National Chairman of National Auto Sport Association

This month
PRI interviews Ryan Flaherty, NASA’s
38-year-old national chairman who pursued his interest in
motorsports while obtaining his undergraduate degree at
the University of Southern California.
One of racing’s youngest executives, Flaherty began his
rise to motorsports respect as president of the “Trojan Sports
Car Racing Club,” which he cites as the beginning of his
experience running track events.
After earning a degree from the Annenberg School for
Communication, Flaherty started his career as a sales executive selling enterprise software to Fortune 500 companies.
He then went on to open a regional office
for a software technology group where he
gained experience managing a sales and
technical workforce.
While working behind a desk and traveling for his sales
duties, Flaherty missed his time at the track and started
running race events as a hobby. As the events grew, Jerry
Kunzman from the National Auto Sport Association offered
Flaherty the SoCal regional director position.
Flaherty decided to devote his full-time energy to growing
NASA’s business, and within one year was offered an ownership position in the company. An avid driver himself, he
has raced many vehicles, and built one of the first cars in
the American Iron Racing series. Flaherty owns a Honda
Challenge car and still enjoys racing when time permits.
Since 1999, Flaherty’s expertise in sales and marketing has
resulted in NASA becoming the fastest growing amateur motorsports organization in the country. Today, the NASA group is
responsible for key market influences such as HPDE (High
Performance Driving Events), the 25 Hours at Thunderhill, and
a yearly national championship that allows amateur racers to
compete for more than $1 million in contingency prizes.
Here’s Ryan Flaherty talking NASA, and why his group is
growing at such a remarkable rate.
“We try to make the barrier of entry very minimal.”
PRI: Tell us about your so-called “overnight success?”
Flaherty: (Laughter.) Right. If you hit our website, you’ll see
we are now in our 20th year of existence. We started in 1991
and we’ve been around doing this for quite some time. There
is also a big differentiator between NASA and other racing
groups, especially with our multi-tiered driving program that
starts with HPDE.
PRI: Let’s talk about your HPDE (High Performance Driving
Experience). How is it different?
Flaherty: As far as I know, there are no other national organizations that offer a HPDE as well as high levels of competitive
National Chairman of National Auto Sport Association
With 36 classes of competition and 10,000
racers, the National Auto Sport Association
(NASA) is one of the fastest growing racing
organizations in the country.
By Greg Zyla
The National Auto Sport Association (NASA) features 36 different classes of
competition in 11 different regions across the United States. Ryan Flaherty,
NASA’s national chairman, noted that the organization’s top three classes
are Spec Miata, Spec E30 and American Iron. He explained, “NASA is a
unique product, and we also do other motorsport activities like rally and
autocross. Thus, if the car is on the ground moving forward and going fast,
NASA has some type of activity to get involved.”
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Performance Racing Industry
| March 2011
racing on the same track, on the same
weekend all together that are run and
managed from a national perspective.
PRI: And the HPDE program starts with
classroom instruction?
Flaherty: Yes. Our thrust with HPDE
is to make the introduction to road or
circuit racing easy and palatable for all
drivers. We require a beginning classroom session for a novice driver, where
we cover the basic driving nuances
of turn in, apex, track out and things
like that. These are the absolute core
essentials to be able to navigate a road
course. As you progress through the different levels of HPDE, you arrive at more
advanced techniques and philosophies,
such as heel-and-toe, threshold braking,
trail braking and things of this nature. So,
we try to make the arena of motorsports
easy for people to take their street car
March 2011
| www.performanceracing.com
and run an HPDE event. Most all sporty
type cars today can withstand the rigors
of road course racing.
PRI: So basically, NASA offers an open
arms welcome to anyone who has a
helmet, a production car and wants to
learn to drive fast.
Flaherty: Correct. We try to make the
barrier of entry very minimal. You only
need the safety equipment in your car
that is delivered from the factory. Now
there are certain exceptions where convertibles require different types of roll
hoops and additional safety requirements,
but if you have a hardtop car that is built
with a three-point seatbelt, which includes
anything in the last 20 years, all you need
is your helmet and you are immediately
entered in the HPDE One Class. There,
you’ll receive classroom instruction and
then hit the track in about an hour.
