Page 56 - PULSE FEBRUARY 2018

“So, we’ve got kind of a unique situation right now where Indian has come back into the
sport and slugged Harley in the mouth.
great team -- I wouldn’t go as far as to
say that they pioneered sort of the sports marketing, but they had an arm that
was called Sports Marketing Enterprises (SME) and it was actually owned by R.J. Reynolds. Motorcycle racing had The Camel Pro Series or Winston Pro Series, they obviously sponsored the Winston Cup which was Nascar, but they did Vantage Cup Golf, Virginia Slims Tennis, and they were heavily involved in the promotion and sponsorship of all kinds of sporting events. Motorcycle racing and flat track racing in particular were kind of the beneficiary of that sponsorship and that marketing. They were great at it, they were just great. I can see why Nascar loved the R.J. Reynolds people and they were great to us. I know
a lot of people think that it’s politically incorrect to promote smoking, but the fact is: racing motorcycles is not the safest thing in the world. I don’t necessarily want someone trying to make my decisions for me about what I do. My dad is eighty-five years old, and he’s smoked since he was
a teenager and he still smokes. I tell him “Hey, it’s probably not too good for ya,” and he says “What the heck, I’m 85 years old. I’ve lived this long and I enjoy smoking.” Anyhow, their involvement really pushed the sport forward and they had great marketing. They helped us riders and made it profitable to be a racer. To be successful, you’ve gotta have a passion for it, but there also needs to be a pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow. It doesn’t mean everyone’s gonna win the national championship or make a lot of money, but if there’s at least money there (which is what I saw when I watched On Any Sunday) and as it grew and R.J. Reynolds was sponsoring the series, so that made it attractive for us.
So, when the government got involved
and sort of forced the tobacco industry
out of sports marketing, motorcycle racing wasn’t really able to find a replacement
for that sponsorship and marketing that R.J. Reynolds did, so it kind of went into
a lull. Recently, Polaris bought the rights
to the Indian name and decided that their marketing plan was gonna be to slug it
out with Harley Davidson. So, they said “Where does Harley Davidson live?” and they kind of analyzed it and decided that they’ve been winning dirt track races since the 40’s and 50’s when Indian went out of business, so let’s go right after them where they live which was dirt track racing. So, we’ve got kind of a unique situation right now where Indian has come back into the sport and slugged Harley in the mouth. It’ll be interesting and only time will tell, but if Harley chooses to slug back and this turns into heavyweight bout, it could really be great for the sport.
56 THE PULSE • FEBRUARY 2018