1. Everybody asks this - "Is this thing real? Is it gonna happen - we've had this crap before and it didn't happen - is this one gonna happen?"

You can believe that we are here today to tell you that this is gonna happen (I can't believe there are skeptics out there!).

The reason that I'm so sure about this is that this question comes down to money. And it really is a money question - where is the money coming from. I can tell you today that if we do not have one person buy(ing) a ticket to sit in the grandstands, if we do not have one sponsor, and if we do not have not one person signing up for Pay-Per-View, everybody involved in the race will get paid. And the reason I can say that is that this event is bonded, and it's a completion bond. It's very prominent in the film industry.

But CART demanded - CART is now a publicly traded company - so when we went to them and said we want a sanctioned event, outside of the race series but still a sanctioned event where we will put up 10 million dollars, they said OK, but here are some of the things you have to do for us. You have to guarantee us the 10 million dollars through a bond, you have to guarantee us the sanctioning fee through the bond, and then to make sure we know the event is gonna happen, you have to give us a budget and tell us what it's gonna cost us to run the event, and put up a bond for that, so that if you can't do it, we can step in and do it. And so all of that is bonded.

And besides all of that, we needed some working capital, obviously, and there's a bank in St. Louis that believed in our project and believed in the backers, and I guess the backers had enough money that they'd loan us a bunch of money so we'd have the working capital. And that's why I'm so confident to say that this event is gonna happen. There's no question in my mind whatsoever.

Besides that, I left my Canadian job, I sold my house there, I moved here, I have a driver's license...so I don't think I would've made that commitment had I thought it was gonna fail and only be a one-year event.

2. What kind of cars are these, and who are the drivers?

Probably some of you in this room I don't need to explain this to. Now, they used to be known as Indycars, but the Indianapolis 500 and CART split a few years ago, and the guy who owns the Indianapolis racetrack in Indianapolis owns the name "Indy," so he took it with him. So CART couldn't use the name "Indy" anymore, so they came up with this "Champ Car," which is an old name.

Drivers are Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Greg Moore, Paul Tracy, Jimmy Vasser, and a whole host of Brazilians. There are people from all over the world driving in this series now, and it's great to see.

3. Can I practice and try to win the 5 million dollars?

No, you can't! I get asked that by a lot of people - “can I enter?" That's no good. You must be a CART driver, and you must be among the top 12 point-getters. So you have to race in the 20 cities and accumulate points and be in the top 12.

We're gonna have 16 cars here, so we have 4 promoter's options, and what that is for is somebody like Little Al - Al Unser Jr., who broke his leg in the first race of the year and was out for several races. He's probably not gonna race enough (he's also driving a Penske, so his car's not very good!), so he's probably not gonna be able to make it in the top 12. So we would want his name to be involved in this kind of race, so we would invite someone like that.

4. What are the benefits to the state?

A lot of people ask this question, and we like the question, because we like to explain ourselves. Now we expect to bring 30,000 visitors here for this event. That's number one. That's made up of 10,000 who travel with the series (and) mainland motorheads who are gonna come over - people that follow the sport closely enough that this race will entice them to put a vacation together and come over and do a holiday for the event. So, 30,000 from outside.

The CART sponsorship committee has told us that they are planning to use this event as a reward for their staff and their customers, and in incentive travel plans, and we have a few of those already put together with some major companies that are involved in CART. So that really helps. So we don't think there's any problem bringing in 30,000 people from off the island.

HSP - that's what we call our company, Hawaiian Super Prix - is paying the state for the use of the airport, and secondly, we have asked for no money from the state. Most large events have come in here and have asked for a donation from the state or ongoing financial commitment. They have tried to give us some money, and we've refused it and said no, we'd much rather not take any money at all from the state.

HSP will be awarding upwards of 45 contracts for everything from fencing to paving to barrier work to big screen TV's - there's all kinds of things we'll be awarding contracts to, and that adds up to about $13 million in contracts. So that will help with the whole ripple-down effect of jobs and helping the whole economy.

Television broadcasts will go out to about 200 countries. We are on Pay-Per-View on the mainland, but we are free to air in the rest of the world. The distribution network is about 200 countries.