41
PRI: Rain or shine?
Flaherty: Rain or shine, absolutely.
PRI: Let’s move on to competition
classes. A driver goes through HPDE,
and then what’s next?
Flaherty: It takes most beginning drivers
a minimum of about a year to move up
from the basic, no experience situation
to our most advanced HPDE group. At
that point, all across the country, a driver
is now eligible to enroll in a competition
license school. Now you learn the elements of racing, flag conditions, pace
car rules and things like that, including
the “right to the line,” passing and so
on. When you complete the competition
license school, you get to choose from
a list of NASA’s many different competition classes.
PRI: Can you tell our readers how many
classes NASA offers?
Flaherty: We have 36 different classes of
competition. If you have a Corvette, you’ll
choose one class. If you have a Miata, you
choose another class. But it doesn’t matter—come with your Porsche, Camaro,
Mustang or whatever car you have.
PRI: Any specifics on class rules the
reader should know?
Flaherty: Well, NASA is big on powerto-weight ratios to make the rule set much
easier. We’re pretty much the pioneer
in power-to-weight ratio in road racing,
and we started that back in 2002 with the
American Iron Class (Camaro, Firebird,
Mustang, etc.). Thus, you can build a car,
have more flexibility with the rules, engage
the entire hardcore racing aftermarket if
you wish in building your car. Then your
car’s engine will make a certain amount of
power to be measured on a dyno (to the
ground horsepower) and then we’ll base
your class on weight and horsepower.
PRI: Do the power-to-weight ratio drivers
have to show up with a dyno chart?
Flaherty: Yes, any car builder will
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Flaherty’s goal for NASA is to see the organization grow at the same rate it has in the last five
years. “Right now, I believe we’re the fastest
growing amateur racing organization in the
country,” he claimed, adding that NASA has
in excess of 10,000 members, all of which are
active participants. Pictured here from left to
right are Jerry Kunzman, executive director
of NASA; Chris Cobetto, NASA Mid Atlantic
regional director; Flaherty; and John Lindsey,
chief divisional director of NASA.
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Performance Racing Industry
| March 2011
eventually go to a dyno, and NASA
rules specify a specific type of dyno so
everything is consistent. The driver then
submits his or her dyno tech sheet, and
we mark the horsepower result as the
power ratio to weight for the particular
class the car will run in.
PRI: How about if a car dominates and
other competitors feel it is illegal?
Flaherty: We do our own tech inspection, which in NASA means sending the
car off to a dyno instead of pulling a cylinder head to see if it is ported. So, the
dyno check tells us if the car is in compliance with what the driver gave us in
the first place.
PRI: Sounds like easy policing to me,
eliminating those time-consuming engine
teardowns after the race.
Flaherty: That’s what we felt early on,
and it’s been very successful. Today,
about half of our classes are power to
weight ratio, and half are engine specific.
Both work well, and it’s another element
where we can deliver either of the desires
or philosophies in racing. If you run power
to weight, we don’t care how you made
the horsepower or which parts you use in
the engine, cams, headers, pistons and
things like that. All we want to see is the
dyno sheet for classification purposes.
(Note: NASA has an impound area with
“We have 36 different
classes of competition.”
a dyno on site and regularly checks top
finishers in all races.)
PRI: What is the youngest age of a
NASA driver?
Flaherty: We launched a teen program
four years ago, and we’ve had some
teen phenoms. Marco Andretti started
with NASA when he moved up from gokarts. I believe our youngest may have
been 13, but I know we’ve had several
14-year-olds.
PRI: NASA has how many regions?
Flaherty: We currently have 11 regions
that do a good job of covering the major
metropolitans across the United States.
The area where we’re lacking is the
Pacific Northwest.
PRI: Which classes are most popular?
Flaherty: The top three classes are
Spec Miata, Spec E30 and American
Iron. The E30 is very similar to a Spec
Miata where everything is specified,
but in this case the E30 is a BMW.
