Dave Kallmann

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Off-season plans for Road America don’t include big projects, just a little paving and some paint and polish for the sprawling racetrack in Elkhart Lake.

Similarly, the transition of leadership won’t be anything dramatic, just part of a multi-year evolution

After 20 seasons as president, George Bruggenthies will turn the job over to senior vice president of business operations Mike Kertscher on Jan. 1. But the executive who brought NASCAR to the track, brought Indy cars back and led Road America’s evolution into a premier racing facility will still be around in a reduced role with a title to be determined.

And Bruggenthies will always have strong opinions.

In an annual end-of-season debrief, Bruggenthies, 69, discussed his future role, the facility, schedule and radical changes he’d like to see for one of the track’s most popular weekends.

Make NASCAR more fan-friendly

When the then-Nationwide Series arrived at Road America in 2010, it quickly became the track’s premier weekend. Since then, though, the newness wore off, overall interest in NASCAR decreased and the return of Indy cars to the track created more competition for fans’ dollars.

Now NASCAR is at a place where it must make significant changes soon to remain relevant.

“They’ve got to get rid of the (closed) garage,” Bruggenthies said. “I understand the way they blitz around in there currently, but they just need to change the practice.

“They could very well use pit lane for their hot sessions when they’re doing their testing, when they’re doing their qualifying. Just use the pit lane like other groups do so the cars don’t have to go through the crowd.”

NASCAR limits “garage” access at all events. Few places have an area near as large as Road America does, making for a tight squeeze with cars driven through a very confined space at most tracks.

Whereas NASCAR transporters are tucked into a fenced area within the Road America paddock, other series spread out, teams work under canopies and cars are pushed or towed or driven slowly to the grid.

“I still go to events, Long Beach (Calif., IndyCar), etc., etc., where it’s a closed paddock and I don’t know … I don’t think it’s fan friendly,” Bruggenthies said. “And that’s why we have a good IndyCar event. It’s all open. It’s no wonder ours is one of the top ones. And that’s what NASCAR should be doing.”

The sanctioning body also must find ways to speed up its caution periods, Bruggenthies said. A lap around the 4-mile track at pace-car speed takes more than 5 minutes, and there were 11 official yellow flag laps during the 45-lap race this year.

“OK, it’s time to go get a beer, I guess, because this is going to be 15 minutes,” he said. “Then they open the pits. They should do it like Formula One. Leave the pits open."

“Some of the people I talked to about the event, how did they like the event, they said, ‘Oh, it was great, there was a lot of heavy competition.’ Yeah, there was. There were people pushing and shoving, but the yellows just got me.”

Drivers need to take a cue from Bill Elliott on interacting with fans, Bruggenthies said. The 16-time NASCAR most popular driver came out of retirement after six years to race at Road America.

“Here we’ve got a guy from the Hall of Fame who was running Xfinity, he was outside the garage and he was signing autographs,” Bruggenthies said. “A big crowd around him. He was making his exit, and they saw him and started handing him stuff. He just was smiling and signing. Fans loved it. So that’s what they come here for.”

Super Trucks 'solution'

Robby Gordon’s Stadium Super Trucks series gave a huge boost to the NASCAR weekend. Although Bruggenthies speaks only in generalities about attendance, he went so far as to call the trucks' two races as “a solution” to sagging interest.

“Fans just loved it, just loved it,” Bruggenthies said. “We’ve got a commitment they’ll be back next year. We might be changing up the event a little bit. We’re looking at potentially another feature on Sunday.”

The Xfinity Series race will be held Aug. 24, a Saturday. A possible Sunday addition to the weekend is the only holdup regarding the 2019 schedule.

Two more winners

After an anticipated dip in ticket sales in 2017, IndyCar's second year at Road America, attendance was up again, Bruggenthies said.

Also, attendance for the IMSA sports-car weekend continues to outpace expectations.

"I don’t understand," Bruggenthies said, "but I’m not going to argue."

A Cup race someday?

Since NASCAR’s second division arrived at Road America in 2010, fans and industry insiders have asked when the sanctioning body would bring what is now the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series to the track.

“Jim France was here for our IMSA event, so I asked him,” Bruggenthies said. “And guess what. Like, a week later he’s running NASCAR. So I assume he’s a little busy catching up on what’s going on there.”

France, who was at Road America in his role as chairman of IMSA, became interim chairman and CEO of NASCAR on Aug. 6, taking over for nephew Brian France, who was arrested a day earlier and charged with driving under the influence and possession of a controlled substance.

“I know Mike asked Meghan Miley (director, racing operations for NASCAR), too,” Bruggenthies said. “Certainly they are aware that we have interest.”

Other schedule changes

The Pirelli World Challenge will move out of the June IndyCar weekend and become the headliner of a new Sept. 21-22 weekend. The change was announced in July.

“They want to run all their classes and would like to be alone, so we built them their own weekend, and they should be happy with that,” Bruggenthies said. “We had PWC as a standalone before we added IndyCar to the event, so we know financially what the event’s potential is. We just needed to pull it out of that IndyCar schedule. It was too much.”

Vintage Indy Registry, a group dedicated to the preservation of Indy-car history from 1911 to 1996, will be added to the June 21-23 IndyCar weekend. The IndyCar Series also is expected to have a Sunday warmup.

Vintage motorcycles will move out of June, which this year had four consecutive weekends open to spectators.

Building projects

Planned capital improvements include finishing touches on bathroom buildings erected around the course in recent years, as well as additional paved handicapped parking and space for motorcycle schools. Also, a modernization of the popular St. John the Baptist concession in the paddock will be in the planning and design stage.

Transfer of leadership

The ascension of Kertscher, 33, to the presidency has been a two-year process, Bruggenthies said. It became more widely known throughout the season and was announced internally in July. Bruggenthies will work with Road America through 2021.

Kertscher has been part of the leadership team, with Bruggenthies and Greg Wieser, vice president of operations.

“He’s still conferring with me and we talk and we’re all part of the team, but I just want him to get the final stages of this transition under his belt and also to show IMSA, IndyCar, NASCAR – all of our important people we deal with – that Mike is the person that is going to replace me here,” said Bruggenthies, who plans to spend more time at his vacation home in Arizona.

“What am I going to become? I’m going to become a team member who’s not going to be here all the time. I’ll be heavily involved in sponsorship and the vintage July event. And I’ll be here as need and as a counsel, as a past president, executive colleague, executive at large … we don’t know what the title is going to be.

“But Mike is the team leader right now and will continue to be. It’s well-planned. It’s a good transition.”