Founder, Pfanner Communications. In racing and in business, advantage goes to those who learn fastest and act decisively. I help leaders press the advantage.
Laguna Beach, California
Joined July 2009
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Tesla now builds robots where it built the Model S, the car our team helped introduce in 2009. In ten days: a flying Roadster, Tesla-SpaceX merger talks, a Starlink fight in a war zone. Where does it stop?
[LINK] in replies
#TeslaRoadster #Tesla #SpaceX
NASCAR wrote American racing’s TV playbook. Now FOX owns a third of IndyCar and IMSA has passed NASCAR on YouTube. Will NASCAR play the new game or redefine it? Part two of NASCAR’s Moment: pfancom.com/insights/2026/10…
One in four new cars sold worldwide last year was electric. In the U.S., about one in ten. Bill Sparks closes his Great Divergence series on the race to build an affordable American EV, and who set the price. #EVs #AutoIndustry
pfancom.com/insights/2026/10…
Tesla made a car fly last night. Five months ago it built its last Model S, the car that changed the industry. I saw what they did there.
New column, link below.
paulpfanner.substack.com/pub…
#Tesla #Roadster #EVs
Petit Le Mans is my favorite race to attend. Starfighters doing battle into the night, and a paddock full of joy at the checkered flag. New Shift Happens essay on why it's still a race to the future.
pfancom.com/insights/2026/10…
#PetitLeMans #SportsCarRacing #EnduranceRacing
A month ago I couldn't make music. Today I finished an album and two AI-built videos, chasing one question: when a machine can make almost anything, what are we still for? Last Man Standing: pfancom.com/insights/2026/9/…
#LastManStanding #AIMusic
I've watched an energy shock rewrite the car business before. I think it's happening again. My new column, Marque Down: why a bond market, a Porsche balance sheet, and the price of a barrel are one story, and why the sport I love hangs off all of it.
pfancom.com/insights/2026/9/…
A new Indy car pulls every eye to the machine. The harder question is who gets to drive one, and how they got there. Fifth piece in my IR-28 series, on the ladder that closed and the car I want next. Link below. pfancom.com/insig… (pfancom.com/insights/2026/9/…)
#IndyCar #IR28
1978: an art director with five Formula Ford races talks his way into a 550hp Can-Am car. No business being there. That was the point. New piece on why stepping outside your lane draws the people you're meant to find. pfancom.com/insights/2026/9/…
Bill Long ran marketing for #IndyCar and led #MEMA for 15 years. He knows what a real idea can do to a business, and his new column is one of the sharpest reads I've come across on it. #Innovation pfancom.com/insights/2026/9/…
I've known Chip Ganassi since his driving days, brave and quick. This weekend he passed Roger Penske for the most titles in IndyCar history. The record is history. The racer behind it isn't done. My tribute to a friend: [LINK] pfancom.com/insights/2026/9/… #IndyCar #ChipGanassi
What comes after faster? My third piece on IndyCar looks past the IR-28 to the car the sport should be imagining now. Much of this thinking came from Dan Gurney, who was seeing it years before the rest of us. #indycar #DanGurney #Blackbird66 pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
Harley-Davidson built the Harley Owners Group in 1983 and let the tribe tell the story. Bill Sparks on why community is the hardest brand strategy to pull off, and the loyalty no ad budget can buy. Fifth in his branding series:
pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
#BrandStrategy
No musical talent. Never written a song. So I spent a weekend writing and producing a blues album, and finished it. Not for applause. To show you the thing you keep putting off is more survivable than you think. Three songs and the story below. pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
A century of Indy cars in the reimagined IMS Museum, every one there because it made change visible. Today's cars all start from the same answer. The IR-28 is right for now, but what should the next one be? First in a new series.
#IndyCar #IR28. pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
For 40 years, brands rented fame and wrote the lines. Bill Sparks on what replaced that, and why giving up the script is the whole point.
pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
#CreatorEconomy
Written before this week's RACER news. My time there ended Dec 31, 2025, and I wasn't operating the business, so I won't comment on the decision. But I've spent my life in media, and this question reads sharper today: Who, or what, is the media now?
pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
The first issue of #RACER and the last. Holding both at once is harder than I expected.
I’ve learned from my former teammates that issue 341 will be RACER's last in print. pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
The new 2028 IndyCar took me back to being the high school kid who drew future race cars nobody had built. I ran those old paintings through AI to see them as real machines. New essay on that hunger, and what a sport loses when it settles for a show. pfancom.com/insights/2026/8/…