The specs are rigid in what you can
do to the engine, a specific shock and
spring package and sway bar package,
so everything is defined down to the
part number. All of the cars racing,
thus, have the same equipment on
it. And the class is the E30 chassis
designation of the BMW. American Iron
is for the Mustangs, Camaros and such
Maxi-Light Series
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Performance Racing Industry
| March 2011
Flaherty explained that about half of NASA’s
classes are power to weight ratio, and half
are engine specific. “Both work well, and it’s
another element where we can deliver either
of the desires or philosophies in racing,” said
Flaherty. “If you run power to weight, we don’t
care how you made the horsepower or which
parts you use in the engine, cams, headers,
pistons and things like that.” The only proof
required is a dyno sheet for classification
purposes, he added.
and is extremely popular.
PRI: Ryan, it’s clear NASA has grown tremendously in the last five years, and your
road racing based series is many times
mentioned as a “competitor” to SCCA.
How do you address that premise?
Flaherty: I’d like to dispel the SCCA
competitor myth. Folks that are not familiar with NASA think we’re a competitor
to SCCA. Granted NASA and SCCA are
similar in the fact that we might be doing
things similar (road racing). However,
it’s like comparing a similar experience
but marketing to a different clientele. We
both offer road racing programs, but the
product menu is tailored to different wants
and needs.
PRI: Any prime examples of this?
Flaherty: SCCA offers a lot of amateur
Formula car racing, and we do not
engage in this type of competition. We
might compete in other areas, but not in
the same space. It’s like Virgin Airlines
running things differently than Continental.
They may both fly from “A” to “B,” but it’s
a different consumer experience.
PRI: How about a NASA class that does
crossover with SCCA?
Flaherty: One of our most popular
classes, Spec Miata, is a crossover with
SCCA. However, Spec Miata’s rule set
is not written by NASA or SCCA, and it’s
sort of ironic that one of the classes we
did not pen and comes from an outside
group is most successful. I’d also venture
to say that this class is one of SCCA’s top
classes, too, if not the top class. This is an
instance where both of our organizations
have a rule set that we try to keep aligned
so racers can crossover with ease.
PRI: Any “green” initiatives planned?
Flaherty: We’re dipping our toes. Honda
just ran a CRZ Hybrid in the 25 Hours of
Thunderhill. My personal focus will be in
CNG (compressed natural gas) as the
ethanol deal is too political for me, and
there is more (political) fan fare around
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Performance Racing Industry
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ethanol due to the high carbon footprint
required to process the corn-based
element. The ethanol output may be
cleaner than gasoline, but the process
and amount of corn needed to produce
is excessive, in my opinion.
PRI: Kind of like the electric cars that
have to be plugged in?
PRI: How about looking into NASA’s
crystal ball five years out?
Flaherty: I’d like to see NASA grow at
the same rate we have in the last five
years. Right now, I believe we’re the
fastest growing amateur racing organization in the country. NASA has in excess
of 10,000 members, all of which are
“I’d like to see NASA grow at the same rate we have
in the last five years.”
Flaherty: Yes, if you’re going to charge
a Chevy Volt, how much are the coal
fired electric plants producing in carbon
emissions in order to produce the item of
charge? But everything being equal, the
total package of the green footprint needs
to be evaluated and not the specific discharge. We’ve got to evaluate the overall
carbon footprint versus a four-stroke gasoline engine and our efficiency scale on
the gasoline engine technology.
active participants versus other organizations where many do not compete. To
participate, you must have a membership; we’re a true 10,000-plus participant-based organization. Other groups
may have legacy members that are high
in numbers but not competing or driving
on the track.
PRI: And your final statement?
Flaherty: NASA is a unique product,
and we also do other motorsport activi-
ties like rally and autocross. Thus, if the
car is on the ground moving forward and
going fast, NASA has some type of activity to get involved. We’ve grown fast, but
have been around a long time and bring
solid historical background. We’re moving
forward into the future, and want everyone to understand that with their basic
sports car or American muscle machine,
anyone can enjoy motorsports without
having to spend thousands of dollars
to get started in enjoying that vehicle.
If it is a hardtop, you don’t even need a
cage. The entry is there for everyone for
roughly $150 a day.
PRI: Thanks, Ryan, and continued
success to you and NASA.
Flaherty: And I’d like to thank everyone at PRI. We had a wonderful show in
Orlando in 2010, and attracted new business and many visitors to our booth. We
got some new sponsors because of your
Show, so thank you! z
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Performance Racing Industry
| March 2011