Go Racing with Bryan Herta
Go Racing Magazine talks with Stars co-founder Bryan Herta
Originally published in Go Racing Magazine, October 2008. Photos: Mark LaCour/MLP Imaging, The Herta Family, Chris Jones, Michael Voorheese, Dana Garrett, Jim Haines, Go Racing
Go Racing: Give me a little bit of your karting background. We just looked at some photos of you racing Indian Wells, but how old were you started?
B. Herta: I guess to go back to the beginning, when I was about six or seven years old my dad took me, when we were living in Connecticut to a local short track where they ran modifieds there at the time. I just fell in love with racing; it just instantly clicked for me. I just loved it, wanted to be there every Saturday and at that point we found out at a beach near where we lived in Connecticut called Calf’s Pasture, on Sunday’s they used to set up a track and race go karts. So we went out there and checked it out. At the time I was probably seven, at the time it became obvious to my dad that mechanically it was probably a little more than he could take on.
Go Racing: He wasn’t a racer at all?
B. Herta: No, he wasn’t a racer; he watched the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 on TV.
Go Racing: Those races were the only ones really on TV at the time, and maybe Monaco.
B. Herta: Right, so I would say a casual race fan, sure he enjoyed racing but for me it just clicked. Funny side note, there was a little redheaded kid out at Calf’s Pasture in Connecticut who was whooping up on everybody at the time, and ended up it was Johnny O’Connell. But we didn’t get into karting at that point.
Go Racing: It was a good thing; no one wants to lose to O’Connell.
B. Herta: Who said I was going to lose?
Go Racing: Because you were new!
B. Herta: Right. But we moved back to California and the idea of karting and my love for racing never stopped. We’d just go to the Saturday night races. We moved out here, we started going to races out at Saugus Speedway and just by chance I became aware of a neighbor up the street who had a racing go kart for sale and I just bugged my dad, and bugged my dad and convinced him to buy it for me.
Go Racing: Where were you living? What year?
B. Herta: Here in Valencia in 1982. Turns out that the go-kart was a piece of junk but the hook was set at that point. My dad realized how serious I was about it; he bought me a brand new go-kart, and kept the engine.
Go Racing: Who’d he buy the go-kart from?
B. Herta: From K&P, actually through Hollis Brown’s shop and off we went and as they say “the rest was history”. I spent the first few years racing dirt stuff, at the Indian Dunes locally mostly and then at Ascot when they moved to the Southbay Stadium, a little speedway motorcycle track they had. And I did a little bit of sprint stuff but I got hooked pretty tight with Hollis and at that point Hollis was big on the road racing side. So by the time I was 15 I was doing the road racing stuff pretty heavily. So I did that for a couple of years until I was almost 18 and at that point then that’s when I graduated.
Go Racing: Which was to the Skip Barber series.
B. Herta: Right which was a normal time frame. Now kids are moving up at 13-15 years old. Which I am not entirely sure is a good thing but nonetheless that’s how it is now.
Go Racing: Who were some of the guys that you raced with in the road race stuff?
B. Herta: I don’t know there were so many. At that time road racing was really big. I ran a lot of the sprint sit up stuff and we were getting 50 to 70 karts in a class and you run them all together so there is a whole bunch of guys. Lee Hatch was big then, Tommy Neals was around racing karts, there were just so many people.
Go Racing: Is it true that you were involved at Riverside with Kevin Manning and Richie Hearn allegedly taking the top off of a box van?
B. Herta: No, I was there, and it was Richie as I recall. It was just Richie and it was Manning’s van and he tried to drive it through the tunnel, I was there that day. I remember the cut on the forehead I remember the story. I was not involved. Obviously Richie was another guy that was racing with us at that point.
Go Racing: Do you still talk with Richie?
B. Herta: I still see him from time to time. I haven’t talked to him for a little while.
Go Racing: So then you went to the Barber series and did well in that obviously.
B. Herta: Yes, I did the school program and did their school series and that went really well. Then I moved into the pro series that was a school series, which was like Formula Fords. Then I moved into the pro series, I did that for a couple of seasons, I won that championship. I moved into Indy Lights and did that for two years, won that championship and it was in 1994 then AJ Foyt first hired me to drive for him at the Indianapolis 500 in 1994. That was my first Indycar race. At the time I was nervous about it.
