Q&A: Michael Printup looks back at 14 years at Watkins Glen, discusses new job with SVRA

For the first time since Kyle Busch's triumph in 2008, a NASCAR Cup Series race will be held at Watkins Glen International without Michael Printup as track president.

Printup, 58, announced his retirement as the historic road course's president in late May and his final day was June 26, the day after IMSA's Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen. He started at Watkins Glen in June of 2009.

As it turned out, it was a brief retirement for Buffalo-area native Printup, who started a new job as president of SVRA (Sportscar Vintage Racing Association) on July 17.

Said Tony Parella, president and CEO of SVRA, when Printup's role at SVRA was announced: "When I heard that Michael was retiring from Watkins Glen, I couldn't call him fast enough."

Printup's responsibilities with SVRA will include day-to-day operations, track relationships, corporate sponsorships, strategic planning and dealing with media. The job is remote and includes far less travel than Printup's role with NASCAR, which extended beyond his duties as WGI track president.

Printup and his wife, Stephanie, who live in Horseheads, are on the verge of moving to Summerville, South Carolina, but he said they plan to return to the Southern Tier to spend summers leading up to the SVRA race that is a mainstay on the WGI calendar each September.

They have two sons. Brendan, 26, is a captain in the Army and lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Caitlin, and their 1-year-old daughter Sophia. Matthew is a sophomore at Norwich University (Northfield, Vermont), where he was Great Northeast Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year in golf last year.

A course repave, multiple other capital improvement projects and a seventh consecutive grandstand sellout for last year's NASCAR weekend at the track took place during Printup's tenure at WGI, which hosts the NASCAR Cup Series' Go Bowling at The Glen on Aug. 20. He recently talked about his time at Watkins Glen and what's next.

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Question: What was the final race weekend at WGI like for you?

Answer: It was really quiet, to be honest. I did what I usually do, kind of glad hand and talk to corporate sponsors and media. But it was weird. I didn’t have as many duties as usual. The company brought in the interim president from Martinsville, Clay Campbell, so he was handling all the heavy duty lifting.

It was weird, but it was fun. I got to really socialize with a lot of corporate sponsors and the fans. I spent a lot of time with the fans out in the campgrounds. That’s always been my passion.

Q: What are you most proud of from your tenure at WGI?

A: I’m most proud of the team. They single-handedly made Watkins Glen what it is today. I was there to keep everybody within the Armco guardrails and that was a lot of fun. And the capital improvements. If it wasn’t for the team, the human resource, and if it wasn’t for the capital investment, Watkins Glen would still be back in the ‘70s, like it was when I got here.

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Q: What aspect of the track's history did you gain the most appreciation of through your time there?

A: The sports-car racing, whether it was IMSA, Ferrari Challenge to GTO. All those sports-car series are just incredible to me, particularly on that racetrack. It’s such a hand and glove atmosphere for those cars, whether it was a Ferrari, whether it’s a Miata. Just watching all that type of racing, the SCCA series obviously hosting all different kinds of cars. That was a lot of fun to be a part of that.

Q: A moment or two that stood out?

A: I’m going to say there’s two.

The first one was the first sellout and Lesa France Kennedy (executive vice chair of NASCAR) called me. The team was together having dinner actually. It was a late Sunday night and we were just outside the media center having dinner in an RV. There was like 15 of us or so. When Lesa called, that was pretty cool to have the first sellout and owner of the company call on you.

I have 80 (moments), but I’ll give you the second one and stop there.

The second one was taking a walking tour with Emerson Fittipaldi on the 40th anniversary of him winning at The Glen. He brought his son up and his wife and his son was probably two or three years old and we started walking the track. He wanted to walk it backwards from Turn 1 and then pretty soon it was just he and I. His wife and son kind of fell back and my team kind of fell back.

And we just walked and we walked up to the main grandstand. He wanted to get in the grandstand and get as high as he could, all the way at the top, to look at it. We walked to the top and he was just marveling at it, not talking a lot. He was just recanting, as he told me later, the best times of his life were at Watkins Glen. It was just seeing him and him sitting there looking at me. I got goose bumps just sitting there. He then asked after a few minutes of glaring at the racetrack from up top, ‘Do you mind if I go sit in the middle by myself for awhile.’ I said, ‘Of course not, do whatever you want to do.’ I went down and he stayed up there for about half an hour just sitting there looking at the racetrack, head swinging side to side. That was a pretty special moment.

Q: Any moments of frustration in the job?

A: The toughest part was engaging the strategy of convincing corporate to put (capital expenditures) into that place. I’m going to tell you that I won the battle. It’s not over, it’s never over because racetracks always need money to get bigger and better, but my strategy in planning for that place was very succinct: satisfying from a capital expenditure point of view all the disciplines. Media, fans, corporate sponsors, your work force. If you take care of all those silos of people, you’ll have a successful racetrack and I think that’s what me and the team did very successfully was lobby the strategy, we never strayed from the strategy. It evolved because your strategic planning will always evolve year to year, month to month to some degree. We planned hard, we worked hard and it showed off the results of everybody working together to make that place great again.

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Q: What was the response like after you announced your decision?

A: I got a ton. I was humbled, embarrassed from how many emails and calls. From Roger Penske’s office, Walt Czarnecki, Bobby Rahal, a lot of the IMSA drivers and just friends and family. It was probably 200, 300 notes of congratulations.

And some people picking on me. One person actually called me Tom Brady for a shorter retirement than he had, which I thought was kind of funny. It went pretty quick. It was only three weeks. As I put it, I got to enjoy my Sundays during those three weeks because I didn’t have to worry about what Monday or Friday was going to bring because it was bringing me nothing but working on the house.

Q: Were you fully set on retirement?

A: Yes. My wife and I planned it last year. We had the day down and I was going to give notice on May 26 and June 26 was gong to be be my last day. We were retiring. This really turned out to be a great deal, especially the remote part. I had two other offers that didn’t have the remote option.

Q: What was your message to those at the track?

A: I called them before the announcement went out because we worked together for so long and I have so much respect for that team. I talk maybe too much about them, but I love that team and that team, they realize it and they don’t realize it what they’ve accomplished.

I joked with some of them because now working with SVRA I am a client of Watkins Glen International, I’m not an employee anymore. So I made sure I noted that, that I am paying Watkins Glen and I told them to treat me accordingly. I can’t repeat what most of them said to me, but it was all good fun and jests. They told me to go fly a kite. They were very congratulatory and I have a lot of respect for them.

Q: How much of a role did your family play in being able to stay at WGI for so long?

A: A lot obviously. The support really came from my prior moves because I think that’s what made this move so special. I moved four times with NASCAR and as a family from Michigan to New York City back to Michigan and then here. Those four moves really tightened up the family and the support, so when we came here there wasn’t a promise I’d be here for 15 seasons, 14 years. We said we’d do our best.

But it just worked out so great that we could raise our kids here because Brendan was only 11 when we moved here and Matthew was five. They got to go through all their schooling here, which really solidified us. If it wasn’t for their support and my wife’s support of moving around all the time, it never would have happened. I’d have been gone from here 10 years ago.

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This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Michael Printup reflects on time as track president at Watkins Glen