So it’s been a while since I wrote anything for my blog, but I got a healthy dose of inspiration from this past weekend, when I attended the American Le Mans Series finale at Laguna Seca.  Happily, M+C clients Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Long won the race in their GT2-class Porsche, in a pretty intense battle with the #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Johnny O’Connell.  I’ve been involved with some very, very cool races over the span of my career, and in retrospect, almost all of them somehow involve Jörg.  I was there (and marketing director of the team) when Jörg won overall at the Rolex 24 At Daytona in 2004, I was there when he had his most memorable scrap with Jamie Melo at Sebring in 2007, and I was there this weekend when he and Magnussen went blow-for-blow for the last 20 minutes of a four-hour race.  If you’re not familiar with this form of racing – sportscars – then the following two videos will do well to acquaint you with the intensity with which the races are often conducted, and the once-in-a-generation talent that is Herr Bergmeister.

First off, a history lesson, from the 2007 12 Hours of Sebring.

Secondly, SPEEDTV’s “Last Lap” feature from Laguna Seca this past weekend.

Thrilling stuff, and arguments of professed innocence aside, it was a hell of a race.  Both the drivers know each other well, respect one another, and kissed and made up.  At least as well as Danes and Germans do, that is.

The Most Obscure (and inspiring) Plan I’ve Heard This Year

I have a friend, Steven, who works as a mechanic and ‘over the wall’ tire changer for Flying Lizard Motorsport.  He and I go back several years to a previous team, and he’s one of those people that I just inherently get along with.  I don’t think he’d object to me calling him a bit of a redneck – he’s majorly into MMA-type fight training, smokes cigarettes incessantly and greatly enjoys, uh, horticulture.  He’s a proper Northern California redneck.  We laugh and tease one another every time we see each other, but I’ve got a huge amount of respect for his attitude and his work ethic – he’s always working hard, smiling, cracking jokes, and that’s a huge change from the typically surly, clique-bound racing mechanic.  Nine times out of 10, mechanics and marketing guys don’t get along – most mechanics think marketing types are pretty boys at best, an obstacle to their to-do list at worst.

I digress. In the course of conversation with Steven during the last hour of the race from Laguna Seca, I casually asked him, as racing types tend to do at this time of year, “What’s up for you next year?”  He responded as I expected him to, with a “We’ll see, hopefully I can stay here.”  What came next though was a bit of a shock, when he said, “I’ve built a NASCAR-regulation axle and wheel assembly in my garage and I’ve been practicing tire changes at night there.”

Nonchalantly, Steven went on to explain that yep, he wants to move up to the NASCAR world, changing tires for a top Sprint Cup team.  Lots of NASCAR fans would love that as a weekend warrior-type job, but Steven’s dead set on it.  I asked him a bit more about it and he said that he’d built this assembly in his garage, bought two competition-spec wheels and tires, an air gun and that yep, he practices tire changes in his spare time.

Moreover, he’s got a career plan about it.  He told me – again, totally nonchalantly, like it’s the most natural thing in the world – that he wants to gain another 10-15lbs. of muscle because the tires are bigger and heavier, and that once he’s satisfied that he’s good enough, he’s just going to put together a video resume and attach it to his regular resume and send it out to Cup teams, and in his words, “I’ll be faster than everyone else, so the teams won’t have any choice but to hire me; I’ll just be plain better than their guys.”

Here’s what we’re talking about – NASCAR pit stops, including the tire change guys.  In an otherwise vapidly boring form of motorsport, it often provides the only real drama of the races, outside the wrecks. 

I was absolutely flabbergasted by this conversation.  It’s such an obscure, narrowly-focused goal for Steven to have, but I’d be willing to bet my entire 2009 salary that he’ll not only make it to Sprint Cup, but he’ll be one of the best out there at what he does.  I couldn’t help but be excited for him, not just because he’s my friend, but because he’s got a tangible (if extremely narrow) goal, and he’s worked out a plan for how to gain the skills he needs, but more to the point how to make it actionable.

Oh yeah, and the kicker: he finishes the conversation with “Oh, I don’t want to be in Sprint Cup for long – I hate the travel.  I just want to do it for two or three years, then come home and keep on workin’ on cars.”

The big lesson in this for me is that I – and everyone else I know in the business world – needs to take Steven’s motivation and discipline to heart.  Find something you want to do – whether it’s selling beer, changing tires in NASCAR, writing about porn or changing the way the world discovers music – and do it with an inspired plan.  Be willing to do the equivalent of working out in your garage after hours to accomplish your goal.