Go Racing: How old were you?
B. Herta: I was 23 at the time. Back then that made me a young rookie. Most of the top drivers were mid to late 30’s back then.
Go Racing: Or even Rick Mears was probably 38 at the time.
B. Herta: Right. Guys, they started later but they finished later too. I sound old when I talk like that. I’m 38 now. I went to two guys for their insight. I talked to Bobby Rahall and I talked to Mario Andretti and I asked them their advice because I was concerned about the Indianapolis 500 being my very first Indycar race. But at the same time I didn’t want to miss my opportunity. They both encouraged me to do it and Mario was the one, he was really right when he told me it’s the best race to start at. There is no other track, no other race that you go to that you get a whole month to practice. You can learn the track, take your time and not put a lot of pressure on yourself where everyplace else you go it’s a three-day weekend. You’ve got to get in and out, you get a couple practice sessions, you qualify, and you’re racing. So he was really right in that month I learned a lot and it was actually a great way to start. I made the field, I finished 9th. Unfortunately I happen to be a rookie the same year as Jacques Villeneuve, I think he finished 3rd or 4th in the race and so he got the rookie of the year. I had a great month and ended up being at a good starting point for me.
Go Racing: And then you just continued full time with the CART Series?
B. Herta: I did 4 more races for A.J. and then I got hurt really badly in a crash in Toronto so I missed the rest of that year. When I came back the following year I drove for Chip Ganassi.
Go Racing: Then when did you switch over to Rahall?
B. Herta: I ran for Chip for a year and I probably wasn’t really ready to come back because on my injuries. I broke my pelvis in seven places that was the most severe thing. A lot of little stuff, but a lot of injuries. I broke my femur, which is a big deal. I had surgeries, just healing time. Even the following year I still had a lot of metal in my legs. I drove for Chip, but physically it was difficult. Qualifying was alright; I actually had a couple poles and qualified really well. In the races I just didn’t have the physical strength to fight through the pain and I didn’t have a great year overall. But luckily the opportunity came to go switch to Rahall’s team.
Go Racing: That was a Shell car right?
B. Herta: That was a Shell car so I drove for Bobby then.
Go Racing: What year was that?
B. Herta: Drove for Chip in ’95 and Bobby started in ’96.
Go Racing: When did you start your pole streak at Laguna?
B. Herta: I don’t know.
Go Racing: It was ’96 or ’97.
B. Herta: Might have been ’97.
Go Racing: Because you got your first Champ Car win in ’98, right?
B. Herta: Yes. I know for a long time up until like 2001 or so I think I’d never been off the front row in qualifying in any kind of car at Laguna.
Go Racing: You’re definitely the master at Laguna that’s why I was kind of surprised to be sitting with you right now knowing that there’s a race going on at Laguna this weekend. You’ve got to be on the really short list of people’s hired gun for Laguna list. Or is this hired gun something that you’re not interested in doing?
B. Herta: I would just say I am at a different point in my career now. I’ve done that, I’ve driven one offs, and at this point that’s not something that interests me.
Go Racing: Going back to Laguna for a moment, the infamous Zanardi pass. They changed the CART rules after that but it didn’t do you any good.
B. Herta: It was a rule before then that you couldn’t go off track and gain position. I don’t know, that was one of those sort of firestorm things and if you are a Zanardi fan you saw it one way, if you were a Herta fan you saw it another way.
Go Racing: If you are just a race fan you went "holy shit, what a mess."
B. Herta: Yeah, so you know probably one of the more gratifying things was to be able to come back the following year from that and coming down towards the end of the race and I was leading and Zanardi was behind me again, you know for me it was great redemption to be able to come back from the year's before disappointment and to win that race. I won it again after that but to race heads up a second time with Alex it was a great thrill. I think you've got to have a certain mental toughness to even get to that point because anybody whose made it anywhere in racing or even anybody whose right now trying to make that transition from kart driver to professional racecar driver understands that mentally, if don't have the mental toughness you might as well not even ever try because you are going to be challenged in ways that you can't even imagine before you even get to the point of having a ride or being a professional which means getting paid to race. But it pissed me off a lot.
Go Racing: How do you think that relates to the Lewis/Hamilton pass from Spa where they took his points away?
