Infineon Raceway surges ahead with fast cars, community outreach and a top-notch recycling program.
The roar of the crowd is matched only by the full-throated rant of supercharged engines, the queasy/exciting admixture of gasoline and hot oil, and the raging enthusiasm and frenzy of diehard fans. NASCAR’s national marketing director, Steve Phelps, recently noted that auto racing fandom is growing by leaps and bounds “Because they see the drivers as both heroic and down-to-earth. And think of the branding opportunity for advertisers, with 43 advertising platforms captivating your attention, moving at 200 miles per hour. Our fans spend, on average, more than $800 per year on NASCAR products.”
If you’re into fishing, that’s a pretty good hook to be able to set. Especially when, as Phelps further notes, “Forty percent of our fans are now female, and that segment is still growing.” This is fertile territory, folks. We have a prize piece of fishing ground right here in our midst, and its lead fisherman has an intriguing background. The grounds are Infineon Raceway (for the longest time known as Sears Point), on the north edge of the San Pablo Bay and the southern end of the Sonoma Valley. The fisherman is Steve Page, president and general manager of Infineon, who, for 11 years, was marketing director for the Oakland Athletics baseball club. The perfect preparation for running a motor speedway.
“I found out as early as Little League that I was front-office material,” begins Page with a self-deprecating laugh. “But working for the A’s did help prepare me for this job. This is a business that’s built around fun, and there’s something different going on every single day. There are a wide variety of things happening here, so it never gets boring. We have amateur drag racing on 32 Wednesday evenings from March through November, and it’s a kick to watch the variety of people who try out their car in races that are computer-handicapped to give everyone an equal chance. Many race their street cars, some have put in the time and the money to soup-up their own dragsters. It’s an endless source of fascination.”
Page agrees with Phelps that females are making up an increasingly larger percentage of the audience. “All you have to do is look at the shift in driver sponsorships to see the increasing number of those slanted toward female fans,” he laughs. “I remember when I first took this job, in 1991. I’d never been to a NASCAR race. They flew me out to company headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a race. I walked out of the tunnel on Friday to watch the qualifying, and the first thing I saw was a woman dressed up as a large box of Tide! Obviously a big fan of driver Ricky Rudd.”
The road to racing
Born in 1954 in Cambridge, England—his father was in the Air Force—Page grew up in Monterey, Calif. He admits to a rambling college career (“Eight years, starting at UC Santa Barbara”) that ended with a degree in political science from UC Berkeley in 1980. “I started out as a drama major, dabbled in math and science, and then moved to poly sci. My family was always involved in politics, and I’ve always been a political junkie. While I was still in school, I did an internship with U.S. Congressman Leon Panetta in Washington, D.C. I was to be there three months, but when his press secretary left, I ended up staying three years!”
Page says that, in Panetta, he found a public servant who was very engaged and very influential—a man of unquestioned integrity. “There’s a good deal of cynicism in politics today, but the people who make it work are those who focus on the local and the particular. Panetta was on the budget committee, and it always struck me as odd that we would have to fight so hard for $10 million for local flood control or a women’s center, and then go to the national committee, where $100 million was a rounding-off mistake.”
That same number—$100 million—is the best guesstimate as to the impact of Infineon Raceway on the local economy, beyond the nearly $40 million the track generates each year. “We have a daily payroll of 60 people here at the raceway, and another 250 people come to work at the numerous other companies here on the property [primarily the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School]. On NASCAR Sunday, we’ll have up to 3,000 people working here: parking, concessions, safety workers, staff and high school booster clubs raising money.
“With more than half a million visitors each year, we fill hotel rooms and restaurants. When NASCAR is in town, it ends up being impossible to book a hotel room within 30 miles of the track: Napa, Vallejo, Marin County, Santa Rosa. NASCAR is definitely our biggest draw, but our second-tier events also bring out fans. We have Indy car racing, NHRA drag racing, motorcycle racing. They all have their ardent fans. We also have daily visitors to the track, folks who just meander by to see what’s going on. It’s a fascinating, exciting place to be.”
(The track, by the way, goes through some 65,000 gallons of racing fuel annually, from the Sunoco facility located on-site. Racing fuel runs 96-166 octane, a bit higher than your family ride.)
Page notes that groups will come out to rent the track for a day or even for a weekend. “You can spend $3,000 or $4,000 to be in a race car, driving on the same track as the best drivers in the world. Amateur race car driving is an expensive sport, but it draws increasing numbers of people, especially now that we’ve completely upgraded the track and our facilities. The racing school is almost wholly new.
“You have to remember, this track was originally built in the 1960s. For the longest time, there was only dirt for parking lots and asphalt on the racecourse—and that was about it. It was a good track, but there were no facilities to speak of. Ten years ago, there were massive traffic jams just to enter, people brought a blanket to lay down on the hillside with the star thistles, and then had to line up for the portable toilets. If you were nice, you called it ‘rustic.’ Let’s be honest and just say those folks had a substandard experience.
