A vision that began as Gateway Racing, Inc. in 2005 and later became known as Performance Open Wheel Racing, Inc. is now a staple in open-wheel racing, in large part thanks to a racer who simply wanted to strengthen midget racing the St. Louis area.
POWRi is one of the most recognizable and well-known names in midget circles, especially in the Midwest, but the sanctioning body has developed a national brand thanks to partnerships with multiple groups from coast to coast.
Kenny Brown started the POWRi sanctioning body 15 years ago after serving as vice president of the Midwest Auto Racing Ass’n and feeling he needed to chart a new direction at the end of the 2004 season.
Prior to that, Brown was simply the owner of a family-run midget team who was looking for a way to bolster the sport.
He wasn’t seeking to own a sanctioning body, though.
“I got on the MARA board and was vice president for MARA at that time, and we were just kind of getting to the point where, as a club, we were struggling some and losing our edge,” Brown recalled. “That’s the point where I decided we needed to go in a different direction. We needed more races in the St. Louis area and that’s really how I got started in the promotion business.
“I rented Belle-Clair Speedway and we did three or four races one year. The next year we did five or six and that’s when I decided we should start our own sanctioning body,” he added. “But it wasn’t something that I was necessarily looking to do at that point. It was just a case where the circumstances and what we were trying to accomplish made it make sense for us to take our little show on the road.”
The 2005 season — under the Gateway banner — was the start of what is now POWRi’s cornerstone division, the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League.
Illinois native Mike Hess, who is now the race director for the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series, won the inaugural POWRi national midget championship in 2005.
While that year was tremendously successful from the standpoint of the on-track action, off-track hurdles nearly derailed the series’ rise before it truly had a chance to shine.
“Originally, we were called Gateway Racing, Inc. and Dover Motorsports owned Gateway Int’l Raceway. When we came out under the Gateway name, we actually had a lawsuit filed against us by Dover Motorsports,” Brown explained to SPEED SPORT in 2011. “We were starting to gain some momentum as a sanctioning body and we were in conflict with the naming rights. So we changed to POWRi. I went to college to play football and so did my son. We kind of like to tie football with racing, so we came up with the POWRi formation, which stands for Performance Open Wheel Racing, Inc.”
Thus, POWRi was born and with it came a new era in midget racing for the blue-collar competitor, a class in which Brown fits considering he’s a quality assurance manager for Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.
In fact, Brown has looked to lessons he’s learned from his day job in his continued search to better the POWRi brand and strengthen it for the long haul.
“I watch big companies in general and what they do in a marketing sense, but at the same time, what people have to remember is that we don’t have the budget that an Anheuser-Busch does, so it’s a bit different for us,” Brown noted. “But I have learned a lot from Anheuser-Busch. They’ve got a fantastic marketing program and they’ve got a very good business plan, one that’s strong and continues to last.
“Working for a company like this has taught me how to run a business, whether it’s a racing organization, a speed shop or anything else.”
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