B. Herta: That was a totally different thing. If you go back and looked at the thing with Alex - I never protested it because I didn't want my first win, whether I was right or wrong, I didn't want my first win to be decided by some arbitrators. It takes away from you. I wanted my first win, I wanted to stand on top of the podium and spray the champagne and lift the trophy and all that was gone.
Go Racing: Did you ever drive an F1 car?
B. Herta: I drove an F1 car, I never got to race but I did test a couple of times.
Go Racing: How was that?
B. Herta: Phenomenal I mean the cars are amazing they are great.
Go Racing: The LP2 cars , they corner nearly as well as the F1 cars?
B. Herta: Not quite, but they're almost there, they're surprisingly good.
Go Racing: What's the next generation of prototype cars going to bring to the table?
B. Herta: I think they're going to slow them back down a little bit.
Go Racing: With aero or via mechanical means?
B. Herta: Well, I know that LP2 is going to slow the engines down even more, which is a shame. We have a problem in this country that most of the tracks are not safe enough to run really high speeds. So in lew of changing the tracks they keep slowing the cars down. What would be really great is if we could advance the tracks to the point that you could have proper run off areas in the way that a lot of the top Europeans do and you could run the cars that fast because they are awesome to watch and they are awesome to drive but the reality is you have to balance safety with performance.
Go Racing: After your CART days you went to the IRL?
B. Herta: Actually after the Champ Car thing when I was driving for Jerry Forsyth and he folded his team I went to the American Lemans series for a year and drove with Don Panos.
Go Racing: Did you drive that Panos V8 beast prototype?
B. Herta: Yes in 2002. I really like sports cars and was actually planning in 2003 to race sports cars again. I had already done Sebring, I was at LeMans doing pre-qualifying when I finally did the deal with Michael to come back, it was when Dario Franchitti got hurt part way through the 2003 season. Originally it was only two or three races until Dario Franchitti came back, but his injury ended up keeping him out the rest of the year and then that relationship went so well that they decided to try to put a fourth team together and with my father's help they were able to convince XM Satellite radio to come on board and then they put a fourth car together for me to stay with the team. I did that for several years until Acura moved into sports cars. I had a good time in my last ALMS experience driving for Don's team so that was something I really pursued.
Go Racing: Did you have a connection to Acura?
B. Herta: Honda is the parent company for Acura and I had a good, close relationship with Honda so everything kind of fit. XM wanted to come over, I had a relationship with XM, Andretti Green wanted to do it so it was a good fit to go over and the timing was good for me.
Go Racing: Who were you partnered with in the car?
B. Herta: Who was my partner, last year? I'm trying to remember. At different points during the year it was Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti, Marino Franchitti. Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti also at different times tested the car but they didn't race.
Go Racing: And you guys won Sebring last year right?
B. Herta: We won Sebring and had a lot of strong races after that but it was the tough year for the program, obviously the Porsche program was already there and was really strong so we were chasing them a little bit. We knew that going in.
Go Racing: ALMS a great series.
B. Herta: It is a great series, it's exciting. I like the differentiation. That is what I wish for open wheel racing. I liked it when we had three or four chassis manufacturers and two tire manufacturers and three or four engine manufacturers because it made it interesting. Cars looked different, the performance on any given track might sway one way or the other. One week you go to a track and you know a Raynard with a Honda engine might be the hot ticket and then the next week maybe a Lola with your Mercedes Ilmor was the way to go and then the tire equation. It jumbled things up and kind of kept everybody fighting and working really hard because you couldn't ever rest on your laurels.
Go Racing: When I interviewed Pat Long his biggest thing was, everyone's advice to him was go with the manufacturers. The manufacturers supported sportscar racing.
B. Herta: They can afford to put a lot more money behind a program.
Go Racing: If you are a Chevy guy, got to root for Team Corvette. You don't have that with the current open wheel situation.
B. Herta: I think that's going to come back though. From what I'm hearing. I think now that there is one series they have a good base to rebuild open wheel racing from. I am pretty optimistic for the future.
Go Racing: Would you have ever thought that the IRL would win the open wheel war?
B. Herta: At one point in time if you asked me in '95 when the split first happened or '96, I would have said no, but I think over time it became more and more obvious that the Champ Car side was weakening, the IRL side, if not getting stronger wasn't diminishing. And Tony George had that fortitude and the staying power to ride it out as long as it took.
