Q&A: Chris Pook - part two.

New CART President and CEO Chris Pook was subject to a media grilling shortly after his appointment to the hot seat in the troubled US series.

Pook, originally from the UK, has been one of the most successful race promoters on the US race scene. He founded the renowned Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in 1975 and has built it into one of the crown jewels on the FedEx Championship Series calendar.

He most recently served as president and chief executive officer of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Here we continue our coverage of his extensive press conference:

Q: I would just begin by asking that by my count there are 78 days between this afternoon and the start of practice at the Monterrey race in Mexico, and wondered, what are your priorities? What can you get done in those 78 days between now and the start of the season?

CHRIS POOK: Well, I think I've articulated already, the most important thing is put the management team together and outreach to the constituents of our sport. That's what we have to do.

And we have to present the image of what CART is going forward. We are clearly going to solve the engine situation for 2003 onwards. We are going to solve the chassis situation. I say "we." That's our teams and ourselves. We'll get those things out of the way.

We are going to hit the road running. We are running today. We know what we have got to do. This is not a complicated sport. This is a pretty simple industry we are in. We've just got to grind it out. We've got to present to our teams and our sponsors, our manufacturers, our vision and let them have confidence in what we are presenting to them; and let them buy into what we are presenting to them; and get on board with us and get our arms around each other and get on down the road.

And 78 days is fine. I'm happy with 78 days.

Q: Since it went public, CART has had a substantial amount of cash sitting on the balance sheet for which it never seems to find any use. Do you have any ideas of what you could use that cash for?

CHRIS POOK: Helps you sleep at night.

I don't think that we need to be charging out and throwing money against the wall. It's premature for me to answer that question. I need to understand more fully exactly what we've got to do in here for 2002. I need to understand more fully the policy and will of our board of directors. Probably it's my responsibility to bring some game plans to our board of directors for them to give us advice on.

If you think that we are going to rush out and start burning through cash here, that's not going to happen. We are going to be very prudent how we go forward, but we are going to be very decisive, be very effective, and we're going to have a very, very simple plan of execution. We'll execute in a very efficient manner.

Q: CART just took a pretty good hit with Penske leaving, and the perception is that the organization is in trouble; that may or may not be, but the perception is that it is. How do you intend to rectify that situation, and how can you make up for losing a man whose name is almost synonymous with CART?

CHRIS POOK: That is a very fair statement. He was one of the founders with Pat (Patrick) and (Dan) Gurney and he was one heck of a competitor. Let's not forget it was only a year back that Roger was having a terrible time having his cars run up front, run in the middle of the pack, and at one point even qualifying for the Indianapolis 500. And this is with all due respect to Roger because he is an incredibly capable guy.

But don't cast the other guys in the CART series out of the window, we have got some solid citizens in this series, okay, and some really quality guys. Just look at the number of the winners we had last year in the CART series. There were 11 different winners last year in the CART series.

So, you know, I know that all you guys are in love with Roger, and rightfully so, because he is a very capable man and he is a tremendous leader in American business and in American sport, but don't underestimate our other guys. We are moving on. You know, it's sad to lose Marlboro; it's sad to lose Roger. We're all going to lose tobacco in 2005. But meantime, the window looks open for Brown and Williamson, the Player's brand, and we will now focus on those folks and we will see what we can do to create the right environment so they can create the right business and thrive with CART until the government stops them doing business with sports in this country.

Q: Earlier you were very clear on this reported mandate that you had been given to remove team owners from the board of directors ...

CHRIS POOK: No. I didn't say I had a mandate to remove ...

Q: Reported mandate, I'm sorry.

CHRIS POOK: No, no. The board of directors and the shareholders--the shareholders decide who is on the board of director, not the CEO of the company. The shareholders will decide who the board members are, and the board members who do not want to serve there, they will decide to either not run or not serve.
But the CEO does not say who runs on the board of directors of a public company. I want to be very, very clear.

Q: It's also been reported that they were interested in seeing you become CEO, or at least one or two of them; and they were also interested in resolving or curtailing the powers of the Franchise Board. Do you have any comment there?

CHRIS POOK: No, I don't. I mean, I can't comment on that--the Franchise Board is a unique situation here and I think it played a very unique role in the growth of CART.

The Franchise Board as we know it today--and I am only talk from management's viewpoint here. I am not talking on behalf of the board and I want to make that very clear to you.

Management's point of view, the format as we know the Franchise Board today does need to be changed, but we do absolutely need to have the input of our car owners into how we do business. They make up a very, very important part of the product called CART.

As also, do we need the input of our race promoters; they make up a very important part of the product called CART and we need the input of our sponsors and manufacturers, as well.