“With the increase of major events here, we needed to attract more mainstream fans. People don’t want to have to get here at 6 a.m. just to find a good spot on the hillside. They want an assigned seat; they want clean facilities. They want something akin to AT&T Park. Speedway Motor Sports purchased Sears Point in 1996, and we set out to reinvent the place—to the tune of $75 million in improvements—from the ground up. There are new gates, better safety features on the track, an improved parking lot, wider roads, modern restrooms, comfortable amphitheater seating, new offices and corporate suites, all the creature comforts. “We painted the concrete under the seats brown, so it does keep a little of that ‘hillside’ flavor. And, with numbered seating, people don’t have to scramble to get here early to guarantee a good spot. Those sorts of amenities make a huge difference. When we signed on with Infineon Technologies in 2002—they bought the naming rights for $35 million over 10 years—everything started looking up here.”
Just as the Infineon folks take great pride in what’s gone into their facility, they’re also very conscious of what goes out: namely used bottles and cans. As the only major motor sports facility in the country with a comprehensive recycling program, Infineon is leading the way in environmental awareness. “We’ve been recognized by the State of California’s Department, Division of Recycling, for our efforts,” says Page.
The raceway’s recycling program, which began in 2004, has yielded impressive results. “Since [2004], we’ve recycled more than 40 tons of material—81,352 pounds if you like precision. That tonnage,” he says with a chuckle, “is the equivalent of 21 stock cars, of the type run by NASCAR’s NEXTEL Series.
“We did over 18 tons last year alone.”
The actual numbers include more than 32,000 glass bottles, nearly 200,000 plastic bottles, and more than 130,000 cans. Upwards of 300 receptacles have been placed around the raceway, and more than 100 workers sort through refuse after each event day to make sure bottles and cans are properly recycled. They also patrol the grounds for materials that didn’t make it into the containers. The recyclables are then processed by Anheuser-Busch Recycling in Hayward.
In addition to cans and bottles, Infineon makes an effort to recycle other by-products of its races as well, including motor oil, gasoline and antifreeze. These leftovers are processed by Texas-based Safety-Kleen Systems, which eventually turns them back into usable products.
Community management
Page is quick to credit the Haas family—owners of the Oakland A’s when he worked there—with locking in his management style. “Walter Haas and his family were all committed to community outreach,” he says with obvious reverence. “In 1987, I was coordinator for the MBA All-Star Game. I learned how to use that as a marketing tool, how to tie that to season ticket sales and sponsorship dollars.
“But, we also used that as an opportunity to make a positive statement about the city of Oakland, to let the world know what a wonderful place it was. You see, for the Haas family, the ball club was about more than just money. It was about community. So I learned to work with the media and I learned to work with the community. We had a big celebration downtown, and turned on the ‘necklace of lights’ around Lake Merritt for the first time since World War II. It was extraordinary.
“Walter Haas was a class act and a great influence on me. His family values included a broad view of the world. The Haases saw themselves as stewards of a community resource, and they certainly made a big name for themselves with philanthropy that was channeled directly back into the community they served. That’s a great standard to be judged by, so we try to do much the same thing here. Our chairman, Bruton Smith, heads up the Speedway Children’s Charities. Here, and at each of the other five tracks in the company, we work to return our good fortune back to the community from which it comes. Our Children’s Charities work at the national level and also at each track. Last fall, we distributed a half-million dollars to Sonoma County children’s organizations, and we just had a banquet with a recent NASCAR weekend [the Toyota/Save Mart 350]—featuring Jerry Rice [formerly of the SF 49ers] as grand marshall—that raised about $100,000 for three local groups. It’s not mandated; it’s just understood.”
Page has co-chaired local efforts to relocate the Sonoma Valley Hospital, is a member of the Valley of the Moon Boys and Girls Club President’s Council and a member of the Sonoma County Alliance. He chairs the North Bay Leadership Council and is past chair of the Sonoma County Tourism Council. Page is also active in the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance, and works one-on-one with a local fifth-grader.
Page continues, “We urge our employees to volunteer their time in the community as well, even to the point of including some of their normal work time. Whether it’s money or time, we’ve been given a lot, so it’s part of the deal to give something back.” Not mandated; just understood.
Page and his wife, Judy, live in Sonoma. Their son, Kevin, is a student (“leaning toward pre-med”) at UC Santa Barbara. “Judy and I love to travel,” says Page. “I bicycle a lot, and I love to read. A while back, I read a new translation of Don Quixote, and I absolutely couldn’t put it down. Last August, we went to Spain, and driving through the plains in the east, you could see the old windmills and almost envision the old Don on that beaten-down nag. And, of course, there’s the marvelously simple wisdom of Sancho throughout.” There’s nothing more valuable than simple wisdom. It seems to be working for the Infineon Raceway.
