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IndyCar
PRUETT: The Firing Of IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard, Part 2
Marshall Pruett concludes his analysis of Randy Bernard's firing.
Despite the reasoning from his bosses for making a change, the handling of Randy Bernard's firing has created a PR nightmare for IndyCar with its loyal fans. (Photo: IMS PHoto)
If Part 1 of “The Firing of Randy Bernard” served its purpose, I hoped it helped to clarify that the specific events that took place to create a wall between the paddock and Bernard, and the disgraceful way Bernard was run out of town, are two entirely different things.
In Part 2, I’ll keep pressing ahead with a straight narrative about Bernard’s firing before wrapping everything up with a few opinions of my own.
We left off with a long laundry list of items that were added to a ledger of Bernard’s ‘punishable offenses.’ If you came away thinking that the loudest and most influential members of the paddock (along with some of the less vocal owners, managers and drivers) reached their tipping point with Bernard as the season wore on, you’d be correct.
You’d also be safe to assume that for Bernard, dealing with a good portion of the paddock was almost as fun as chewing shards of glass. Simply put, the love-fest went both ways...
The seeds of discontent were in full bloom by the latter portions of the 2012 championship, but, and as you’d expect in any group of diverse personalities, not everyone jumped aboard the ‘Randy Must Go’ train.
SO NOT EVERYBODY IN THE PADDOCK WANTED RANDY GONE?
Correct. I’ve spoken to owners and drivers prior to his firing and again this week who did not want a change in the CEO position. But looking at those with an axe to grind, Bernard had a deeply entrenched and determined group of powerful people that were bound and determined to send him packing.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan co-owner Bobby Rahal, who once ran the CART Indy car series, was among those who questioned the choice to part ways with Bernard.
“I’ve never seen a series with so many good things going for it consistently shoot itself in the foot,” said the 1986 Indy 500 winner. “We’ve got great races, Randy put some great people in place there and got rid of a lot of the dead wood and I would just love to know the reasoning [for Bernard’s firing]. It’s just embarrassing. What Roger [Penske] said was spot on. No major corporation can succeed when there’s a change of executives every two or three years.
“There’s got to be continuity and consistency. If Randy had inherited a smooth-running machine with no issues, that would be one thing, but he inherited a series that had a lot of things that needed fixing and they weren’t going to be solved immediately. He was making the best of it. It’s very frustrating.”
Others I’ve spoken to have shared Rahal’s feelings, but if I had to give an informal count on the calls and emails I’ve received from the paddock since Bernard’s ouster, his termination has brought more applause than regret.
WHAT ULTIMATELY LED TO RANDY BEING FIRED?
So far, we’ve revealed the paddock’s long list of charges against Bernard, have established that a takeover group was actively working to unseat Bernard through an initiative to turn the Hulman & Co. board against him, have identified an ongoing PR campaign—through non-traditional IndyCar media outlets—to place Bernard in a public state of constant turmoil and firing, and now it’s time to bring it all together.
One powerful member of the paddock--someone who fanned the “Fire Randy” flames until they engulfed the CEO, spoke on the condition of anonymity about what led to Bernard’s firing.
“The reason things went this way with Randy is because that when he came on board, there was a lot of enthusiasm because of what we thought he would be able to do and in areas we needed the most help,” he said. “As time went on, that deteriorated. Nothing happened. He didn’t follow up on anything. He didn’t do the things he said he was going to do. He didn’t meet timelines. We’re in a timeline business. People rely on you executing things on stated timelines. When Randy says he’s going to do this or that and nothing happens, as time goes on, his credibility wanes. I think, internally, if you had to say what caused this [firing], that was a big part of it.
“Yes, he answered e-mails, yes he talked with all the fans, yes he spoke glowingly to the right constituents, but with the constituency he needed to work hardest on, the owners and the drivers, he didn’t work hard enough to meet timelines with those people.”
Tardiness, real or perceived, isn’t necessarily enough to dump a CEO. Asked to give an example of a timeline issue, he cited the ongoing spare parts price saga and another expense-related item.
“One thing that’s still glaring is that there’s no response from INDYCAR on a solution to reducing the costs of spare parts. Everybody blames Dallara; they’re taking it on the chin because they were given the right to exclusively sell the spare parts, but it’s the costs of the parts themselves and what can be done to reduce them that’s the issue at hand that INDYCAR is supposed to be taking control of and improving.
“That due diligence started at Long Beach…there’s still no answer. Randy continued to tell the owners he’ll have an answer on this date, and that date, and there’s still no answer. The aero kit thing is also a good example. We were told we’d have a definite public statement on June 1st as to what would happen with them for the future. Haven’t seen that yet…”
Taking everything written in the “SO, WHAT LED TO THE PADDOCK TURNING AGAINST BERNARD?” section from Part 1 into account, my source gave the most concise reason for Bernard’s snap firing on Sunday.