Go Racing: Was that just a matter of money and stubbornness?
B. Herta: No. At this point I don't think you can point fingers anymore. I think everybody shares responsibility in what happened; owners on both sides. I think the stubbornness was not Tony, but it was on both sides but it was the fact that for many years open wheel racing failed to put who was really important first, the fans. They looked at what was best for their own teams, their own drivers, and their own series, whatever. Nobody was thinking about what was really better for the fans. I went to many of those later races this year for Vision Racing, and I can tell you its got a good atmosphere, crowds were stronger than they've been in a long time at all venues. I think there's a good reason to be optimistic. I am a fan of open wheel racing and think it has a solid future.
Go Racing: Are you looking to return to open wheel racing for '09?
B. Herta: As a driver? I don't know what I want to do right now. Some of it depends on what the opportunities are. I don't know.
Go Racing: Tell me not NASCAR.
B. Herta: No I don't see myself in NASCAR. I think NASCAR, if I were young; it would have been a great path to pursue. I've been fortunate because I have had a long career, but over time you get kind of stuck in your own style and your own ways that I think that is why a lot of the open wheel guys who have gone over there struggle to make the transition. Where a guy like Scott Speed, he hasn't raced long enough to kind of get set in his ways so his natural ability has allowed him to adapt very quickly.
Go Racing: Except for Allmendinger though, things haven’t worked out so well for him
B. Herta: I think he came in a tough situation. I think he's done a hell of a good job actually, and he's run very well lately. His lack of experience - if you put him in a Hendrick car right away I think he would have shown much better. Where he lost out is just his inexperience. The team wasn't able to give him a good car and he didn't have the experience to tell them what he needed from the car. I think A.J. is running very well lately and he'd been running as well or better than Vickers prior to getting blown out of there. Again, as a driver you've got to take the opportunities when they come. It’s a double-edged sword. You go to a team that’s struggling, if you don't have experience it can unravel in a big hurry for you.
Go Racing: Does it make you feel old racing against guys like McDowell that were juniors at the time when you co-founded the Stars series?
B. Herta: No it really doesn't. I get a sense of pride seeing those guys doing well. I definitely keep track of them and what they're doing and where they're at and I still cheer for them.
Go Racing: Even if you're racing against them you cheer for them?
B. Herta: No. It's never okay if they win if I'm racing. That's different.
Go Racing: Just asking, you could be a really generous person inside.
B. Herta: I don't think anybody who does this job for a living is that generous.
Go Racing: Through all of the years you've kept your hand in karting in one way or another, what was your first venture, once you were out of the sport that sucked you back in?
B. Herta: I started racing cars when I was 18 and I stayed in touch with Hollis Brown obviously. He approached me, maybe in 2000, he wanted to buy the Las Vegas karting track. It was called Race Kart City at the time, from a guy named Spencer Apple. He asked me if I would be interested in participating with him in that. Obviously Hollis has been a big supporter for me in karting so I was happy to be involved in that with him. That's how I got back into karting.
Go Racing: I think the first time I saw you at the track was '96, Laughlin Grand Prix, you were driving the HPV 125 pace kart for the Pro Invitational.
B. Herta: Yeah, Hollis had ways of pulling me back in.
Go Racing: He was a hell of a promoter. I miss him.
B. Herta: He always was a great promoter. The sport misses him. In that time period I was out at the track and I started sort of brainstorming what could we do to really create a marquee event for the track. At that time I thought back to the Autosport Awards and the McClaren Young Driver Award where they actually put a kid in an F1 car for a test and I thought it would be awesome to offer tests to some of these kids out of karting. So I called Bobby Rahall up and pitched the idea to him, he said okay, I'll do it, I'll put a car together. He did it for all the right reasons. It is not cheap to run an Indycar on a test day and he did that for all the right reasons to give something back to the sport and help.
Go Racing: Was the first Champ Car test at California or Firebird?
