Tony Stewart and Ray Evernham can have a boss within the second season of the Celebrity Racing Expertise, a made-for-CBS all-star summer season sequence coming off a surprisingly sturdy debut.
SRX on Thursday named Don Hawk its first chief govt, a day-to-day position with a job description that covers nearly all the pieces. The six-race sequence was designed to fill otherwise-empty Saturday night time CBS programming, but it surely was an immediate hit and virtually instantly too huge for co-creators Stewart and Evernham.
SRX stated the CEO is chargeable for “all sequence technique, operations, and enterprise growth, together with media, gross sales and advertising, personnel, monitor relationships, native occasions, competitors, driver and crew chief relations, guidelines, security, and worldwide growth.”
“SRX is coming off a terrific first 12 months with a whole lot of momentum, and I could not be extra thrilled to have Hawk tackle this new position for us,” stated Stewart, a three-time NASCAR champion. “He is extremely well-respected in each nook of racing and somebody I’ve labored with and admired for years.”
SRX was conceived by Stewart and Evernham, each NASCAR Corridor of Famers, as a present-day sequence that pitted all-star drivers in opposition to each other in Evernaham’s equally-prepared vehicles. They dreamed of recreating the previous Worldwide Race of Champions sequence, an concept backed by each Sandy Montag, CEO of the Montag Group, and Bruin Capital CEO George Pyne.
A lot of SRX’s first-season success centered across the concept this was simply televised racing for enjoyable. Stewart and Evernham may tweak guidelines alongside the best way and sometimes adopted fan response of their changes. By the sixth and closing race, then-NASCAR champion Chase Elliott beat his 65-year-old father the night time earlier than a Cup race and Stewart was topped the primary sequence champion on a Saturday night time at sold-old Nashville Fairgrounds in Tennessee.
For a profitable second season, SRX will want some formalities and turned to Hawk to provide the present going ahead. SRX stated Hawk begins instantly and “stories to the Government Board of Ray Evernham, Tony Stewart, George Pyne, and Sandy Montag.”
Hawk has spent greater than three a long time in business management roles, notably because the power behind the late Dale Earnhardt’s enterprise success, and most lately at Speedway Motorsports, the place he’s a longtime trusted confidant of founder Bruton Smith.
Hawk and Speedway Motorsports went their separate methods close to the top of 2021 and Hawk stated he was launching his personal consulting agency. Not even a month into the brand new 12 months he is now operating a scorching motorsports property.
“I really like racing and I really like enterprise, that is all I’ve ever carried out my total life. Automotive enterprise and race automotive enterprise earlier than and after school,” Hawk stated. “I am unable to retire. I take pleasure in this an excessive amount of.”
He known as SRX a “breakout hit” due to “its fully new method” and promised an thrilling driver lineup and upcoming schedule announcement. SRX final 12 months raced at six hallowed quick tracks throughout the U.S. on a number of surfaces. An area ringer was invited into the sphere every race as SRX tried to advertise small-time abilities.
SRX succeeded in spotlighting drivers from lesser recognized racing sequence: Doug Coby, a neighborhood racer who gained the inaugural race, earned a Truck Sequence begin at Bristol and completed twelfth in his first NASCAR nationwide sequence race.
Moreover, nationally unknown Ernie Francis Jr. of the Trans Am Sequence had his story instructed by CBS to a bored summer season viewers and is now set to drive in Indy Lights, one sequence under IndyCar. It is a part of the Race for Equality and Change in IndyCar and Francis appears on a tract set by Roger Penske to develop into the sequence’ solely Black driver.
“Like so many others, I used to be a giant fan of the idea and execution,” Hawk stated. “I am past excited to affix the SRX crew and assist SRX because it continues to seek out its area of interest as a non-traditional type of motorsports leisure.”