“What happened over the last few weeks is people finally talked themselves into being fed-up with Randy. And the fact that they weren’t getting any response on any level from Randy and began to go around Randy and go straight to (IMS CEO and now IndyCar CEO) Jeff Belskus. When that began to happen more and more and more, and people said they didn’t want to talk to Randy anymore and bombarded Belskus with questions, of course Jeff noticed it. There was more and more principal people going to see Jeff Belskus about TV, about the parts prices, about not including the drivers in decisions that were being made, about the Firestone/Continental Tire deal…
“Randy started treating the drivers like he did the owners—like they weren’t members of the community. If you’re a senior member of an organization and act like you don’t have respect for the other members in the organization, it’s just a matter of time before you’re gone from that organization.
“I think Jeff eventually recognized that the owners and drivers no longer wanted to deal with Randy, they were all bypassing him and going straight to him, and if Jeff’s now doing the job of IndyCar CEO, maybe it’s time to make a change and look for someone who people will work with.”
I could offer some additional context here, could reiterate that there are two sides to every argument and mention all of the ways that Bernard could blame the paddock for the communications breakdown, but, frankly, it really doesn’t matter.
SO WHY DOESN’T IT MATTER?
Ultimately, what happened to Bernard has nothing to do with right or wrong.
Bernard was frozen out by enough of the paddock to create an environment where Belskus and the board saw a situation that was fundamentally broken and decided to make a change.
We can talk all day long about how it got to that point. We can decide which side was more at fault. We can point out some of the shady things done by the paddock towards Bernard.
We can expand upon how Bernard was warned that fighting an angry paddock over costs was a surefire way to make them shut down and look for ways around him.
We can continue to stir that big pot of dysfunctional gumbo, but knowing how Belskus and the board was reading the situation, and that they were looking for a solid business-related reason to part ways with Bernard after weeks and months of hearing he needed to go, once enough people started to bypass Bernard and treat Belskus as the defacto IndyCar CEO, this movie was going to have an unhappy ending.
BUT I THOUGHT THE OWNERS DIDN’T HAVE A SAY IN HOW INDYCAR WAS RUN OR WHO WAS IN CHARGE
That’s absolutely true, but only to a certain point. As we’ve seen, the owners (and drivers) don’t run the series nor do they steer the actions of the CEO or the board, but they do carry a hell of a lot of influence.
As the consumers in the relationship—just like IndyCar’s loyal fans, the owners drive the series.
We’ve seen the owners call for delays in aero kits, for Firestone to be retained and a number of other things that, technically, they have no authority to vote on. From a practical standpoint, however, IndyCar’s owners are the most powerful part of the whole equation.
If IndyCar owners and drivers made the kind of money Formula One and NASCAR teams pulled in every year, I’m sure they’d be far more open to having a CEO dictate to them, but that sure isn’t happening in 2012.
The present economics of IndyCar racing, at least for most teams, isn’t favorable. True, a few make profits, but the rest either barely break even or come out of pocket to go racing each year.
That’s their choice to do so, obviously; no one is forcing those owners to participate in IndyCar, but compared to those F1 and NASCAR teams who earn so much that they’ll put up with blunt or boorish behavior, the same can’t be said for IndyCar owners.
Until the day comes where IndyCar’s economics are improved to where a CEO can tell his or her owners to shut up and fall in line…and they’ll comply without making a peep, we’ll have a scenario where teams can dictate policy or who they want to have running the series.
OK, IF BERNARD’S BOSSES DECIDED A CHANGE WAS NEEDED AT SOME POINT, WHY THE BIG RUSH TO VOTE HIM OUT?
I’ve heard plenty of theories on this one. I’ve been told exactly why Bernard went from “At this point, Randy is not fired….that is the case in the moment and in the future” (on Friday) to “We agreed that the timing was right to pursue separate paths” (on Sunday) by those claiming to have the script in hand. But there were enough holes in those stories to make it not worth recounting.
I’ve since been told from a credible source that a plan to remove Bernard was in place and had a timeline of sorts for that transition had been agreed upon. But the expedited Friday-to-Sunday change in employment status, as I’ve been able to divine, came from mounting external pressure to support or fire Bernard that reached uncomfortable levels.
Some big corporations—those with seven- and eight-figure sums dedicated to IndyCar—rang IMS last Friday to say, in very plain language, that the public turmoil regarding Bernard’s fate needed to be resolved immediately.
The message was simple: one way or the other, no matter which direction you’re leaning, make this bad publicity go away and steady the ship or our money and involvement with IndyCar will also disappear.
That, friends, is a scary memo to receive in a sport where dollars are thin and promotions are lacking.
With the spotlight shined on Belskus and the board and the intent to part ways with Bernard in place, they rushed to pull the trigger over the weekend, rather than craft a calm and cool exit plan, once those commercial entities started making ultimatums.
