[Racer Duck]

Max Siegel grins as he reflects on “my first 20 years at DEI.”

Siegel actually only began work as president of global operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc. in early 2007. But as he tried to see the company through the departure of its most marketable driver and a key longtime sponsor, his first year on the job had a lot packed into it.

“As a company we certainly took a tremendous hit in the public and with our commercial partners,” Siegel said, speaking of the departure of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Budweiser, who had sponsored Earnhardt Jr.’s No 8 Chevrolets since that team’s inception.

“We took our lumps, that’s a fact” Siegel said. “Every part of this company was torn apart from the public and the media analyzing and criticizing it. It forced us to look at every single area of the company. How are we doing, performance wise? How are we doing as a commercial partner? How are we perceived.

"...Every aspect of it, and we had to be candid about it.”

One thing that soon became apparent was that having Earnhardt Jr. to build the marketing programs around was a luxury DEI would no longer have.

“It’s not fair to compare anybody to Dale Earnhardt Jr.,” Siegel said. “He moves product. He is like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. You can slap him on anything and it will work.

“I said ‘We have to forget him. What we had to do as an organization was be able to sit with our commercial partners and say, ‘If you’re going to spend millions of dollars with us, this is what you’re getting.' "
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