Pruett: The Boston project sounds like most of it is centered on quantifying the sport as it stands today. Are there any forward-looking elements?

Miles: I don't want to get ahead of it, but one little example. How many successful sports do not end with some sort of culmination at the end of the season? American sports, it’s the playoffs and Super Bowls. Sprint Cup has another variation on the theme, golf has another variation on the theme. We just sort of quit with the last event. Is there some equivalent to that? I don't have a clue yet how some people thought about that in the past and the pluses and minuses, but I certainly am inclined to the suggestion that there ought to be some structure to the season to work toward. I think it's really important to look at the ideal season length, both in terms of how long it goes, when it starts and finishes, and in my mind, it’s related, the two different things.

Do you want to go for 11 months? Or less? I mean, I am not persuaded that more is better. I think every race reflects on the brand of IndyCar racing and you want those races to be as strong as possible. I realize teams have to amortize cost and all the rest of it. But not every eyeball of exposure is equal when it comes to the quality of the sport, the way you put it out there.

I'm really excited about this work the consultants are doing and I'm not usually a very patient person but I think this process is long overdue and we need to get through this thinking before we reach any conclusions about who we need to do what.

(I didn't care for the concept of The Chase when it was announced, but must admit that after seeing the impressive promotional tool it has become for NASCAR, I wouldn’t be offended if something similar was tried with IndyCar. Beyond whatever purist’s sentiment The Chase seems to bother inside me, I’m more bothered by IndyCar’s lack of a national presence. If an IndyCar Chase gets more people to tune in and care, I’d support it. Frankly, there’s not much I wouldn’t get behind if it meant IndyCar gained more fans.)

Pruett: You’re coming into your role at Hulman & Company without a background in motorsports. Do you see lacking the firsthand experiences of the back story--The Split or CART’s rise to prominence--as a positive? Something to keep you fixed on the future instead of the past?

Miles: That's exactly right. And if you need any proof, frankly, I missed the 90s. I was outside of the country most of the time. It's not like I even have a recall as most fans would of exactly what it was like. That that's one point. The other is you’ve got to live under a rock to think that today's world is the 90s, for heaven’s sake. Just start with broadcasters and social media. It is a different world. It's not just sports, it's the way everything is in life. If you're not looking forward, you're standing still; you’re in big trouble.

And that's going to be one of the challenges and I recognize that. I just don't have much patience to hear a lot about how it used to be. Or to hear a lot about from different historical camps and historical perspectives that: “I don't like this guy because of that.” I think it's really important to know the history and to appreciate it, but I think the way you manage change is from a historical appreciation of context, but it's changed.

The two events in the sporting world that I might admire most are Wimbledon and Masters. And they have a few things in common with IndyCar and the Indy 500. One is they’re incredibly successful. I don't know the numbers in golf, but I knew them in tennis. Most years Wimbledon nets $100 million a year for a two-week tennis tournament. They exude this tradition. They’re a bastion of tradition and history. And they're absolutely cutting-edge at the same time. They’re always looking forward, they're always trying to look ahead of the competition but they find a way to do it by protecting their brand attributes and the sense of royalty and tradition. And the cost is a lot of the same, right? There are certain things that they will not compromise but they are always investing and expanding. I can elaborate on especially the tennis example and how they've done that. I just think if you're nothing more than a bastion of tradition and the guardian of the past, then you’re relegated to it.

(I’m a fan of Miles’ outlook here. If he was a character in ‘Pulp Fiction,’ he’d be ‘The Wolf.’ He’s aware of the minefields that exist at every turn in open-wheel’s history, and of what went wrong during Randy Bernard’s tenure, but is only interested in fixing the problem, not reliving how it happened in an endless loop.)

Pruett: Is it too late to make major changes to the series for 2013? Are you looking more at 2014 to start pointing the ship in the direction it needs to go?

Miles: I don't think that fans will see a big sea-change in the presentation in the IndyCar series in 2013. We've got some decisions to make and we've got to deliver on what we’ve put out there, but the broadcast arrangements are made, the bulk of the schedule is done – I'm not saying there won’t be some changes – but I don't see it as relaunched, for lack of a better word. We started looking at key principles you want to follow. It’s pretty late in this year for next year to make fundamental changes. But there are some positive things out there.

I really like the culture of the drivers as an asset. Some optimized, mind you, it's a lot of work, it’s not something that needs to wait for some kind of a relaunch or whatever, to do a better job of getting people to focus on them and working with them to tell their stories. That's something we ought to be working hard on improving right now.

I like what I understand about this idea of the Triple Crown. I don't know if it's perfect but it's another story to tell that has some broadcast strength to it. So we'll see how that works this year. Something I'm looking forward to. I thought – as it turned out – basically, the Chevy and the Honda battles, the changes on our cars produced great racing this past year. So I think that’s a strength that hopefully can be improved on. So those are among some really good stuff that I think is there to build, plus the history.

I guess I've got a much longer list of things that we've just got to find ways to improve. Like when I think about the followability of the sport to a fan. In tennis, if you said to me “April 14”, my mind just said, “That’s Monaco.” May 15 would be Rome. The calendar; fans needs to know what's when and to the greatest extent you need to have continuity. So, how long is the season? How it builds to a culmination if it does? That you're not basically remaking half the deck in terms of where you race and when you race there each year, but rather quickly fans can figure out what your season looks like. Think about any other sport. We've got to package our product, we put our product forward and the calendar’s a starting point in a way that can be understood by our fans and is increasingly consistent. So that's something we can think of for maybe ’13. It's not something we can do right away.