Showing surprisingly little business acumen, the board of Indianapolis Motor Speedway ousted CEO Randy Bernard Sunday after an emergency teleconference—only two days after company PR assured the IndyCar world that Bernard was employed there in the present and for the future.
The Sunday press release announcing that Bernard was “stepping down” after having served less than three years of his five-year contract, mentioned that the series hadn’t even started looking for a replacement. That’s right; the IMS board fired Bernard without even a plan for how to find someone to take over the top spot, let alone any candidates.
Considering that Randy Bernard oversaw what is almost universally deemed to be the best year of IndyCar racing since the mid-90s, one wonders what more might be expected of the next CEO.
Randy Bernard was a controversial candidate from the start. Famous for taking professional bull-riding from a small part of the provincial pro-rodeo show to a nationally televised and very lucrative stand-alone sport, Bernard had never even seen an IndyCar race before taking the job in 2010.
Yet some would say an outsider was needed. IndyCar had been bleeding money since Tony George, IMS board member, former IndyCar CEO, and scion of the Hulman-George clan which owns IMS, decided to start his own IndyCar series, Indy Racing League, in 1995. George spent vast volumes of cash—some say over half a billion dollars—over the next fifteen years, but his series never succeeded.
George was fired by the board in 2009; IMS accountant Jeff Belskus took over as CEO, and hired Bernard in 2010.
Bernard’s list of accomplishments is notable. Most important, he listened to the fans.
