Laguna Seca: Explaining the Rise and Fall of SCRAMP

Story By Steven Cole Smith • Photos As Credited

 

And just like that, it was over.

 

After three hours and 18 minutes of mostly one-sided debate, 62 years of racing history came to an end when, on November 19, 2019, the Monterey, California County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to end the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula’s management of the track it is responsible for building, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

 

Known as SCRAMP, the organization was formed in 1957 to work with the U.S. Army to build a track on an unused portion of Fort Ord. SCRAMP volunteers raised the $125,000 needed to build the track, and construction began in September of that year. By November, the track was ready to host its first race, drawing more than a hundred entries and 35,000 fans.

 

In the past five years, SCRAMP has fallen out of favor with the county, which holds the deed on the track. Assistant County Administrative Officer Dewayne Woods in particular has had SCRAMP in his sights, accusing the organization of mismanaging Laguna Seca. Indeed, in the past SCRAMP was at least guilty of some confoundedly flatfooted bookkeeping, and while it has tried to turn things around, Woods said that SCRAMP came to the table in November $2.2 million in arrears.

 

Three years ago Woods tried to find another group to run the track, and was in active negotiations with the (now) NASCAR-owned International Speedway Corporation, but ISC backed out, and Woods and the county board reluctantly gave SCRAMP a three-year contract to continue to run the track until the end of 2019. Again, Woods reached out to ISC, but he said they were too busy to take on a new assignment.

 

Fine, because this time around, Woods was more organized. John Narigi, longtime general manager of the Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa and apparently friend to every council member, appeared from nowhere to create a one-man racetrack management company, and created a proposal so ideal that it’s almost as though Dewayne Woods wrote it himself. A&D Narigi–the “A” and “D” are the first initials of the names of his two sons–is now responsible for the future of Laguna Seca.

 

John Narigi, Courtesy his Twitter

 

Exactly how this happened is unclear. After more than 25 years at the same hotel, Narigi retired, and was thrown a party at a different hotel, with invitations that said the affair was to honor his service and his departure from Monterey, since he is “moving back to the Pacific Northwest.” He apparently changed his mind when a custom-tailored opportunity to run Laguna Seca presented itself.

 

So A&D Narigi submitted a proposal, as did SCRAMP and a company headed by Chris Pook, the veteran promoter known primarily as the founder of the Long Beach Grand Prix.

 

Out of the gate at the November 19 council meeting, Woods gave a lengthy presentation on all the improvements made to the facility, in a sense suggesting, in so many words, that the track’s “return to vibrancy” has been “achieved due to the engagement of the County.” To paraphrase, the past three years have been good for Laguna Seca not because of SCRAMP, but in spite of it, and A&D Narigi was the only viable option going forward. The noose was tightening around SCRAMP’s neck.

 

Of course, SCRAMP is at least partly responsible for digging its own grave. It came into the most recent three-year contract in the hole, and the county bought out SCRAMP’s assets and invested $6.8 million in the track. The argument could be made that the county starved its asset prior to this investment, but that argument was not part of Woods’ presentation.

 

SCRAMP CEO Timothy McGrane was given five minutes to make his case, and he said that Woods “completely overlooked” SCRAMP’s contributions in the past three years and pointed out that you can’t grasp the complexity of motorsports “by looking it up on Google.” 

 

Photograph Courtesy Porsche

 

Over the last 62 years, SCRAMP has raised more than $50 million and pumped it back into the track, McGrane said. Yes, there had been debt accrued, but one reason is that the board loaded unprofitable events onto the track’s shoulders. Such as a bicycle event that the county awarded a 15-year deal, but the contract “severely undervalued” the event’s worth. And there was the council-endorsed World Superbike race that visited Laguna from 2014 to 2018, losing $2.5 million. And it was the council, not SCRAMP, that decided to bring the Superbike event back for 2019, “losing another $800,000,” McGrane said. No one on the council was moved.

 

Next, Chris Pook began his five minutes saying that, “I kind of feel like Daniel in the lion’s den.” Pook, like McGrane, seemed to sense that he was just going through the motions.

 

Last was Narigi, who said that while he has no experience or expertise in racing, he will “entertain” those who do. Sound business practices is what Laguna Seca needs, he said, and his nearly 26-year career at a hotel stands as proof that he understands the hospitality industry. Narigi said he is an “entrepreneurial operator who believes in pushing the envelope.”