And lastly, we expect that several of the competitors and officials from the CART community will extend their stays here in Hawaii, because it is the end of their season, and we just think that they'll take vacations afterwards. So we think that will help us grow.

5. Why Hawaii?

When our co-founders were out looking for a garden spot in the world to do this, they kept coming back to Hawaii. It's exotic while still part of the United States, and when you think about it, CART is an American series, most of the drivers are American citizens; most of the races are held in American cities. So when you consider all of these factors, why not have the biggest and best race in the best state in America and have it right here, and that's what they really came down to, and they did get some decent cooperation through the government to entice them to come here.

6. Is it going to be run by a bunch of out-of-towners and flown-in consultants?

And I get asked that several times. There's definitely going to be some of that. You can't run an event of this kind of magnitude without people who have some experience behind them. But we have opened an office; we have 4,409 square feet at 600 Kapiolani, right across from the newspaper - great spot. We have hired - already have a staff of six up and running, that will double within the next two weeks, I hope, if all the people that I've made job offers will accept. The ones that have come in - the two people who have come in from the mainland have moved here on a full-time basis, myself being one of those. And so we are bringing in a number of consultants this first year, but their main job is to train our local people, so that down the road we won't need to bring in people.

7. When are tickets going on sale?

I like that question! Right now we are working with CART on the track design, and I've brought you a copy for everyone who wants to come up and see it... as soon as CART approves it, then we can lay out the grandstands, and as soon as the grandstands are laid out, we can do a manifest, which means we can put the tickets on sale. So that's all we're waiting for. I expect it will be another week, so I think tickets will go on sale a week from Monday.

8. Why are you the General Manager?

I had the good fortune to be involved in bringing CART to Vancouver, and I've been involved in CART racing for nine years. My background has always been in event promotion and events themselves, whether I was on the producers' side, and that's where I spent most of my time, and then I went over on the other side when I ran a lot of public assembly facilities. So I have the very good fortune to be involved, and besides, I was sitting in Vancouver, and it was raining like hell, and this guy, who I've never heard of, phoned me and said, "how would you like to be the General Manager of a CART race in Hawaii?' Hmmm...that was a tough decision! So, that's how it happened, and it's worked out great.

9. How much will the tickets be?

That's one of the tough ones to figure out, because we plan on 30,000 (spectators) coming in as part of a package. Well, when you're paying for airfare and hotel, all the things that you're gonna have to pay for, is 100 bucks a ticket too much? Is 150 too much? So we had all of that, and we know that corporate buys up a lot of tickets. And we had to balance that with the local economy. So what we think we've come up with is, well, we did surveys; we did focus groups, and we did that through OmniTrack, a local company, and they came back and gave us some figures, and here's what we've come up with.

Grandstands are cut: upper grandstands and lower grandstands. In automobile racing, if somebody says, "do you want front row seats,' you say NO! You want to be higher. You don't want to be lower. Front row seats: you get to see a great barricade and the bottom of the fencing and stuff, but the cars are real little, and so if they're tucked up right against the barrier, you don't see much of them, so you really do want to be higher. So the upper grandstand seats are more expensive than the lower grandstand seats.

So, lower grandstands: three day reserved seats - you get a seat reserved for you - is $75 for the three days. So it's like 20 bucks a day, and there's a 20% discount for kamaainas (local residents).

Not bad? (applause) Thank you.

Upper grandstand seats: the top ten rows - I will guarantee you will see 90% of the track - one of the problems is, one gentleman here said he just got back from Long Beach; when you're at Long Beach, if you crane your neck and watch them come around that corner, watch them more as they come in front of you and leave, you might get eight seconds of viewing time. One of the things we like about our track is that you'll be able to follow your favorite car all the way around the track if you want to. So the upper grandstand seats for three days, with the paddock pass, are 150 bucks.

There's also a whole range of prices, and I don't want to bore you with all of them, but they go as low as $10 for a Thursday general admission pass. They go right up to $5,000 for a Gold Medallion ticket, and that gives you everything from a limo at your door to a personal valet to a 24-carat chain... I have application forms right here...and they're not made in Taiwan, either!

The tickets go on sale through Tickets Plus here a week from Monday.

10. How can I get involved?

And once again, I love this question.

