Driving
to the track I couldn’t help thinking how special this moment was. Being my
first year racing and meeting people in motorsports, here I was interviewing one
of the best rally drivers in the United States. This guy has raced against
Sebastian Loeb, Ken Block, Travis Pastranna and is on the same team as Rhys
Millen, who’s history and family go deep into rally and motorsports. I arrived at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Thursday
at 445pm. All the teams where setting up, Ken Block is racing one of his
crew members on his bike around the garages ,Bucky Lasek is standing supervising
his team working on his car, I feel strangely at home around the sound of impact wrenches
and revving engines. Stephan arrives and invites me into his private RV where
we sit down and like old friends we joke with each other while we get
comfortable. Noticing he has other things that are going to need his attention
soon, I quickly begin firing away.
RP: In your opinion, where is the disconnect with race
fans/attendance in your motorsport?
SV: The main thing is, the sport is brand new. They don’t have
any indication of the sport, You can relate that to Rally in general. Especially
in the US, the philosophy is, you bring the sport to the people, in to a
stadium or a place where they can sit, have drinks and food without having to
go anywhere. Any motorsport that comes from Europe is the other way around, people
go to the sport. They will walk to a stage through a forest for two hours to
watch a car go by for a few seconds. Which will never work in the US. The beauty
of the Rally Cross, is we brought the Rally from the forest to the stadium environment.
So I think the disconnection we have is people don’t know the sport yet. They
don’t know the cars very well, and they don’t know the European Drivers we
have. So I think in a couple years with the help of games like Dirt 3 and the 10
year old kids playing those games, as they grow up are going to know about the
sport and the cars. They are going to be our main fan base.
RP: What advice would you give young people striving to
become professional drivers?
SV: Find another job, LOL! No, motorsports is different than lets’ say
being a swimmer. The amount of money needed, you can be the best driver in the
world, but if you don’t have good equipment you’re going to look like hell on
the track. So for someone who wants to be a professional you obviously have to
be very driven. Everything comes second to your sport. Look at the big picture,
if you lose your ride your career is not over. One off day is not going to make
your career disappear. Be driven and focused on it.
RP: Being focused is a big one, also the changes in social
media it’s more about marketing now.
SV: and Ken Block is a perfect example, it wasn’t until his
Ghymkana videos was a decent driver, with mediocre results who was able to do WRC events no other American could
do, because of his media exposure(he has become an excellent driver). That’s the good thing about media now, you
don’t even have to be the best driver, if you are good with media you can
attract sponsors. They don’t even care about results as long as you’re promoting
them in a positive way.
RP: If you could make one change to the rules of your series,
what would it be?
SV: I kind of like the way they are. But I would change the
rule on tires. I would like to use DOT instead of race tires to bring more manufactures
to the series. It would help inject more money from sponsors into the series.
RP: Where do you see technology taking the car/equipment of
your race series?
SV: The cars are limited, it keeps costs down. I think technology
wise, we’re not going much further, we’re pretty much at the top.
RP: Explain what goes on behind the scenes. How many days a
week do you dedicate to the business side of your career? Test days? Off days?
Event Preperation? Etc.
SV: There’s different levels of professionals, like me for
example, I don’t have a manager. So when I’m not racing it’s 24/7 I’m working
on the backside of it. If you have a manager, the manager takes care of all
that stuff. So, there are different levels of control. As a pro guy you are
always working. Whether it’s a race, commercial, manufactures event and a lot
of it comes because of racing. Racing got me to where people ask me to take a
Ferrari around a track because they know I can race a car. It’s always related to
your racing , so you pretty much always work on the backside. Then you also
have the physical part of it. We’re lucky we only race a 10-15 minutes at a
time, so we don’t have to be in shape like an F1 driver. But still, we cannot
be lazy about it. There is also the mental side. When you become a pro Sure I
don’t go to a job from 8-5 but, I am working everyday all the time. There is
always something I’m doing that is for the goal of racing. It’s nonstop.
RP: A lot of networking I’d imagine?
SV: Oh yea, you never know, and you got to think about working
on deals for the next two or three years.
RP: Besides car preparation, Is there anything you do before
an event to get ready?
SV: I work out more before an event to be more ready. Drink a
lot of water like any other athlete.
RP: Stephan, you’ve had a successful career and have
accomplished a lot, what’s next?
SV: I would like 5-7
years of the GRC. I would love to end my career in the GRC. After that I will
be in motorsports somehow. Being part of
a team, owning my own would be great. If not I’ll go do some commercials, LOL.I
hope in 5 years I’m doing another interview like this.
As we
wrapped up the interview Stephan was super gracious, he told me if I had any
other questions to give him a call or text him. What pro drivers do you know
offer that kind of accessibility?! So I walked through
the garage one more time to check out all the ridiculously bad ass cars like
all the Puma Subaru cars, the Ford Fiestas’, and of course the Disney XD Motorcity Hyndai Veloster. Freakin
Rad. The question I have to ask myself is, am I ready to work 24/7? A better question
would be, is it really work if you love everything about it?
-Ray Piloto
Follow me on Twitter @RayPiloto
Like me on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/RayPilotoRacing
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