Public sentiment had also turned against the IMS and the Hulman family, but the threat of losing major backers was the biggest concern that accelerated the need to hold that fateful emergency board meeting on Sunday.
In Part 2, I’ll keep pressing ahead with a straight narrative about Bernard’s firing before wrapping everything up with a few opinions of my own.
We left off with a long laundry list of items that were added to a ledger of Bernard’s ‘punishable offenses.’ If you came away thinking that the loudest and most influential members of the paddock (along with some of the less vocal owners, managers and drivers) reached their tipping point with Bernard as the season wore on, you’d be correct.
You’d also be safe to assume that for Bernard, dealing with a good portion of the paddock was almost as fun as chewing shards of glass. Simply put, the love-fest went both ways...
The seeds of discontent were in full bloom by the latter portions of the 2012 championship, but, and as you’d expect in any group of diverse personalities, not everyone jumped aboard the ‘Randy Must Go’ train.
SO NOT EVERYBODY IN THE PADDOCK WANTED RANDY GONE?
Correct. I’ve spoken to owners and drivers prior to his firing and again this week who did not want a change in the CEO position. But looking at those with an axe to grind, Bernard had a deeply entrenched and determined group of powerful people that were bound and determined to send him packing.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan co-owner Bobby Rahal, who once ran the CART Indy car series, was among those who questioned the choice to part ways with Bernard.
“I’ve never seen a series with so many good things going for it consistently shoot itself in the foot,” said the 1986 Indy 500 winner. “We’ve got great races, Randy put some great people in place there and got rid of a lot of the dead wood and I would just love to know the reasoning [for Bernard’s firing]. It’s just embarrassing. What Roger [Penske] said was spot on. No major corporation can succeed when there’s a change of executives every two or three years.
“There’s got to be continuity and consistency. If Randy had inherited a smooth-running machine with no issues, that would be one thing, but he inherited a series that had a lot of things that needed fixing and they weren’t going to be solved immediately. He was making the best of it. It’s very frustrating.”
Others I’ve spoken to have shared Rahal’s feelings, but if I had to give an informal count on the calls and emails I’ve received from the paddock since Bernard’s ouster, his termination has brought more applause than regret.
WHAT ULTIMATELY LED TO RANDY BEING FIRED?
So far, we’ve revealed the paddock’s long list of charges against Bernard, have established that a takeover group was actively working to unseat Bernard through an initiative to turn the Hulman & Co. board against him, have identified an ongoing PR campaign—through non-traditional IndyCar media outlets—to place Bernard in a public state of constant turmoil and firing, and now it’s time to bring it all together.
One powerful member of the paddock--someone who fanned the “Fire Randy” flames until they engulfed the CEO, spoke on the condition of anonymity about what led to Bernard’s firing.
“The reason things went this way with Randy is because that when he came on board, there was a lot of enthusiasm because of what we thought he would be able to do and in areas we needed the most help,” he said. “As time went on, that deteriorated. Nothing happened. He didn’t follow up on anything. He didn’t do the things he said he was going to do. He didn’t meet timelines. We’re in a timeline business. People rely on you executing things on stated timelines. When Randy says he’s going to do this or that and nothing happens, as time goes on, his credibility wanes. I think, internally, if you had to say what caused this [firing], that was a big part of it.
“Yes, he answered e-mails, yes he talked with all the fans, yes he spoke glowingly to the right constituents, but with the constituency he needed to work hardest on, the owners and the drivers, he didn’t work hard enough to meet timelines with those people.”
Tardiness, real or perceived, isn’t necessarily enough to dump a CEO. Asked to give an example of a timeline issue, he cited the ongoing spare parts price saga and another expense-related item.
“One thing that’s still glaring is that there’s no response from INDYCAR on a solution to reducing the costs of spare parts. Everybody blames Dallara; they’re taking it on the chin because they were given the right to exclusively sell the spare parts, but it’s the costs of the parts themselves and what can be done to reduce them that’s the issue at hand that INDYCAR is supposed to be taking control of and improving.
“That due diligence started at Long Beach…there’s still no answer. Randy continued to tell the owners he’ll have an answer on this date, and that date, and there’s still no answer. The aero kit thing is also a good example. We were told we’d have a definite public statement on June 1st as to what would happen with them for the future. Haven’t seen that yet…”
Taking everything written in the “SO, WHAT LED TO THE PADDOCK TURNING AGAINST BERNARD?” section from Part 1 into account, my source gave the most concise reason for Bernard’s snap firing on Sunday.