Many ways. We're looking for sponsors, we're looking for ticket buyers, we're looking for hospitality buyers, we're looking for exhibitors, we're looking for vendors, we're looking for volunteers, and we're looking for ambassadors that are gonna go out there and say when somebody says, "aw, I heard that thing's been cancelled,' you can say, "crap! I heard that guy speak, and it's not being cancelled, because they have the money in the bank! And they're not gonna cancel this one and it's gonna happen.' So those are all the things that we need.

Now, I was speaking to a group like this, and I had a gentleman in uniform, and being from Canada, I don't recognize what it all means, but he had all kinds of birds and starry things... and he put up his hand and says, "son, how many volunteers do you need?' I said, "ah, somewhere in the 700 range.' He said, "if you call me, you've got "em.' Oh, OK sir! No problem.

He said, "yeah, most of the people here in the military work for me, and I can find you 700, no problem.'

So I said, 'great!' So I may have some volunteers, I don't know.

I gotta throw in an extra one. I've given you my ten questions, but the last one, and I got asked this yesterday, so I thought it was a pretty good one. I was at the Chamber of Commerce lunch, and somebody said to me, 'how much is your budget for this event?' And I said our operating budget is just over 33 million dollars. That includes the 10 million dollar prize money. So he says:

11. So how are you gonna make money?

I thought, hey, that's a pretty good question. A lot of people would like to know that.

We hope to make money on this event. Our number one revenue source is Pay-Per-View television. Pay-Per-View television is an amazing little animal that sits out there and not many people know about, and when you start to put those numbers together, even at $19.95, when you start to add that up, what Pay-Per-View will pay to a promoter is an amazing amount of money.

Sponsors (is) a big thing; our sponsorship budget is very high. Ticket sales, of course; we get souvenir sales, food and beverage sales, so there's lots of revenue sources in this thing. And yes, we intend to make lots of money.

Once they come around here (Turns 3 and 4), again, we've made it 180 feet wide here, 200 feet wide there, 220 in the apex. Cars will be able to come around there and take this all the way down. Once again (at the front stretch), we've got 2,100 straight feet (where) they can really let it out, so we think we'll be in the 180-190 range down there as well. This is probably the diciest corner; we think we're gonna have real fun there, and we think there's a good passing opportunity there. This track has what we consider, or what CART considers 3 1/2 good passing opportunities. So it's gonna be a spectator's track, for sure.

Our Saturday will be a Pay-Per-View event: one hour of racing, a one hour break where we're gonna have major stage entertainment - internationally known stars - because we have to keep the people that are watching Pay-Per-View watching, and then another hour of racing, and in that time they can switch (to backup) cars if they want.

The other neat things that we're having on the track - PPG will bring over a lot of cars, and we'll do a lot of sort of hot laps. Every person will be able to take a lap of the track with a driver over the microphone telling you where he would be at a certain time and what he would be doing and shifting and how fast he would be going, in buses and vans and things like that.

And the other thing is, we've got the first two-seater Indycar ever made that will be introduced at this event. It will be driven by a legendary driver - Mario Andretti has been signed up to be our spokesperson and our driver of this two-seater car. We will be allowed 24 rides in this car, and those will be very special. You'll have to get a doctor's certificate and all the rest of it - fire suit, helmet, lap belt, the whole thing. The car is being built right now by Reynard in England; the seat is four inches to the right and two inches higher than the driver's seat, so it's not like the McLaren (two-seater) of F1 where you're looking at the back of the helmet and the headrest, and you can't see anything, so you'll be able to see. We think that's gonna be really exciting; it'll go about 7/10th's of what a normal Indycar will do.

So we've got some other activity on the track, but mostly we're going to concentrate (on CART), and when you see this little artist's rendering, you'll see a huge stage area, and we're gonna have entertainment going on all the time there isn't something on the track. We've got E.K. Fernandez out there with his 20-ride (carnival) show. We have a go-cart track that will be in the same shape as our track, so people can go out there in a commercial go-cart and try out the track. We have displays by the car clubs; we have airplanes on display through the Navy. There's some other good stuff too!

So that's why I say we're an entertainment event, and we think that the people of Hawaii don't know enough yet about racing to be excited by the racing side, so we felt we had to entice them the first year with more entertainment. There's also an expo out there - a big expo - aftermarket products and all kinds of things.