Have a FaceBook, Twitter, or other social networking account?

Link them to your fanatic account!

Add An Account

TAKE ME TO...
Grand Am
GRAND-AM: PR Pro
Meet SunTrust Racing’s Laz Denes, the public relations ace who’s been serving the sportscar community since his days with Nissan in the IMSA GTP series.
Marshall Pruett  |  Posted March 05, 2010   Homestead, FL
Laz Denes. (Brian Cleary)
The GRAND-AM paddock is filled with familiar faces – veteran drivers, crew members, engineers, team owners and officials. The same is true behind the scenes when you look into the ranks of the public relations practitioners – the men and women dedicated to chronicling and promoting the teams in the Rolex Series paddock.

When it comes to respected and tenured PR representatives, SunTrust Racing's Laz Denes holds a special place in the sport. While Denes’ position representing the SunTrust-sponsored Rolex Series effort campaigned by Wayne Taylor Racing is his most recent role, the Southern California native has been involved in sportscar PR since the 1980s.

Like most of his colleagues in the auto racing PR game, Denes came into the field from a completely different discipline.

“Well, it's funny because I was a devout sportswriter type covering strictly the 'stick-and-ball' stuff and had never seen an auto race, never covered a car race, and never really was much of a fan of auto racing. When I got married, I decided I didn't want to travel so much, so I went to work at a PR agency in Southern California that had Nissan as its anchor client and, being that I was a sportswriter, they decided to make me their guy in charge of Nissan Motorsports. I was reluctant, knowing that I would now probably be travelling more than ever, but I got into it and got good at it. Those were the days when Nissan took charge of the sportscar racing world in IMSA, with Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson and that Nissan GTP program that won almost every weekend for a stretch in the late 1980s. So it was a lot of fun because it became a very high-profile situation. I've been doing it ever since, moving on to Champ Car, the IRL, NASCAR, and now I'm back where my primary responsibility is sportscar racing in GRAND-AM.”

Denes’ introduction to auto racing came at a perfect time. Like most that witnessed the cars of the IMSA GTP series, he was hooked instantly. Being involved during the GTP era also left him with a number of great stories to tell.
Denes, left, at Le Mans in 1990 with the Nissan team. (Courtesy of Laz Denes)

“My very first race was the IMSA race at the old Riverside Raceway in 1986, and there was this spectacular crash where Chip Robinson in the Holbert Porsche, Lynn St. James in the Ford Probe, and Doc Bundy in the Hendrick Corvette got together and all went airborne. I was absolutely amazed that, thankfully, none of them was hurt, but I did wonder if that type of thing happened all the time. One of my favorite news clips came while we were at the street race in San Antonio one year. My guy, Geoff Brabham, had qualified that blue No. 83 car on the pole on Saturday afternoon. The qualifying session was followed by the usual Firestone Firehawk showroom stock race. During the Firehawk race, somebody somehow got his car up on top of the pit wall on the front straight and slid right into a street lamp that came up through the top of the pit wall. So, sure enough, the front page of the local paper had a big headline that read ‘Brabham Nabs Pole’ with a huge picture of that showroom stock car's front end wrapped around that light pole. I thought it was funny, at least.”

After cutting his teeth doing sportscar PR, Denes transitioned to the other popular road racing series at the time, CART. Moving from closed-wheel to open-wheel required some initial adjustments on his part, but he says he found many familiar faces awaiting him.

“I always thought it was all very similar. A lot of the major players behind the scenes from IMSA that I had come to know -- crew guys, officials, team management personnel -- had migrated over to the open-wheel side. I started out working for the sanctioning body, going on the road weeks in advance of major races and talking up the events to the local media. I then went to work for Robby Gordon when he started his own Champ Car team for Toyota, and at the same time did some work for John Menard on his IRL team with his new driver Greg Ray and crew chief Thomas Knapp. That was the year Robby ran out of gas on the last lap at the Indy 500 and he uttered an expletive to Jack Arute on national TV afterward. That was interesting…

“I then got the call to come work for Mo Nunn when he started his Champ Car team with Tony Kanaan, and then Alex Zanardi driving. Those were really special days, working with that driver lineup. Alex is probably the most special person I've ever met in my life. The thing that struck me most about him was that, as awesome of a driver as he was -- a bona fide superstar -- he never considered himself too big to talk to anybody. He was genuinely interested in just about every person he ever encountered. And he was quite the storyteller and jokester. It was a shocking day in Germany when he had his big crash. I was there in the pit lane and I remember my knees actually buckling under me when I saw the impact on the video monitor. It was horrifying. But he got through it and, somehow, some way, he is an even better man for it. He's just incredible.”

Denes says that while he enjoyed his time in CART and later in the IRL, the extra curricular activities that sprang from his involvement in open-wheel made that period in his life unforgettable.
Laz, playing bass in front of the Toronto Expo with RPM. (LAT)

“Yeah, my 15 minutes of fame! I had been playing in a local band in Southern California with my best friends, and a lot of the CART community had seen us play. When Kenny Brack decided to get a band together, I happened to be in the right place at the right time. I was the bass player for that first edition of what came to be called RPM -- which stood for ‘Racing-Powered Music’ -- as the result of an online fan contest. Patrick Carpentier was the drummer. Bryan Herta did some singing for us as he was a huge Sex Pistols fan. His rendition of Anarchy in the U.K. was absolutely awesome! Our first show was during the Toronto street race, and we had a huge stage set up on the street in front of Wayne Gretzky's bar. Toward the end of the set, they brought up this guy who turned out to be Howie D from the Backstreet Boys. I had never heard of him. But they had him join us for Johnny B. Goode. It turns out the guy didn't even know the words as he was singing, so he was faking it and sounded pretty pitiful. He then gave the mike over to our lead singer Lizzie Fornal and tried to play the cowbell. Turns out Howie had no rhythm, either…”

As RPM grew in popularity on the CART circuit, so did the size of the venues they played at and the caliber of guest musicians who performed.

“We ended that season (2001) on a really huge stage, opening for the Doobie Brothers in the infield at California Speedway. We had Michael Anthony from Van Halen come play with us, and I got to play his bass on our opening song before we brought him out and I handed it over to him. That was cool, playing in front of about 12,000 people. We outdid that playing in the Pagoda Plaza at Indy on Carb Day in 2003. The IRL version of our band was called Kenny Brack and the Subwoofers and we were sponsored by Pioneer. We opened for Cracker that day, and there were 15,000 people there for that show. The crowd was just unbelievable, in a frenzy. I never felt like such a rock star! Later that summer we recorded a live album on stage in front of Nashville Superspeedway, and we were joined by Ed King from Lynyrd Skynyrd. I so clearly remember what a religious experience it was in the rehearsal studio the night before the show, singing Sweet Home Alabama with the guy who actually wrote the song! I'll never forget that.”

Grand Prix of Miami - $20 Tickets - *Kids Under 12 Free!


Tunnelheads, Pick Your Starters! Win Weekly! Win Monthly! Win The Championship!


Page 1 of 2
Prev
12
Next
MPruett's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marshall Pruett

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | FAQ | Terms of Use | NEW Privacy Policy | Ad Choices | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | National Geographic | IGN | AskMen
The Motor Sports Authority, SPEED and associated logos are registered trademarks of Speed Channel Inc.
All Rights Reserved © Speed Channel, Inc. 2012

All external links will open in a new browser window. SPEED.com does not endorse external sites.