 

Forty citizens had signed up to address the board, and they were next. Most expressed support for either SCRAMP or Narigi. One said that he was “watching the assassination of a non-profit organization,” which did not go over well with the board members. But the speaker who drew the loudest applause from the house was Dennis Farber, chairman of the SCRAMP Race and Events committee.

 

Farber pointed out that SCRAMP supplies as many as 700 volunteers a day to run the events, and that those volunteers donated 45,000 hours of time in 2018. While Narigi said he will continue to use those volunteers, “It is presumptive to assume that the volunteers will automatically go to work” for Narigi, Farber said. “No one has approached the volunteer organization to ask if we will support them.” The assumption that the volunteers “will work for a for-profit company, after so many years of supporting a non-profit organization,” is not guaranteed.

 

It’s arguably Narigi’s biggest concern: If a large portion of SCRAMP volunteers decline to donate time to A&D Narigi, what happens then? Like her colleagues, District 5 Supervisor Mary Adams said that she wanted to have the “volunteer cadre continue absolutely in the way it is,” but offered nothing more than an attaboy for that to occur. She has confidence in Narigi, because he is “a turnaround guy, a fix-it person,” but the volunteers must continue to provide free labor for Narigi if his plan is to succeed.

 

The Board of Supervisors weighed in individually, mostly with support for Narigi and near-contempt for SCRAMP. District 1 Supervisor Luis Alejo said that SCRAMP has proven that, “People who know the business have shown that they do not know how to run this business.” He also addressed what he perceived to be an “eleventh-hour smear campaign” by both social media and the conventional media that “bashed” the board unfairly. He was especially annoyed by a story on Racer.com that pointed out that Narigi made campaign contributions to three of the five council members, including Alejo.

 

All that said, not everyone with motorsports credentials is upset about the move. Barry Toepke was vice-president of the track for nearly 10 years, leaving last May to become Director of Marketing and Operations for the New Car Dealers Association in San Diego. “I see this as a positive move,” he told Grassroots Motorsports. “Someone who will run the track as a business.”

 

When the dust clears, Toepke said, he believes the SCRAMP volunteers will line up behind Narigi. “People have to separate SCRAMP’s two entities–there’s the management, and then there’s the volunteers.” The volunteers, he said, are drawn to the track by the events, and they’ll keep coming back.

 

Photograph Courtesy Nissan

 

As for the management, Tim McGrane, SCRAMP CEO, thought this would be his last job. He took over the track on June 1, 2018, after a long history with motorsports and automobiles. McGrane grew up in the shadow of the Brands Hatch track in England, and since moving to the U.S. he has worked with classic car auctions, with events such as the Pebble Beach Concours, and from 2013 until he was recruited by Laguna Seca, he was the executive director of the massive Blackhawk Automotive Museum near San Francisco.

 

His hire was heralded by motorsports pros. Scott Atherton, outgoing IMSA president, ran Laguna Seca from 1993 to 1997; he said at the time that McGrane’s “industry experience, character and personal style will be a perfect fit for the track and the community. A wise choice has been made, and I am very much looking forward to working with Tim in his new role.”

 

Even Dewayne Woods, the architect of McGrane’s demise, praised his hiring. “Tim shares the County’s vision of transforming the raceway into a world-class facility,” Woods said. “The combination of Tim’s experience and the County’s engagement will expedite success in this transformation.”

 

Toepke agrees with that assessment even now, saying that he had a hand in McGrane’s hiring. “Tim inherited a mess,” and he was so busy handling the crisis-of-the-day that he couldn’t get ahead. “It was too much,” Toepke said.

 

McGrane agreed that the job was a challenge, and he knew that going in, but he was hoping for more than 18 months to turn the track around. When several friends suggested to McGrane that he apply for the Laguna Seca job, “I thought they were crazy,” McGrane said. But the more he looked into it, the more he thought he could help.

 

Now, at 60, he told us that he planned to spend a quiet Thanksgiving with his family, then work on his resume–“Something I thought I’d never have to do again.”

 

As for A&D Narigi, the one-man band inherits a busy facility–there’s some sort of on-track action scheduled for 22 of the 31 days in December. Given Narigi’s close ties to the Monterey Board of Supervisors, and their unanimous, enthusiastic, hand-picked endorsement of him, it seems likely that he’ll be cut far more slack than McGrane was.

 

Laguna Seca is a fragile, almost ornamental facility that’s beyond iconic to the racing world. Does John Narigi realize that? We’ll see.

 

Photograph Courtesy Honda

Comments

Displaying 1-10 of 88 commentsView all comments on the GRM forums

You'll need to log in to post.