The Great Un-walling
The gatekeepers have changed. Traditional institutions controlled production and distribution; digital platforms increasingly control discovery and monetization. Creative access has expanded, but economic power hasn't disappeared.
Will NASCAR Play the TV Game or Redefine It?
Part two of NASCAR’s Moment. Paul Pfanner looks at the sport that wrote American motorsport’s TV playbook as it faces a reset of its own, with its biggest broadcast partner now part-owning a rival and its own sports car series passing it on YouTube.
Tesla's Absolute Ambition
Paul Pfanner, whose OnCars team helped introduce the Model S in 2009, looks past Tesla's flying Roadster at the robots now being built where that car was made, and at an ambition with no apparent ceiling.
Why Is Roger Penske Taking His Automotive Business Private?
Roger Penske already runs the company. Paul Pfanner asks why he’d spend $3.9 billion buying out everyone else.
I Love Mission S. Now I Want to See Mission P.
Paul Pfanner gives Porsche's Mission S a genuine rave, then asks what Porsche might build if it started small again. Mission P imagines three light, analog concept cars and an enthusiast's questions about the engine.
I Saw What You Did There
Paul Pfanner's teammates at OnCars Studios made the films that introduced the Tesla Model S in 2009. Last night he watched Tesla make its new Roadster fly, and came away with a question the show didn't answer.
NASCAR Knows How to Be NASCAR
Part one of four in NASCAR's Moment. Paul Pfanner went to his first NASCAR race in 1970 and helped ride the boom of the 1990s. With Steve O'Donnell now looking toward 2032, he asks what the sport can become next.
The Power of Now
We can bring nearly anything to a screen, yet people keep paying more to be there in person. Paul Pfanner looks at what that tells us about racing and live entertainment, and why the present moment carries so much value.
Inside the Beast
Every so often the rules change overnight, in racing and well beyond it. Paul Pfanner on the choice that follows, and which way he's always gone.
Now Racing to What’s Next
Paul Pfanner on why Petit Le Mans is his favorite race, and why watching IMSA at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta is still watching a race to the future.
Let the Car Move
The Velocity Collective imagined the Blackbird 66 a decade ago, and now it finally moves. Paul Pfanner on making the spot in half a Sunday, and the Dan Gurney question behind it.
Full Send
People asked Paul Pfanner if he'd lost it. Here's his answer: a full album written from scratch and six music videos, plus what he learned about where people fit in a world of AI. The real Paul closes it out himself. The kid in the picture had a lot to do with it. Updated October 5 with the full album and new videos.
The Race Beyond the Race
Paul Pfanner closes his six-part series on what should come after IndyCar's IR-28. With the sport's audience growing fast on FOX, he argues the next Indy car should be an instrument of human expression, one that lets fans see the driver, for a series ready to upshift to the next gear.
Last Man Standing
Paul Pfanner spent a career in motorsport and media and never made music. Then a fake AI “artist” got under his skin, and he answered it by building a 16-song album with his own lyrics, and a 4-minute, 33-scene music video in under a month. What a machine can make, and the one thing it can't fake.
The Driver
Chip Ganassi just passed Roger Penske for the most championships in IndyCar history. Paul Pfanner on the racer behind the record, and why he is nowhere near done.
Marque Down
The car brands you grew up with are being repriced all at once, and the sport that depends on them hasn't gotten the invoice yet. Paul Pfanner on Porsche, the yen, China, and a pattern he has watched form before.
It Was Never Just the Car, It’s Who gets the Seat
Paul Pfanner published the magazines you grew up on. Fifth in his series on the next IndyCar, on the half of the question the IR-28 can't answer: who still reaches the seat.
The Rule Nobody Writes Down
In 1978, a young art director with almost no racing experience talked his way into a 550-horsepower Can-Am car. Paul Pfanner on the lifelong pattern that day set off, why stepping outside your lane draws the people you're meant to find,
Real to Me, Synthetic in the Making
Last week Paul Pfanner argued the barrier to making anything had fallen away. So he wrote and produced an album in a week to test it, and came back with the harder question waiting on the other side: what part of the work, and what part of him, is still real.
You Are Out of Excuses
Paul Pfanner spent a weekend testing whether he believed his own argument. He set out to write and produce a twelve-song blues album with no musical training and no idea how to begin, and finished with more than he planned.