Every year at this time, we await the Beloit College Mindset List, a list of reminders to assist the college’s faculty in relating to the experience  of incoming freshmen.  Among the 75 points of reference this year are these:  1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.  2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.  10. A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigration debate is not a big priority…  16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways. 36. Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.

Here’s RPM’s mindset list for promoters.  Thinking about young race fans who will enter college this year, we realize: Text messaging has always been their communication medium of choice.  They do not nor have they probably ever purchased a cash subscription to any publication, never mind a race paper. Green sensibilities have always been the norm.  The attitudes of the so-called “entitlement generation” are the paradigm of their age group.  Reality TV has always dominated.  Their family probably did not read a daily paper.  The movie “Days of Thunder,” is a late night rerun.  They have never heard of nor seen, “Thursday Night Thunder” from IRP.  Dale Earnhardt has always been deceased.  [NASCAR] Cup racing has always had a “Chase.”  The Indy Racing League and Indy car racing have always been “the other series.”  Earl Baltes’ Eldora Million has always been the stuff of legend, the only race to pay the winner a real $1 million, and Earl has always been retired. There has always been more than the Indy 500 at the Brickyard.  There has always been transponder timing and one-way radios.  NASCAR Cup has always raced at night.  USAC has always been a feeder series. Ted Johnson has always been a guy who created the Outlaws and Bob Memmer the guy who created UMP, both of whom they know little or nothing about, and they know less of Glenn Donnelly or Keith Knaack.

Copyright 2010-2011, Racing Promotion Monthly, a service to promoters sponsored by K&K Insurance Group, Inc. and Hoosier Racing Tire Company.

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