The Racetrack Is a Business Tool. Trish Johnson Explains Why.

Apex Resource Center founder Trish Johnson stopped by Daily News Network's Around Town with host Sarah Olson this week.  Eight fast, fun minutes on racing, safety, and one idea most business owners have never stopped to consider.  That some of the best business development in the country is happening in a place they've never thought to look.

The Credibility Behind the Claim

Trish doesn't describe the paddock as an outsider looking in. She grew up in it. In fact, her parents spent their honeymoon at a race, and by age six she'd announced she was going to win the Indy 500.  At a time when women weren't allowed in the pits at all. She went anyway, climbed the ladder, and got within reach of IndyCar before two things redirected the dream. Her funding dried up right as she and her car got fast enough to matter.  A sad reality that ends far too many talented careers. And, around the same time one of her crew members was killed in an unrelated highway crash. Because of this, Trish shifted her focus toward driver safety, on the track and off.

The first lesson taught her how the sport's economics work. The second gave Apex its conscience. And the combination is what makes the next part worth hearing.

The Room That's Always Been Closed 

The line from the interview that every business owner should sit with, “the IndyCar paddock,” Trish says, “is the modern version of the golf course.  The place where real relationships form and deals get done.”

It's a room full of business owners, executives, and operators, standing shoulder to shoulder, relaxed, and away from their desks and their gatekeepers. For decades, that room has been nearly impossible to enter unless you were a corporation willing to write a six- or seven-figure sponsorship check, or foot an eye-watering hospitality bill weekend after weekend. Which means the most concentrated collection of decision-makers in American sport has stayed closed to exactly the people who'd get the most out of it - the owner of a growing, established business.

But that's the part that's changing, and Apex is leading the way.

Not just a logo. A way in.

Here's the reframe worth holding onto. Being in the paddock as a business owner was never really about the logo on the car, that's marketing, measured in impressions nobody can quite pin down. The value was always the “room”.  The conversation in the paddock, the introduction to a buyer you'd never otherwise reach, the relationship that turns into revenue months later because you met somewhere memorable instead of across a trade-show table.

Trish's point on the show is that you no longer need a corporate war chest to be in that room. Through Apex, business owners and executives can step into the environment at a fraction of the traditional cost, meet the people standing right beside them, and turn a race weekend into genuine business development. It's the difference between buying attention and building relationships; and it's a difference the small and mid-sized business has never been offered inside this world before.

If that sounds like the beginning of something, it is. Apex is building toward a more deliberate way for business owners to be in that room — not as sponsors, but as part of a network designed to help grow their business. We'll have more to share as it takes shape.

Curious but not ready? Come as a guest.

The on-ramp is refreshingly low-stakes: you don't have to commit anything to find out whether this is for you. Come to a race and feel the environment from the inside, and decide from there.

That fits Trish's whole message on the show, which was about as simple as it gets — if you're wondering whether you should reach out, the answer is yes. Whether you're a family with a young driver or a business owner looking for a completely different kind of network, she'd rather hear from you than have you wonder.

Start the conversation today.

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