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Senior Talks
Bader’s tenure at the helm of the sanctioning body was highlighted by an influx of new members, an expansion of sanctioned facilities and an increase in corporate support, but it wasn’t a dream situation. With the coming of Clear Channel and the corporate responsibilities that went with it Bader’s entrepreneurial bent was held in check by the need to satisfy quarterly bottom line projections. He has no regrets about leaving that post, as he outlines in our exclusive interview, but also admits that he left some things undone simply because of the circumstances. Bader’s efforts at transforming Norwalk Raceway Park from a forgotten track in the hinterlands into one of the nation’s most impressive edifices speaks volumes about his ability to see the future and then build to meet it. He shares his thoughts about IHRA, and the switch to NHRA sanction, with Torco’s Competitionplus.com’s readers.
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BADER: I don’t know that I’m retired yet. It seems like I’m busier than ever. I am enjoying things more, taking time to, if you will, smell the roses. I have a three-pronged philosophy of life. Faith comes first, then family, then finance. Finance is finally where it belongs, third. My wife, Deb, is working hard on her re-hab program (the result
BADER: I’ve been working with Billy at the race track. Recently I’ve helped him train some new employees in key positions like head of staging, starting line, things like that. I’ve also been working with him on things like scheduling of events and grooming the grounds. It’s not full time, it’s part time. I’ve also been spending a lot of time with the grandchildren because Billy lives next door to us, so the kids are always around. We do everything from a little target shooting to fishing and anything else you can think of. a
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BADER: That is not correct. Actually four years before that Billy and I talked about a five year plan that would allow him to run the facility, allow him to sit in the leader’s chair and move forward. I said to him at that time that the track needed some amenities, some improvements. The track was paid for and there was some money in the bank and if he wanted to follow in my footsteps I needed to make some improvements and some changes to the track. I asked him to tell me if he wanted to do that, and he said he loved the business, loved the people and wanted to stay in the business, and face the competition. I actually moved my office out of the track and brought it to the house, leaving him on his own. I was still running things, but from afar, if you will. We never announced a formal change that he was suddenly running things. When IHRA came along that presented an interesting option for me, so at the end of four years on our five year plan, I signed the papers on January 9, 1998, and I remember talking to him that night, and he said, Dad, you promised me five years, but we just couldn’t do that. I asked him how he felt about it, and he was scared to death and excited at the same time. I told him that he had nothing to worry about, because there I was, sitting in Bristol, Tennessee getting ready to take over this huge responsibility, and I felt the same way he did. I didn’t want to fail any more than he did. So we charged off into 1998 with him being the president of Norwalk Raceway Park.
COMPPLUS: When you look back on your tenure with IHRA are you fairly satisfied with what you accomplished, or do you think there were things left undone? BADER: I wanted to go further. I think there were things left undone. Clearly, it was a different aspect of drag racing for me. I had been a fan and then graduated to becoming a participant, and then I became a track operator. I’d even sponsored a couple of cars over the years, but that was nothing like running something like IHRA. Now, suddenly, I’m in the fifth stage where I’m the owner/operator of a sanctioning body, and there were nuances, and challenges that I didn’t know about and had to learn. I knew the competition side, but certainly lacked understanding of some of the elements I started facing. In the process of my learning there really wasn’t anyone to help. When I asked the owners of IHRA what they’d do if I didn’t buy it they told me they’d just shut it down. I didn’t want to see that happen. I think they were already struggling with the lubricant company and IHRA had lost over $11M in the previous 10 years from 1988 to ’97. When I came on board I was the sixth owner and 10th president in that period of time, and that goes through the period of Larry Carrier, Ted Jones and Billy Meyer. I couldn’t afford to lose $11M because I didn’t have that kind of money. From the business perspective we went into the black in the first year and I never looked back. We did bring IHRA back from the brink of disaster, if you will, and we did put a sense of pride and attitude and energy into it. Our racers bought into our program by building new cars, or fixing up the ones they had. Our tracks fixed up their facilities, and everyone tried to help. We also put together some very important relationships with the corporate community. I was very happy in our ability to create a rebirth of IHRA and grow their tracks. I think we tripled the number of tracks to almost 100. Our membership was just about 5,000 when I started, and I think we were at about 17,2000 when I left. I felt we had made a lot of progress, but clearly, there was more to do. a
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BADER: I didn’t fit in the corporate world. Suddenly everything we did was looked at very closely because we had stockholders we had to answer to. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s a good thing, but where I used to be the “stockholder,” and made a bad decision it didn’t have the kind of overwhelming ramifications they suddenly did. If I didn’t make a profit one year at Norwalk because we were investing for the future it wasn’t a big deal, but things don’t work like that when there are lots of stockholders. I had to answer to others, and found myself struggling to such a degree that I was worn down. I became so segmented and non-productive in the last three years that I wasn’t doing a good job, or at least that’s the way I thought it was going. I feel like I was in the wrong place. It just wasn’t a good fit for me personally. I was very tired, very run down. I’d excluded my family and my faith from my life. I was so focused on trying to do a good job that I’d worked myself into a hole I couldn’t get out of. I felt it was better for me, for my family, for IHRA and for drag racing if I took a breather. I backed away from that role, and now I feel invigorated and passionate about what I’m doing again.
