User:Speedleague/sandbox

Brian Gale is an American businessman and motorsports executive who co-founded the Global Rallycross Championship and was its President until 2013. He is currently the CEO of Speed League, an American motorsports league he founded in 2015.

Early Life

Gale was born into a missionary family in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, Illinois. He is the grandnephew of physics professor Grant O. Gale, mentor of Intel founder Robert Noyce. His first exposure to motorsports occurred when as a child in Ethiopia when a rally race know as the Highland Rally came through the remote village of Debre Berhan where his family resided at the time.

Early Career

An expert snow skier, Gale began his career in 1986 in the snow sports industry and eventually worked for several different Austrian manufacturers including Atomic, Fischer and Blizzard in various capacities including sales, product development and Olympic athlete programs.

Motorsports Career
Beta Distribution USA

Gale’s career in motorsports started in 2001 when he founded Beta Distribution USA to import Italian brand Beta Utensili (Beta Tools) into the American market. The company focused on supplying tools to motorsports organizations including Champ Car, NASCAR Research and Development Center as well as the Honda and KTM factory SuperCross teams. Beta was also the official tool supplier to the Ferrari F1 team.

Gale + Co

In 2009, he founded Gale + Co as a driver management agency. The company's first and most notable client was American racing driver and TV personality Tanner Foust. Gale had been Foust’s first ever sponsor when he competed at the 2002 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in a Beta Tools liveried car.

In 2010, Gale took the idea of using Foust for major stunts to Hot Wheels resulting in two televised record breaking stunts: World Record for Longest Jump in a four-wheeled vehicle (332 feet) in 2011 and the World Record for Largest Loop in a car (60 feet in diameter) in 2012. The Longest Jump record caught the attention of David Letterman and led to a driving stunt, with actress Julianne Moore riding passenger, in New York City live on a Late Show broadcast.

The company managed Foust’s career from 2009 through 2012, during which time Foust set three world records, won three rallycross championships and four X Games medals. Foust also began hosting the American version of Top Gear on the History Channel during the period.

Global Rallycross Championship

In December 2010, Gale conceptualized and co-founded Global Rallycross Championship (now know as Red Bull Global Rallycross) and was the company’s President through 2013.[6][7][8] According to a 2011 Global Rallycross (GRC) presentation, and news articles, the series possessed a combination of unique aspects in that it specifically targeted a younger audience than mainstream motorsports and featured compact rally racing cars in motocross style heat-racing format on short tracks in stadium like settings.[9][10] Gale began collaborating with ESPN to develop the series after working with the broadcaster on the North American debut of rallycross at X Games XVI at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2010, eventually negotiating a deal with them to broadcast GRC events starting in 2011 as well as for GRC to manage competitions for X Games rally car racing contests.[11] Gale conceived of and introduced two new innovations at X Games Brazil in 2013. The first was a "penalty box" where, instead of adding a time penalty to their race time when they committed an infraction, the driver would be required to pull off into the penalty box area on the side of the track to serve several the penalty in real time. The concept was to eliminate the down time associated with restarts on false starts and provide the real finish order in the event of a penalty.[12] The second innovation was a joker lap feature that, instead of a mandatory longer section required once each race, was a shortcut section of track that drivers were only allowed to take once per race. The shortcut was strategically placed on the final turn of the track to make for a more dramatic race finish.[13]

Speedleague

In 2015, Gale founded Speed League. The company’s activities include organizing and sanctioning races for ESPN X Games.

References