IndyCar today announced it will open an office in Santa Monica, Calif., to make further inroads into the media and entertainment industries. Sarah Nettinga will manage the new office and become Senior VP/Media & Entertainment for IndyCar Entertainment. Nettinga helped open NASCAR’s L.A. office in ’01 and rose to Managing Dir of Film, TV & Entertainment at the company. With NASCAR, Nettinga worked on such projects as “NASCAR 3D: The Imax Experience,” “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” and she served as an Exec Producer on “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” On television, she worked on six series, including “NASCAR Driver: 360” on FX. IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard said, “If we want to grow the sport, we need to be fully vested in relationships with the entertainment community that can tell the storylines of our sport” (IndyCar). Nettinga: “We want to have a full vision and strategy in the marketplace. We want to immerse the consumer in the sport." DAILY VARIETY’s Stuart Levine writes, “One opportunity for IndyCar to find a broader reach may be with the Indianapolis 500” (DAILY VARIETY, 1/11).
