Life In the Fast Lane: Merkel Builds Career in Motor Sports Through Relationships
Written by Doug Goodnough
When Pete Merkel, ’92, said he started his career in motor sports at the grassroots level, he meant it.
While a student at Hillsdale College, he landed an internship working in maintenance at Michigan International Speedway, which was just a few miles from his hometown of Brooklyn, Michigan.
“My first day on the job, they gave me a weed whacker, a five-gallon tank of gas, and a golf cart and said, ‘Go do the fence line,’” he said of his inglorious beginnings at MIS.
However, Merkel stuck around and “whacked” his way up, learning all the different aspects of the speedway. After graduating, he eventually was hired as the director of sales, where he spent more than a decade building connections throughout the racing community. Now entering his 33rd year in the sport, Merkel has spent the past 13 as the principal and owner of Inertia Sports, which has had clients in NASCAR, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), and IndyCar.
Merkel said his business is all about relationships, and he has spent his career building those with some of the most influential in motor sports, working for legends like Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., among others.
However, he almost chose another career path. When Merkel’s three-year internship with MIS was ending, he received an intriguing job offer.
“At one point in this internship, I had driven around (pro golfer) Greg Norman, and he was just about ready to start the World Golf League,” Merkel said. “He made me an offer on paper to come work for the World Golf Association down in Florida.”
A member of the Chargers baseball team, Merkel’s first love was baseball. Along with Norman’s offer, he was also considering an internship with the Detroit Tigers. However, his supervisor at MIS gave him some sage advice.
“He said, ‘Pete, I can tell you if you start with the Penske organization today, you will look back 20 or 30 years from now and have fond memories and more to look back on because of your career in motor sports,’” Merkel recalled. “I don’t know how he knew that, but for me, that was the deciding factor.”
Merkel took that advice and has never regretted it.
After more than a decade at MIS, he eventually became general manager of the Chicago Motor Speedway, where he learned what Penske called “the little things.”
“You’re responsible for all the people who come work for you. And the people who ultimately are coming to the racetrack,” Merkel said of running a speedway. “So, it’s a lot of people depending on you to make sure it’s a good experience.
“Mr. Penske taught me to look at the operation side of the business and make sure you know the little things, whether it’s the bathroom facilities or the parking or the traffic logistics. These are the things that major operators sometimes overlook, and then they are not successful because of it.”
Merkel said his Hillsdale College experience also helped prepare him for his career in motor sports. The business and marketing major was the treasurer of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity, which he said gave him an early lesson in working with people.
“My time at Hillsdale taught me the little things, like being 15 minutes early—Charger Time—for an appointment,” Merkel said of Hillsdale baseball’s team rules. “In business, that became valuable to me in the early days of my career, and I think it helped me get opportunities other people didn’t receive.”
One of those opportunities was going to work for the Dale Earnhardt race team in 2003. Merkel took a “leap of faith” and moved his family to Mooresville, North Carolina, to begin a new chapter in his motor sports career. He said he was now on the team side of things, and that was a “change of gears” for him.
“The biggest thing is just the sheer travel,” he said of working for a race team. “You’re immediately thrown into this environment where you’re traveling 30 to 36 weekends a year. You’re on team planes. You’re coming home from a race and having to be in the office that same day to get ready for the next week. Typically, it was taking care of our sponsors and developing new business.”
He said he was proud of helping get the first sponsorship for then-unknown driver Martin Truex, who went on to become a NASCAR Cup Series champion.
In 2011, Merkel took another “leap of faith” when he began his own business. Inertia Sports helps drivers and teams connect with corporate sponsors, and Merkel said NHRA superstar Erica Enders and the Menards family are two of his top clients.
“It’s a lot of looking at agreements and advising customers what strategy to take—either growing their business or nurturing their sponsorship portfolio,” said Merkel, who manages five clients with his one-person operation. “It’s tapping into people who you know in business to help with networking and growing the business.”
There is still a lot of travel involved, but Merkel said he enjoys having his own schedule and the relationships he’s built.
“There are people in this industry who I’ve gotten to know and really admire because of the way they built their business,” he said. “And then there are people in racing who have done the same.
“People want to be able to trust people. People promote those who are going to make them look good and do the right thing. And that’s what I was taught at an early stage at Hillsdale College—always do the right thing.”
Merkel and his wife of 26 years, Cindy, have two grown children, including son Grant, who works on building NASCAR race cars. He said he enjoys life in the fast lane of motor sports and has no plans of slowing down any time soon.
“That’s a nice part about being a one-person show—you stay very connected to the people you’re working with,” Merkel said. “You wake up every morning looking in the mirror, knowing that you’re the person who’s responsible. You just want to deliver for people who you know and respect, and who are good for the sport.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Published in September 2024