COMPPLUS: Don’t you still own a portion of IHRA? BADER: I still own 25 % of the stock. I do have it for sale. I even ran an add in Speed Sport News a few months ago, and I do have an offer. We’ll see if that comes to fruition. Evan Knoll has made an offer to purchase that stock and my partners, Clear Channel/SFX, have the right of first refusal. If they exercise that right they’ll buy it. If they decline, Evan will buy it.
EDITORS NOTE: Competitionplus.com sources report that Knolls’ purchase of Bader’s stock will go through and Knoll may then launch an attempt at purchasing operational control of IHRA through a stock purchase of Live Nation/Clear Channel’s IHRA holdings.
BADER: Aaron and I still have a very good relationship. I don’t have a lot of communication with my partners, and I’m very much a passive owner at this point. I don’t bother them. They answer every question I ask, but I don’t meddle. I don’t call up and ask how things are going. I will say that every event they’ve run this year has been up. Their financial statement reflected very good growth last year, so from the standpoint of a stockholder IHRA is doing very well. That’s the way I said I’d never look at it, but that’s the way things are.
COMPPLUS: How much input do you have on the decisions Bill, Jr. makes about the track, or are they strictly his decisions to make? BADER: We are 50/50 partners. We’re neighbors, we’re also father and son, but I don’t meddle with day-to-day decisions. He may call every day or even five or six times in a single day with questions. I answer those questions, but I don’t meddle in his decision making. We’re far beyond that.
BADER: When Billy asked me about an NHRA relationship I said that if it makes financial sense, we should look at it. He put together a business model which made sense, and he told me that he wanted to do it so I said he should go ahead.
COMPPLUS: What do you think the departure of Norwalk from IHRA will do to the perception of IHRA? BADER: I have a business and professional relationship with IHRA, and I also have a personal relationship with IHRA. In 1979 or ’80 I wanted to grow Norwalk Raceway, and I went to NHRA and asked them for a national event. They felt that because they had national events in Columbus and Indy that it didn’t make sense to have another one an hour-and-forty minutes away. I respected that. I then made the same proposal to Larry Carrier, so Ted Jones came out and looked at the track and gave us a race after we agreed to make some major improvements. So, I signed a contract with them and improved the track. Today I think IHRA’s pretty healthy. Norwalk Raceway Park is not what IHRA is all about. We’re part of the IHRA family, but we’re not the most important part. It’s every track, every racer. In some years Norwalk leaving would have hurt IHRA, but not now. Now IHRA is an “adult.” It’s not where I hoped it would be when I was running it, but it’s getting there. They have excellent facilities hosting very good events. Now I think our departure from IHRA won’t have a major impact on them. There might be some negative spin, but they’ll do fine.
Got a comment? Drop us a line at comppluseditor@aol.com.
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COMPPLUS: How are you enjoying retirement?
COMPPLUS: We assume that when you took over IHRA that provided the impetus for you to turn the running of Norwalk Raceway Park over to Bill, Jr. Is that correct?
COMPPLUS: How did the whole thing end? What precipitated your departure?
COMPPLUS: How do you think IHRA has fared under Aaron Polburn’s leadership?
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