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Interview With The Milwaukee Mile’s Kevin Healy

Milwaukee, WI (February 12, 2012) – The “Sparky’s Final Inspection” show on SportsRadio1250 in Milwaukee had the opportunity to have the first media interview with Milwaukee IndyFest’s, Kevin Healy on Saturday. Healy has been named Managing Director of Milwaukee IndyFest. Healy is a 30-year veteran of the airline industry and most recently served as Sr. Vice President of Marketing and Planning for AirTran Airways, a long-time sponsor of Andretti Autosport IndyCar teams.

Led by IndyCar team owner Michael Andretti, Andretti Sports Marketing will promote the Milwaukee IndyFest at the Milwaukee Mile, June 15 and 16. The Father’s Day weekend festival will be headlined Saturday afternoon by an internationally televised IndyCar race and will also include many other events at the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds.

The interview was conducted by Steve “Sparky” Fifer, Summer “NASCAR Girl” Santana and Steve Zautke.

How did your involved with Michael Andretti start?

“Getting involved with the promotion group goes back to 2005 when I was running marketing and planning for AirTran Airways. We entered into a sponsorship agreement with then (called), Andretti-Green Racing. We actually signed the deal Thursday before the (2005) Indy 500. I was standing in victory circle on Sunday (Dan Wheldon). It was a pretty cool start.”

How were you involved with the Air “Tranica” activation?

“That was a few years later when Danica won over in Motegi (Japan). We branded an aircraft, Air Tranica that was a fun promotion. We’ve done some really neat stuff with the race team. We’re planning on using that same enthusiasm and creativity with promoting Milwaukee Indy Fest.”

Tell us how Milwaukee Indy Fest will be more than just a race?

“We’re going for more than a race, in doing more of a street race feel. Normally with an oval (race), you come in, watch the race and leave. We’re going to try to turn this into little more like a festival, well, a lot more like a festival. Have a lot of different formats, the race will be early on Saturday, green flag on Saturday will be 12:15 p.m. This will be nationally broadcasted, actually internationally broadcasted, a bit of an opportunity to showcase Milwaukee as well. We’ll have qualifying and practice on Friday and some other race events on Friday and a full day Saturday morning with the race and a concert afterwards.”

Understanding there will be a concert, can you elaborate?

“What we’re really going for is that it’ll be a good concert in of its self. I would except you’ll have some people coming out to the concert who’ll catch a race, some other folks who come to a race and then stay for the concert.”

Last year, it seemed like not enough people knew about the race, how does that problem get fixed?

“I think you really have to plan far in advance, make sure you get people engaged with thinking about the race, doing more in-market promotion, well in advance. That’s some of things we want to do. Have events in advance, make appearances try to create other opportunities to get people interested in IndyCar racing who may not be fans naturally. A lot of it is tying in with various sponsors that we’ll be announcing in the next few weeks and creating a lot of excitement around the entire event. As a fan, I’ve been going to races in Milwaukee for a number of years, I love watching races at the Milwaukee Mile. That’s where drivers can really differentiate, it’s a takes a lot of skill and along with some very fast cars. But it was always sort of like you can be there the entire week and not know there was a race going on. Our goal is to make sure everybody knows there is a big race and festival going on.”

Milwaukee Mile tickets would be a great Valentine’s gift. What are the ticketing details?

“The announcement got a bit ahead of its self with a little error on the website going public before we were quite ready to do so. Having said that, you can go to www.MilwaukeeMile.com sign in, sign up for the newsletter we’ll make sure we stay in contact with those people when tickets go on sale. I agree, it would be a great Valentine’s gift. Or a Father’s day weekend gift. We wish we had the ticketing ready to go but at this time it isn’t.”

Sponsorship is very important, title sponsorships, etc. Did Andretti Promotions have any leads or sponsorships in hand when the decision to go forward was made?

“One of the chief considerations, I think there has been a reluctance with local sponsorship just given a history of the event. We want to change that around. The advantage for Andretti Sports Marketing is part of Andretti Autosport is there are a lot relationships that are already in place and some very strong relationships we can rely on to bring in multiple levels of sponsors. In the next couple of weeks we’ll be announcing the beginning of our sponsorships and I think that’s the sort of thing that builds momentum on its self and builds towards a successful race. This is sort of a restart on race promotion but at the same time, the company (formerly known as Andretti-Green) has a lot of experience doing it, turning around the St. Pete Grand Prix, bringing the Toronto Grand Prix back and those are two of the best races in IndyCar now. It’s that same experience and enthusiasm that we bring to Milwaukee IndyFest at the Milwaukee Mile and bring back racing to where we want it to be. ”

Is this a multi-year agreement?

“We’re looking at multiple years, there’s a lot of work and effort that goes into doing a race and you really wouldn’t do it for one year. You build on the success year after year. We’re looking at a five-year deal and that’s certainly plenty of time to get this up and going. We want it to be a big hit right out of the gate the first year but looking to do this for many years to come. The main reason is for the Andretti family this a track they really like. Mario has won there (1966-twice, 1967, 1985), Michael has won five times as a driver (1986, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1996) and three times as an owner (2004, 2006, 2007). And, more importantly Michael, John and Mario all shared the podium at the Mile (1991).”

What kind of promotions are in place, anything lined up?

“Not yet, I apologize, sounds far more disorganized than it is. The website went public before we were ready to do that. But one of the things we wanted to do different types of promotion across town get involved in different community organizations, expose people to IndyCar in ways that have been done before. Getting it up close and personal even during the event or around the event, give fans the opportunity to interact in ways they haven’t in the past. I tell people a lot, with racing, if you haven’t seen it live you can never appreciate the speed, it’s a lot like hockey that way. If you haven’t been to a live event you can’t really understand how fast it is.”

Tickets will go on sale March 1, but fans who would like more details or to be notified when the tickets are available can sign-up on the event website at www.MilwaukeeMile.com.

You can listen to the interview at http://www.sportsradio1250.com/ Sparky’s Final Inspection, hour one.

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