Ringham to replace Long as IRL’s VP of marketing

The Indy Racing League will announce later this week that Mike Ringham has been named the league’s new vice president of marketing, replacing Bill Long, who left the series in July.

Ringham comes to the IRL from the Coca-Cola Co., where he was the senior manager of motorsports marketing. Before that, Ringham worked in sales, marketing, merchandising and management for the Kroger Co.

Word of Ringham’s hiring comes less than two weeks after Ken Ungar announced that he was stepping down as the IRL’s senior vice president of business affairs. Ungar, who will leave his position after this weekend’s season finale in Fontana, Calif., is helping the league find a replacement.

IRL spokesman John Griffin said there was no timetable for naming a replacement for Ungar, who was the IRL’s No. 3 official behind CEO Tony George and President Brian Barnhart.

— Scott Warfield