Q&A: Printup talks future of WGI, IndyCar, Phish

Michael Printup has been president of Watkins Glen International since June of 2009. Since 2015 he has also overseen Americrown, which is responsible for catering, concessions and merchandise sales at 12 tracks owned by International Speedway Corporation, the parent company of Watkins Glen International. He has been involved in several capital improvement projects at the racetrack, including a full repave that was completed before the 2016 race season. This year's schedule includes the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship's Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen from June 29-July 2, NASCAR weekend from Aug. 3-6 and the Verizon IndyCar Grand Prix at The Glen from Aug. 31-Sept. 3.

How do you feel about the 2017 schedule at Watkins Glen International?

We’re the only North American track with the top three (North American) racing series all here. Nobody else has what we have. We’re pretty proud of that, with IndyCar, IMSA and NASCAR obviously. That’s exciting, particularly with some of the fan awards we’ve won, with USA Today's best NASCAR race, USA Today best wine festival. It just leads to a great schedule all summer. It’s a hectic schedule, but it’s a lot of fun having all these series here.

What kind of feedback did you receive from IndyCar fans after the series made its Glen return last year?

Everybody was excited, but I take a lot of personal interest in IndyCar. I always have. I kind of grew up in IndyCar, so I was glad that we were able to get them back. The fans themselves, for only having a little bit less than 90 days to sell the race last year, we were pretty happy with the outcome as a management group. I never ran into so many happy fans in my career here. People really wanted to see that race. We broke the North American road course speed record, so that (new) pavement added to the quality of racing, to the stickiness. As I kept saying last year, it was pretty neat to see that.

We’ve got two more years – this year and next year – with IndyCar. Hopefully by the end of summer we can at least start initially discussing the future. Hopefully we see the crowds come back out this year and come out stronger than they did last year. For a short term of selling, pretty good event last year.

NASCAR has undergone some race format changes this year. What are your thoughts on those moves?

Running the three segments, when they first introduced it, I had to understand exactly what they were saying. I got to see it subsequently at Phoenix and at Martinsville. I think it’s lent a lot of credit. I really did think that straight up front, not just because I’m a speaking voice for the company and part of the company as a whole. I looked at it long term. I know a lot of fans don’t like change, so I knew there’d be some resentment. Now people are watching it and some of the guys asked me this past weekend at Martinsville, ‘What are you hearing?’ And we’ve seen it on our Facebook and Twitter. Three months ago and two months ago they didn’t like it, and now they’re starting to warm up to it and starting to see the excitement.

It's giving people breaks. We noticed it at Phoenix and Martinsville. Being in charge of the food and beverage for our company across the country, I’m able to see it from that point of view. We see people taking that planned break. They’re running to the bathrooms or they’re going to the concession stands. Every other sport has a quarter, has a half. We’re hearing some good things, which I think is good. I can say I like it all day long, but it doesn’t matter unless I’m the buying public.

As a road course, Watkins Glen is different than most Cup races. Will the format have a different impact here?

We don’t think so. We wanted to see how it played out on the ovals. We’re going to have to see how it plays out at Sonoma. It’s a shorter road course, lower-speed road course. I think for us it will provide some great excitement and add that little break in there again. Not only for the fans, obviously for the drivers. I think subsequently, it will have the same effect that it does on the ovals. We’ll wait until Sonoma and see what ultimately happens at that road course. Then if there’s anything we can do to make it bigger, better for the fans, we’ll take a whack at it.

NASCAR didn’t take full advantage of the repave last year in terms of speed. Do you think this year will be different?

I would explicitly say it was the tire manufacturer last year. We know that. They came in with the thought of even though they tire tested prior to the Cup race last year in August, they brought the same hard compound that they use on any other repave to avoid wear. The drivers I spoke to specifically about the tires said it was all the tires. That was the only series that didn’t have a lap record-breaking speed here. So it wasn’t the cars, it wasn’t the teams, it was truly the tires. They didn’t provide enough grip, they left it too hard for a brand new surface and the tire manufacturer made a mistake.