B. Herta: The first test was at California Speedway. But the idea was just to do a one off race. We were able to get a TV deal put together and brought some outside sponsorship into the sport and as you recall, this was during the reign of SKUSA. I was new back in the sport, wasn't aware of all of the politics yet, there were a lot of people running SKUSA that were not satisfied with the series and they started coming to me saying your race is great and you should start a series and you can do some of these things for karting. There was a lot of the bigger importers and so forth who really encouraged me to do that and I said I don't want to start a karting series, it is not really in my plans but I'll tell you what my first thing was I went to Jim Murrly, met with Jim and said, "would you like to combine our forces and work together?" At the time Jim's quote was, "Well I don't think you have anything of value." So he just wasn’t interested. So my next idea was to create a few classes which we'll call Stars classes. It could be common rules amongst the different sanctioning bodies; IKF, WKA and SKUSA and even now they can't agree which is a shame. So I wrote letters and calls to SKUSA, IKF and WKA and said, "We'll create four Stars classes and we'll run those classes at the WKA Grand Nationals, at the IKF Nationals and at the SKUSA SuperNats and we'll create one Stars stand alone and we'll make it a four race championship." I thought the idea would help bring karting together. I couldn't get any responses from IKF whatsoever, I sent letters, couldn't get a call back. Randy Kugler was encouraging from WKA but said, "Our schedule is full, we have so many classes, we really can't dedicate the time to it but let's stay in touch." Jim only wanted to run shifter karts which was his direction, that was fine, that didn't fit in what Stars was meant to be about so we ended up doing our own thing in starting a four race championship.
Go Racing: You never karted in Europe like like Phil Giebler, Alex Barron and Pat Long just for karting?
B. Herta: In Europe no, never raced. I did some driving over there. I believe strongly in the system that they had over there and the class structure. The classes are important for how you train your drivers. You can take a guy with talent and like Scott Speed, obviously he drove shifter karts and he's fast and everything but that doesn't mean that’s the only way to train guys. What's more important is to have a limited class structure, you don't need 105 national champions every year because what it means is, it doesn't mean much. You want a limited class structure where all the best guys come race together because then they can really measure themselves. That was the concept with Stars, to create a platform where the best guys can come to race. Its existed at different times WKA’s Constructors Cup which I didn't get to race in, really got going right after I got out of karting and ended before Stars and SKUSA came along but that was great. If you look now at guys who came out of karting who are racing in cars who are good, the number of guys who raced in that series is overwhelming. It sounds obvious but the best guys have to race each other or they won't get better. Anybody whose plays golf would understand the analogy. If you go play with three great golfers you will play better that day. If you play with three terrible golfers you will play worse that day and it is no different in racing. I guess the concept for Stars was to create the elite platform for those who really want to develop themselves to that level of driving.
Go Racing: And its pretty much done that.
B. Herta: It's not been pretty and it's not been easy many steps of the way. I think its achieved a lot of its objectives, I think there's more that we can still do and should still do. I sold my interest in Stars to Paul Zalud about two years ago now but mainly because financially to make it make sense you’ve got to have one owner. I've never been less involved with Stars even since I sold it. I still want to see it succeed and I believe it has.
Go Racing: You're on the Stars Board of Directors?
B. Herta: Yes and I think there's a need for it because people complain about it and I'm not saying the complaints aren't legitimate, a lot of them are but what's the option; is no Stars. Where does that put everybody back; back to where we were with 135 national champions or whatever the number is and racing for Duffies in classes with seven guys and stuff which doesn't make any sense to me at all.
B. Herta: WKA and IKF they serve a purpose. They're great organizations, they're member based organizations, they need to exist but they are membership driven which means all they care about to survive is how many members they get. That's where, in theory anyways, hopefully, where Stars tries to be different. I think we've maintained steadfastly a very limited structured. Every time we've made a change or added or removed a class we've tried to have a good reason for doing it and the reason has not ever been based on we want to generate more entries.
Go Racing: Because if that were true there would be the Stars Kid Kart champion. But you also don't want to run classes that nobody runs.
B. Herta: We've had to adapt over the years but the idea of a limited class structure where the best can come race, I think a lot of those things do exist in the Stars series now. If I have one disappointment it’s the overwhelming cost of competition to do Stars. That's kartings probably downfall to a large extent in general is its just expensive to do.
Go Racing: Why do you think that is?
B. Herta: I think there's several factors. One it’s a little bit out of our control. I think it's expensive. You can go out and race a sprint car for less than it costs to race in Stars. Some of it is out of our control for the time being. The currency exchange, the euro has gotten a long stronger than the dollar and all of our karts and engines come from there right now.
