The $3,000 Helmet: An IndyCar Case Study in Compliance-Driven Cost Inflation
With so much talk today about the rising costs of competing in top-level racing, I realized this was a golden opportunity: a chance to do a real apples-to-apples comparison between 1977 and 2025 safety equipment.
Even better: the vendor featured, Simpson Safety Equipment, still exists under the name Simpson Race Products. This meant I could go straight to the source, nearly 50 years later, and uncover some surprising insights about how costs have shifted, where the pain points really are, and what this says about the evolving economics of racing today.
The First Principles of Growth: Why the WRC and IndyCar Must Stop Building For Retention
In motorsport, as in any business, growth doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from making deliberate choices about who your future customers are and building everything around them.
That means identifying the right audience, understanding their expectations, and aligning your product, message, and experience accordingly.
Judging from the stagnant state of both series, the mistake WRC and IndyCar seem to keep making isn’t about execution or the respective racing products (in my opinion, they’re both unique and world-class), it’s about orientation.
They’re still looking backwards, whether they mean to or not.
10 Truths About Motorsports Hiding In Plain Sight
These ten truths won’t fix everything but they may explain why so many motorsports teams struggle, why sponsors hesitate, and why certain series are quietly pulling ahead.
If you're in the ecosystem, whether you’re representing a team, brand, or platform, this is what you're up against.
Why Sim Racing Campaigns Are An Untapped Goldmine For Automotive Brands
Sim racing has become a technically sophisticated, community-rich ecosystem where players are not just consumers; they’re fans, evangelists, and lifelong car enthusiasts in the making.
And yet, most automotive brands have barely scratched the surface of what this space can offer.
We’ve seen what’s possible in games like Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends over a decade ago.
While the physics may not have aged well, the structure, a narrative-driven, brand-specific campaign, remains a compelling model which hasn’t really been pushed forward in over a decade.
In today’s fragmented gaming landscape, bringing that experience into modern sim racing platforms could unlock enormous value for brands and players alike.