I hope they live and learn that the next time something like that happens at a road course, there’s a little bit more effort put into the quality of racing. When you had the only series that doesn’t break a record while every other series that came here was breaking records because of the quality of the racetrack, that was a shame. I think going into this year, I know the tire manufacturer has made some changes. I know during IMSA, Continental Tire fully changed up their programs up there and it showed in that whole weekend. So we know Goodyear will make those changes and there will be a little bit more grip in those tires this year.

What’s the status of the search for title sponsors for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and the Verizon IndyCar Series race?

IndyCar, we’re still looking. Us and IndyCar, that’s a definitive partnership in all the sponsorship and corporate partners. We have a partnership with IndyCar on that one. That’s a first ever and we’re equally responsible for bringing it in. It’s a good partnership. I enjoy it. I hope it gives us more opportunity. Of course, we’ve got Verizon on that backside of that one, but we’re still looking collectively.

NASCAR, I wish we had better news and we could announce an entitlement partner. As you know, Cheez-It pulled out in October, November last year. Great sponsor. Kellogg’s did a great thing (as our sponsor). They had a change at the top in some of their management and they moved their dollars to Major League Baseball. They pulled a lot of money from their racing program. That happens in this world. When sponsors change, a lot of it comes from a CMO level, a VP level or a president level. We got caught up in that. … We’re still looking. We’re down to about two companies we are talking to seriously. We would have hoped we would have closed it by now, but we haven’t.

Since you’ve been track president, there have been a lot of changes to infrastructure and overall improvements. Where do you go from here?

Our strategic plan, we revise that every year. The comptroller and I have our meeting about it tomorrow morning, to be honest. You probably noticed the party deck at the front entrance coming in. It’s completed. We’ll be opening it up for NASCAR this year. That was a $150,000 investment over there. Instead of creating grandstands, we’re going to continue creating those. We have another one going in over at Turn 11 and we’re putting another extension onto our Glen Club – a party deck itself just to the Glen Club. Just more expansion.

Instead of popping up grandstands and getting overzealous like back in the '90s with this entire sport, particularly because of the road course opportunity we reverted to these party decks. We feel we have a strong value being trackside. You can see multiple corners where you’ll have big screens and TVs in front of you, so it’s not like you miss any of the action on top of it. The big crystal ball in the 10-year strategic plan would say we want new garages, we want some more amenities, we want more concession stands. There’s a lot of things that are millions and millions of dollars. Obviously that pavement was important. That was $11 million, so it did take a chunk away from the master plan, I’ll call it. A new fan area also in the infield is what we’re looking at over the next five to seven years.

The two Phish festivals were obviously successful. Are there any plans for similar events in the future?

We found a niche obviously with Phish. We were the first company out of International Speedway Corporation’s portfolio back in 2011 to do a big-time concert, which was Phish then. We’ve hosted some small things here or there, but that was a pretty large opportunity. We want to continue doing them. Phish is a great partner of ours. They only do those festivals every three to four years. Their last one was ’15. Maybe ’18, ’19 we hope to maybe get Phish back. But we’d love to have an annual concert. I wouldn’t make it our portfolio business, because our business is racing, but definitely we’ve found a niche. They started it back in 1973 (with Summer Jam) and we’re only brokering off somebody else’s idea. But that would be important because it’s alternative uses of the property. You have this 1,861-acre property. How do you best utilize it besides seven events a year?

Michael Printup

Age: 52.

Residence: Horseheads.

Family: Wife, Stephanie; sons Brendan (19) and Matthew (13).

Hometown: Hamburg (near Buffalo).

Previous jobs: Has worked for Watkins Glen International's parent company, International Speedway Corporation, since 2000. Was senior director of facility management at Michigan International Speedway, before coming to Watkins Glen. Vice president of 380 Development LLC and vice president of Americrown Corporation from 2000 to 2005.

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