Go Racing: Shouldn't that be driving US manufacturers? Besides Margay we have no others.
B. Herta: You would hope. I don't know why they haven't been able to compete with the European stuff but they haven't. Some of it is logistically the United States is so large that its expensive to travel across it. If you have a national championship in England you can drive everywhere in four hours ff you start in the middle of the country. In the United States you can't do that so it opens up a lot more travel costs and airfare and things that you now have to deal with. That is partially what we try to address at the east and west programs. But there's only so much you can do. I think right now the equipment is expensive and junior programs are very expensive. I'd like to see the cost on those things come down.
Go Racing: What is the future of cost control? Do you think its in TAG?
B. Herta: I like TAG and I like TAG in concept. Again I think we've tried to do it a little differently because its entry based, other karting organizations, they want to be inclusive for everybody so what starts as a great concept; long lasting, electric start engines, great. Then somebody else builds one that's a little different and then somebody else builds one that's a little different and then before you know it we've got stuff like we have now where essentially some of these engines are ICA motors with a starter on it. That's not what the spirit intent of TAG is and it gets away from the whole philosophy of the class yet those things have been allowed to come in. We've tried to limit those things in Stars.
Go Racing: America is founded on something for everyone and if you're 250 pounds there's a class somewhere for you to race whereas in Europe you're called a mechanic.
B. Herta: Exactly. I've got no problem with that. Club racing should be all of that. Maybe even some regional stuff, but the national level; it shouldn't exist. It should be a very streamlined program. I don't want to get on a soapbox but some of the things I see, and this is basic stuff, if Joe Smith walks into a go-kart shop tomorrow and says, "I've got a 13 year old son or daughter and we want to go go-kart racing. Where do I start? I don't know anything about it." There isn't an answer that any shop can give what this should be. What class should you start in? What kart should you start with? By in large they get sold whatever that particular shop that they walked into that day had on the shelf in inventory. This is what you should get whether its right for the kid or not but as an industry karting has not been able to really answer those questions. Name something else that is as complex as say a TAG kart. You buy a TAG kart package for $8200.00. It doesn't come with an owner's manual. We had a hand pump when we started, we had a little foot pump and my dad checked the tires by pushing his thumb into the tires to see if it had air in it. We didn't know how much air you were supposed to run or that it was important or critical. We ran a whole year without checking the oil in our clutch. We didn't know there was oil in it. We were a rare case because I was so gun ho on doing it that I pushed through all of that but I guarantee that there were times when my dad threw up his hands and said, "Screw this. I don't want to do this anymore."
Go Racing: That's probably got to be the number one thing reason for turnover in the sport. It’s a great sport but it's hard and I think a lot people go into the sport not knowing how hard it really is.
B. Herta: You can go out tomorrow and buy a motocross bike and start racing motocross without knowing a lot about it. Now if you get to the top level you've got to know about it. But the entry level is way easier to get started. If I had one wish it would be that sanctioning bodies would get together and recognize some of these things and try and encourage change.
Go Racing: Do you think with the poor economic times we are in, everybody's entries down, everybody is struggling, that it might be a good opportunity for the sanctioning bodies to get together?
B. Herta: There's never a bad opportunity. The opportunity has existed forever. I'm not optimistic at this point. I still love karting, I still love being a part of it, my son's racing now in cadet, I have so much fun going to the races, and my dad goes with us and my father-in-law who I used to race against and my mother-in-law who raced go karts. We still see a lot of families that were in the sport when I was doing it.
Go Racing: If you survive five years you’re a lifer. It really gets into you.
