BRINGING THE TEAM TOGETHER
By Matt Lang, Edmonton Sun
Edmonton, Alberta - July 2007
The unforgiving downpour and miserable temperatures that struck City Centre Speedway on opening day during the 2005 Edmonton Grand Prix became an afterthought when more than 66,000 fans swarmed upon the track.
By the time the final attendance marker of more than 200,000 came in, those pre-race jitters from three days before were the stuff of distant memory.
But before the event’s success was apparent, before Edmonton sports fans lived up to their long-established reputation for die-hard enthusiasm, Friday’s deluge was a cause of significant concern to those who had put so much into organizing the massive event.
Few had more on the line that day than longtime sports marketers Dan and Brant Fahey, co-founders of Mississauga, Ont.-based Maraca Canada, and Edmonton natives.
After convincing race organizers that thier hometown could support such an event, Dan Fahey and his son Brant Fahey, Maraca’s vice-president and the elder Fahey’s partner-in-crime of 20 years, embarked on the task of working with the race’s general manager, Jim Haskins, to recruit the contractors, vendors, technicians, sponsors, and all the other parties instrumental to this miniature city that would stand for three days.
After this two-year effort Brant calls “bringing the team together,” he recalled standing next to his father in the pouring rain wondering if “we all had just lost $1 million.”
“There was a lot of speculation from people outside of Edmonton,” says Dan Fahey. “No one knew where Edmonton was, basically speaking.
“Why should we put this many grandstands in Edmonton? We’ll never sell them,” he recalls. “But we did.”
Since then, Maraca’s role in the Edmonton Grand Prix has been to design and organize the consumer elements of race.
Some fans might not appreciate the effort that goes into putting hundreds of branded t-shirts and merchandise into the hands of vendors, or the act of designing an attractive “midway” area where the pizza-man and drinks vendors all file into their precisely planned positions.
But Dan Fahey is a veteran of this behind-the-scenes role that is so important to the viability of virtually any sporting event. Before moving to Toronto to run the marketing department of the Canadian Football League, Fahey earned a Stanley Cup ring for serving the same role with the early ’80s, Wayne Gretzky-era Edmonton Oilers.
“We’re the go-to people when anyone has a problem,” he says of his role with the race. “We set up a shopping center to service 200,000 people for three days.”
At last year’s edition of the race, when 170,000 people saw RSports driver Justin Wilson edge out 2005 winner Sebastien Bourdais, the event was hit by severe heat and the Faheys were forced into the task of procuring two large tractor-trailer-loads of water.
The 170,000 figure, which Dan Fahey considers a bit of a dip, would be the envy of many promoters and the race has already earned a reputation as one of the most reliable in Champ Car, or any other North American league for that matter.
“On Friday morning when the gates opened there was so much resistance and [excitement,]” said Brant. “It was the same way we saw [Edmonton fans] get behind the Oilers. I always say Wayne Gretzky put Edmonton on the map the first time around, but that Champ Car put it on the map for the second time.”
As the race enters its third year, Dan Fahey finds himself stepping back into a reduced role. The 66-year-old recently contracted Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and just got fitted for his first wheelchair this June.
Gleaming with pride, Brant refers to a sort of “changing of the guard” that will make up their role with this year’s race. But Dan Fahey seems to be making the transition with about as cool a head as you could expect.
“Times move on,” he says “Life is life, right? So I have to go on and I have a good sport here [in Brant.]
“What’s weird about it is that when I worked with the Oilers, Dave Williams, who was director of marketing with [the CFL Edmonton] Eskimos, a well known guy, who I’ve been the best of friends with for 30 yrs, he’s got ALS too.”
“It’s a strange quirk of fate. But we both carry on. We’ve both been involved in sports all our life. Through our pride, we can say ‘we told you.’”