PRI 2022 Recap
Decisions, decisions, decisions…
As of Monday my plan was not to go to PRI. Between work at my day job and just general timing chaos, I had decided it was wiser to avoid the trip to Indianapolis and spend my time on other things.
At quite literally the last minute, less than 24 hours before day 1 of the Performance Racing Industry show, my best friend Erik and I changed our minds. We were going to PRI. I talked to Cassidy about the trip, threw together an overnight bag and put a fresh tank of fuel in the car. On Friday morning (around 4:00 a.m.) I hit the road and began my six hour trek to Indy, home of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Friday…
Around that same time Erik was getting up and hitting the road from St. Louis, Missouri. Thankfully our paths didn’t cross in our travels because Erik ended up getting stuck in construction traffic on the highway while I enjoyed the open road (despite the pouring rain).
I’d like to say Indy gave us a warm welcome, but the weather followed us in and it stayed gray, cold and rainy for our entire time in the city.
I walked into the Indianapolis Convention Center around 11 a.m. on Friday and first met up with Tucker Wulff of Wulff Media Group; Tucker and WMG have been helping me with my media management and sponsorship activation since the summer.
We had a walk around the convention center so I could get my bearings before heading into my first seminar of the show, ‘Facebook & Instagram: Better Results & Less Work’ presented by Jenn Cario. I got some great nuggets of insight from Jenn during the seminar as well as some affirmation that Tucker and I are going about race media management the right way.
After the seminar Tucker and I decided to split up to cover more ground. Tucker stayed for another seminar in that same meeting room, ‘The Race for Sponsorship’ presented by Alex Striler. Since I have already taken Alex’s Sponsorship Summit earlier in the year, I thought it best to start milling through the various exhibitors.
Around that time Erik made it in and we visited with some of the people at Fass Fuel Systems; Erik is a brand manager at Fass.
We had a great time together Friday afternoon getting to know some other racers, catching up with old friends, and geeking out over all the cars on the show floor.
Once Tucker got out of the Striler’s seminar, we met up again and I got the chance to meet a fellow WMG Driver for the first time, Isaac Johnson.
Isaac is a driver from Indianapolis who will be making his way into pavement late models in the southeast next year.
Tucker, Erik and I arranged some dinner plans for that Friday night as the show was winding down before heading to the hotel to get checked in.
Friday Night…
On Friday night we met up with Tucker and Fletcher Wulff (who also helps run media management at WMG) at the (ENTER RESTAURANT NAME HERE) and boy, was it awesome.
On the bar’s social media they had made a post saying that any PRI trip was incomplete without grabbing a bite there and it pretty much sealed the deal for me.
I had saved my cheat meal of the week strategically so we could get some barbeque in Indy and the four of us pigged out and talked business. Over dinner we were able to come up with some really exciting ideas and plans for 2023, which I can’t wait to share.
Saturday…
Right at opening time Erik and I were waiting outside the nearest Planet Fitness to our hotel. For the first time in years we got the chance to work out together and it was one of the best workouts I have had in a long time.
Fueled up on the previous night’s barbeque, a workout to remember and lots of ideas we checked out of the hotel and headed over to the tradeshow.
Saturday was a rush of activity. I started the day by filming a short video for social media with Tucker on his new DJI Pocket 2 camera, which absolutely rocks, chatted with a bunch more exhibitors and even jumped into a full racing simulator rig with Erik and the awesome folks over at SimCraft.
SimCraft is in the process of getting their dirt cars tuned up and ready for the Chili Bowl and given my dirt background I was actually able to give them notes on it. I ran their Chili Bowl setup a few times and we got down to talking about nuances in the car and what makes a Chili Bowl car competitive. (Also if you are looking for a high-end racing simulator … these are your guys no doubt!)
The rest of the day flew by. Tucker and Fletcher hit the road back to South Carolina around lunch time and before I knew it the show was closing up until next year.
I got home around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night and crashed.
Until Next Year…
I am really glad I made the last minute decision to go to PRI this year. I think I would be regretting it quite a bit if I hadn’t gone.
The whole purpose of going is to create new relationships and have productive conversations. I think we can safely say we checked both boxes.
- Sincerely, the TAR family