You know, I think that we have to create a balance here and we have to have a communication process. We have to listen to the constituencies. We have to all come together to find the right solution, and I think it's very possible to do it. It's been done before, and we'll do it again.

Q: In response to the Speed Channel television coverage, did I hear you correctly that there will be Friday and Saturday qualifying this year?

CHRIS POOK: It is my proposal to go back to our team owners and suggest that we have a qualifying period on Friday.

Q: What about the St. Petersburg area appeals to you and CART at this point?

CHRIS POOK: It is the largest street area in Florida, larger than Miami and that's of interest to us. Number two, if you look at the circuit that's been laid out there, this circuit has potential to be a truly, truly romantic circuit. It has the waterfront area, the harbor there that we can build into a mini Monte Carlo. The city itself is unique, the architecture--street circuits are made up of unique bits and pieces that create a character to each street circuit. St. Petersburg has all of these ingredients necessary, and it has the market adjacent to it in order to deliver what we need to deliver to our sponsors suppliers, manufacturers, media and our audience.

Q: As you've alluded already, CART has become much more of an international event, especially with the third week up here in Canada, a second one in Mexico and in Europe. Do you see the series continuing in this format?

CHRIS POOK: Again, I don't want to be repetitious here, but we are going to be driven by what our constituencies want. If they want to have a race in Podunk, we'll go to Podunk and have a race if it made sense to our teams and all of our constituencies.

I think the combination of North America, Canada, Mexico and the U.S. makes a very, very good combination; and as I said before, overseas races add a flavor to it. And the fact that we have international drivers is also very important. We have got two good Mexican drivers in Michel Jourdain (Jr.) and (Adrian) Fernandez; two good Canadian drivers in (Alex) Tagliani and (Patrick) Carpentier--do you want to take credit for (Paul) Tracy or should we have him down here?

Q: Well, he's born in this town.

CHRIS POOK:But he acts like a kid from Phoenix sometimes. (Laughs). Anyway, I'm just being facetious with you.

I think we have got a good Brazilian core of drivers and I hope that we'll have a very good English driver and Australian and German. Young Dixon, believe it or not, was born in Australia but raised in New Zealand. He's the youngest guy to ever win a race last year for us.

You look at that combination, and I think the chemistry is good and I think that--you know, I'm not going to sit here and tell you now that we are going to go on and get all kinds of other international races. We're going to--we are going to, we are going to reinforce what we have here right now and get that right before we step across the ice some more.

Q: One of the criticisms of CART, one of the reasons some see it as having problems is the lack of a major event, i.e., the Indy 500. Do you think that is necessary, an event that belongs solely to CART and do you plan to propose such an event?

CHRIS POOK: I don't think I plan to introduce such an event and there could never be another event like the Indy 500. It is the Indy 500. It is what it is and it is a wonderful event and deserves every bit of recognition it gets.

What I would remind you is that before there was this supposed split between the Indianapolis 500 and CART, CART drivers used to run at the Indianapolis 500, and you've seen the last two years CART drivers go back to the Indianapolis 500. I think that we want to be able to be sure is that our drivers have all of the flexibility in the world to go participate in the Indianapolis 500.

And for us to go out and try and manufacture an event and the attempt was to try to compete with or be like the Indianapolis 500, it would be a very poor, bad, strategic mistake on our part.

Q: Well, as long as it belongs to the IRL, do people look at the IRL as having the marquis event of open-wheel racing in North America?

CHRIS POOK: Probably they will, yeah. Absolutely. Why not? And why shouldn't they? The IRL has their product; it is an oval series and we are not. We are a completely different series. We are a multi-national series comprised of different disciplines, racing on ovals, road and street courses. And the only one comparative item is that some of our guys who race on ovals who like ovals will be able to go and race the Indianapolis 500.

I am hopeful that some of the IRL guys will want to come over and race with us, and I am hopeful that some of our guys will race in more IRL races. That's really our position.

But, you know, I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel here.

Q: CART has lost some of its U.S. oval venues in the last couple of years and the most successful events are road and street races, Long Beach included. Are you going to try to build the U.S. oval presence for CART and use what you learned from events like Long Beach to try to rebuild their stature?

CHRIS POOK: Absolutely. We are going to rebuild the oval events, get after them and build them up. And we will use the basic disciplines that the successful road courses and street events have and the successful disciplines that some of the oval events have. We'll build these with team work between ourselves and our promoters, our racing car drivers and our teams and our sponsors. Not a complicated process to put backsides in seats. We have just got to be disciplined and make it attractive for our customers to go to.