The Off-Season Hot Takes – Erin Cechal

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The Off-Season Hot Takes – Erin Cechal

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  1. What strategy do you have to make the most out of the off-season?
    •  What off-season? Honestly, the time between races seasons, is the best time to review and update all of the tools used to do your job. I like to update email templates and distribution lists, stat sheets, comb through client websites looking for necessary updates, plus add any necessary accolades to client bios or boilerplates.
  2. Was there anything you took away from the 2020 season that you want to work on for the upcoming season?
    • I want to spend more time talking and just getting to know the people in our paddock. No bio form or email I send out has given me the knowledge I get from catching up with each of the teams at the start of a race weekend.
  1. How do you continue to push yourself year after year?
    • This is a business and it’s competitive, so there’s always that motivation to outdo the competition.
  1. What tools do you use to find inspiration and trends for social media content?
    • I don’t have a specific place or way to research social trends. For me, it’s simply browsing my social channels everyday to see what’s going on. Big brands and celebrities have large budgets for social media, so they do some pretty crazy things and I try to imagine how I could do it with my resources.
  1. What are some goals you have for Mazda MX-5 Cup that you want to achieve?
    • I want series communications to have the same look and feel as Mazda. I want to capitalize on their “power of human ingenuity” premise to tell stories about the MX5 Cup paddock.
  1. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone interested in motorsports public relations?
    • Practice writing as much as you can. The more often you do, the better and quicker your work will be and then you can spend more time on all the other stuff you didn’t know was part of your job.
  1. What is one thing that happens during the off-season work people don’t normally see or know about?
    • The part where you clean out your backpack and there are 72 Sharpies inside.
  1. What event on the 2021 schedule are you most looking forward to?
    • I can’t wait to see MX-5 Cup cars racing at Daytona! We’ve seen the epic drafting games they play at Road America, so I can’t imagine what Daytona is going to look like. I’m so happy we get to put this incredible racing in front of new eyes.
  1. With MX-5 Cup now being sanctioned by IMSA, how does this change affect your output as a PR rep?
    • On the one hand, having only the IMSA schedule to follow will mean less travel, but it also means more work on each IMSA weekend since I have other clients in that paddock. I’m looking forward to it though; I work better when things are really busy and I get lots of exercise.
  1. What is your off-season guilt pleasure?
    • Lazy weekends binge watching the TV shows everyone keeps raving about.
  1. Cats or Dogs?
    • ALL ANIMALS!