B. Herta: I love doing it but I got burned out really quickly on the politics of it because it just doesn't matter whether you are trying to do things for the right reason or trying to help, its just pushed back from every angle and it just beats you down. That's why when people come to me with problems with the Stars I always try and listen to them because I think its important. Don't get me wrong in trying to say the Stars program is perfect, because its far from perfect and I wish I could be more involved than I am, but its my belief that it is the best thing out there right now. If we could get people to put as much energy into contributing and fixing the problems that are there rather than complaining and trying to tear it down the skies the limit. I think scheduling and venues has been an ongoing problem for Stars, and they can do better. From what I've seen better things are on the horizon. Mike Tetreault is taking a much more active role in the series which I think is really good because he brings a lot of enthusiasm. And there's always the well he's the Top Kart guy or the Comer guy. People won't believe me when I tell them this but in a lot of the conversations I have had with Mike he's been willing to entertain and make decisions regarding Stars that weren't better for Mike in his business but he knew they were better for the series and I think that says a lot about somebody whose willing to put the series over their business interests. Good for him for stepping up, he doesn't need it, he doesn't need the aggravation. He's got a family and a good karting business to run and he's got enough on his plate, he doesn't need to do this. Kudos to him for taking a role in saying, "You know what, this is a good thing, it’s the right thing to do and I want to spend some time on it and I want to contribute to the sport."
Go Racing: You mentioned that you're racing with your son. He's a first year cadet, how is that going as a dad?
B. Herta: It's going great, I love it. I really have a good time going to the races with him because it is like doing it all over again. Watching him go through the learning processes, he just loves it so much and he talks about, "When are we going testing dad?" I love that stuff and I just enjoy doing that with him probably because I had such fond memories of going to the races with my dad. The whole family thing is so sweet. I have a daughter too, Caly, and she goes to a lot of the races. She has done a race. She's a little older, 11. She doesn't have the passion to do it. It’s always out there if she wants to race she knows she can and she'll go out on a test day sometimes and play around and she's happy enough doing it which is great. She likes art and dance, she loves music, and she plays soccer, softball so she has her interests. And that’s the thing, I didn't push my son or daughter into this. I'm thrilled that he wants to do it and I'm happy to do it with him and help him as much as I can but its also important if he said tomorrow, "Dad I'd rather play softball," then you bet I'd be out at the softball field. I like doing stuff with them and I like seeing them grow and learn and expand themselves.
Go Racing: Do you think it’s harder for you having a rookie in the cadet class as a professional racecar driver looking at it because you might know, "Oh man he's pinching the corners."
B. Herta: No. It's frustrating at times but I probably go too far the other way. I'm afraid to try and tell him too much because at a certain point he's got to learn it on his own so I look more at, I see where he's improving. He could have a full weekend and make one great pass and for me that’s enough. It's not enough for him. He sets his sights a little higher which is good. He wants to compete, and he's really competitive. He has a good time, and he's a good sport. Trust me he's not the kid that’s throwing his stuff around when he gets out of the kart at the scales. But trust me if it didn't go well enough I hear about it when we get back to the trailer which is where you should go. I'm proud of the way he approaches his racing. He won his first cadet race up in Willow two weeks ago.
Go Racing: What's your affiliation with MB2, our wonderful meeting location?
B. Herta: I went to high school with Chris Brooks who is one of the two owners and I also went to school with Sean Flynn who does the marketing/PR. He called me up when they were getting ready to open this thing up and told me about it and said, "Hey will you come over, we're laying the track out, will you give us a hand?" So I did that and at the time he was talking about getting his kid involved in karting and he said, "Hey can we do some kind of deal to help market the track with your name?" I said, "You know what, rather than do that because it wouldn't financially make sense for you to do it, just put a little money into my kid's go karting and I'll come out and promote some stuff for you guys and do some things." You know they're nice guys and they're trying to run a business.
Go Racing: All my best friends are still the guys I’ve known for twenty something years.
B. Herta: Almost all of my good friends are people I went to high school with. Chris and I we kind of lost touch after high school and just reconnected when he tried to get in touch with me about the track and then his sons racing kid karts, getting ready to move into cadets and Sean's son, Ethan races cadets. It's been great, we've been pitting together, and we've been all running out of Pitts Performance, the last few races so it's been a lot of fun.
Go Racing: You're in economics right? Where do you see the sport going here in the next couple of years?
B. Herta: I don't know. I think we're going to go through a low point, it always goes with the economy a little bit. I'm an economics major so things are a little scary right now on that front. I think there's going to be some tightening of the belts, cutting back for some people in their racing which I wouldn't be surprised if we see the sport shrink a little bit more before it starts growing again. That’s going to hurt some shops. Hopefully the good thing is that will force some cost containment measures and hopefully some good will come out of it that will survive into the next good economy that we have. There's always going to be karting. It's not ever going to go away. We need a single strong leader or strong entity to lead karting in this country.