Pruett: The Hulman George family is known to want the IndyCar Series to become, at minimum, revenue neutral, but to get to that point, it seems rather obvious that more money needs to be spent. Spend money to eventually make money. The series needs more top-tier personnel, to start. Are you seeing the same thing?

Miles: Yes. And whether that means an increase in the total spent or reallocating how we spend money is the question. But absolutely. Any organization should be talent driven and we’ll be going through a process to understand where we want to take the organization in terms of the strategy and assessing the people that we've got and do whatever we've got to do to shore it up – and I'm not saying that with preconceived notions – I have yet to meet many of the people and staff. So I have no reason to have any preconceived judgments about the group. But I think you can't have any weak links. And it's going to be a meritocracy with people who are high performers.

(Compare this to the answer interim IndyCar CEO Jeff Belskus gave recently when faced with the same question.)

Pruett: To get the series in front of more people, a bigger TV presence is needed, but IndyCar is locked into a long-term deal that has been flat-lined for some time. There are still many years left on the NBC SN contract, and at the present rate, once it expires, it’s hard to imagine the series will have much of a ratings figure left to shop for a better deal. It’s a bit of a Catch-22. So what’s the answer? Hope things improve and wait out the contract, or do you see areas to improve the ratings right now?

Miles: It's a big challenge and a significant issue for us. Nobody's satisfied with the television audience. So it will receive our full attention. There won't be any instant silver bullet, sort of sea-change from the last race last year to the first race next year that I know about at this point. Nor will we simply wait till the end of an agreement and hope that a broadcaster that averages a higher audience comes along.

I have worked with NBC and NBC Sports folks in the past. Their incentive to build their audience is the same reasons our teams rely on us to do that for them. I saw [NBC marketing chief] John Miller over the last month in his role talking as a board member. I think they're very open to coming up with ideas to improve the audience. So that's on us. These are guys that do know how to run a network and it can be a very strong platform. Things can change quickly in the broadcast world.

Without being specific, I hope we can find ways, maybe not in the next 12 months, but maybe we do have this new content, for example, with the Triple Crown, which is something to focus on. It’s 15 races and you can get the ratings up on three or four... you can move the needle in total exposure. And next year we can add other components to our schedule and our programming that gives the audience and broadcaster more to promote and generate viewership around and you can move the needle. Going from a .4 to a 1.4 is the kind of thing that can happen over a year or two. That’s nobody's aspiration, by the way, to stop there. In the end, we need to command bigger numbers than that.

So there just isn't any easy “change the broadcaster” kind of answer. We've got to build our fan base and give the broadcaster the best possible platform and sport to cover.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, and covers the IndyCar Series. Before joining SPEED, Pruett worked in open-wheel racing for 20 years as a mechanic and engineer. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.