, I was able to bust out an obscure bit of local knowledge: A supermarket I frequented near the village I usually stay in had an amazing tennis shop right in the lobby area. I bought some grips for my pickleball paddle there just last year, and it was less than half an hour from the track. 

Yeah, I played some pickleball while I was in Germany. Shut up. I’m that age now where it’s okay, possibly even cool. Katie was able to cut a ton of time off her mission and get the goods to the guy whose hands certainly need whatever help they can get.

Anyway, it was a weird thrill being able to share my knowledge with noobs, and I wasn’t alone in the sentiment. While I was walking the grid, I stopped to talk to local friend Gino Manley, who was competing in his first ever N24. 

Gino’s a fixture on the ChampCar/WRL/JZilla scene in the Southeast, and all he could really say as he was about to start his first shot at one of the world’s biggest enduros was, “Man, we need to get some more American club guys over here.” Minutes away from the green flag of one of the biggest races of his life, and all we could do was to brainstorm ways to share it with more of our friends.

And that’s a really cool thing about this scene, that so many of us want to build those downlines, rope more people into the scene and take it as a point of personal pride when those people lure even more people onto the rocks. And we don’t even have to buy any stupid brain pills or overpriced cutlery. We get to race cars, and that’s not at all a dumb thing to spend money on.

So I invite you to crack open the skulls of the impressionable masses just exploring our sports at any opportunity and pour in some knowledge. They’ll appreciate it, you’ll enjoy the satisfaction of helping ensure the future of motorsport, and you’ll get to lean in to being the seasoned, knowledgeable elder with all the right hookups.

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