“What happened over the last few weeks is people finally talked themselves into being fed-up with Randy. And the fact that they weren’t getting any response on any level from Randy and began to go around Randy and go straight to (IMS CEO and now IndyCar CEO) Jeff Belskus. When that began to happen more and more and more, and people said they didn’t want to talk to Randy anymore and bombarded Belskus with questions, of course Jeff noticed it. There was more and more principal people going to see Jeff Belskus about TV, about the parts prices, about not including the drivers in decisions that were being made, about the Firestone/Continental Tire deal…
“Randy started treating the drivers like he did the owners—like they weren’t members of the community. If you’re a senior member of an organization and act like you don’t have respect for the other members in the organization, it’s just a matter of time before you’re gone from that organization.
“I think Jeff eventually recognized that the owners and drivers no longer wanted to deal with Randy, they were all bypassing him and going straight to him, and if Jeff’s now doing the job of IndyCar CEO, maybe it’s time to make a change and look for someone who people will work with.”
I could offer some additional context here, could reiterate that there are two sides to every argument and mention all of the ways that Bernard could blame the paddock for the communications breakdown, but, frankly, it really doesn’t matter.
SO WHY DOESN’T IT MATTER?
Ultimately, what happened to Bernard has nothing to do with right or wrong.
Bernard was frozen out by enough of the paddock to create an environment where Belskus and the board saw a situation that was fundamentally broken and decided to make a change.
We can talk all day long about how it got to that point. We can decide which side was more at fault. We can point out some of the shady things done by the paddock towards Bernard.
We can expand upon how Bernard was warned that fighting an angry paddock over costs was a surefire way to make them shut down and look for ways around him.
We can continue to stir that big pot of dysfunctional gumbo, but knowing how Belskus and the board was reading the situation, and that they were looking for a solid business-related reason to part ways with Bernard after weeks and months of hearing he needed to go, once enough people started to bypass Bernard and treat Belskus as the defacto IndyCar CEO, this movie was going to have an unhappy ending.
BUT I THOUGHT THE OWNERS DIDN’T HAVE A SAY IN HOW INDYCAR WAS RUN OR WHO WAS IN CHARGE
That’s absolutely true, but only to a certain point. As we’ve seen, the owners (and drivers) don’t run the series nor do they steer the actions of the CEO or the board, but they do carry a hell of a lot of influence.
As the consumers in the relationship—just like IndyCar’s loyal fans, the owners drive the series.
We’ve seen the owners call for delays in aero kits, for Firestone to be retained and a number of other things that, technically, they have no authority to vote on. From a practical standpoint, however, IndyCar’s owners are the most powerful part of the whole equation.
If IndyCar owners and drivers made the kind of money Formula One and NASCAR teams pulled in every year, I’m sure they’d be far more open to having a CEO dictate to them, but that sure isn’t happening in 2012.
The present economics of IndyCar racing, at least for most teams, isn’t favorable. True, a few make profits, but the rest either barely break even or come out of pocket to go racing each year.
That’s their choice to do so, obviously; no one is forcing those owners to participate in IndyCar, but compared to those F1 and NASCAR teams who earn so much that they’ll put up with blunt or boorish behavior, the same can’t be said for IndyCar owners.
Until the day comes where IndyCar’s economics are improved to where a CEO can tell his or her owners to shut up and fall in line…and they’ll comply without making a peep, we’ll have a scenario where teams can dictate policy or who they want to have running the series.
OK, IF BERNARD’S BOSSES DECIDED A CHANGE WAS NEEDED AT SOME POINT, WHY THE BIG RUSH TO VOTE HIM OUT?
I’ve heard plenty of theories on this one. I’ve been told exactly why Bernard went from “At this point, Randy is not fired….that is the case in the moment and in the future” (on Friday) to “We agreed that the timing was right to pursue separate paths” (on Sunday) by those claiming to have the script in hand. But there were enough holes in those stories to make it not worth recounting.
I’ve since been told from a credible source that a plan to remove Bernard was in place and had a timeline of sorts for that transition had been agreed upon. But the expedited Friday-to-Sunday change in employment status, as I’ve been able to divine, came from mounting external pressure to support or fire Bernard that reached uncomfortable levels.
Some big corporations—those with seven- and eight-figure sums dedicated to IndyCar—rang IMS last Friday to say, in very plain language, that the public turmoil regarding Bernard’s fate needed to be resolved immediately.
The message was simple: one way or the other, no matter which direction you’re leaning, make this bad publicity go away and steady the ship or our money and involvement with IndyCar will also disappear.
That, friends, is a scary memo to receive in a sport where dollars are thin and promotions are lacking.
With the spotlight shined on Belskus and the board and the intent to part ways with Bernard in place, they rushed to pull the trigger over the weekend, rather than craft a calm and cool exit plan, once those commercial entities started making ultimatums.
Public sentiment had also turned against the IMS and the Hulman family, but the threat of losing major backers was the biggest concern that accelerated the need to hold that fateful emergency board meeting on Sunday.
INDYCAR BRAZIL
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