Game Over 
Speed
Will NASCAR auto racing be a driving force in Texas? With 150,000 tickets sold for its debut this month at a plush new track near Fort Worth, it’s certainly off to a fast start.
(Page 2 of 3)
The catalyst of this makeover is the 26-year-old Winston Cup Racing Series, formerly the Grand National Series. It consists of 32 races between February and November, moving to a different track each time. (The season’s first race, the Daytona 500, is also its best-known.) Drivers win points according to where they finish in each race of the series as well as for leading a race at any given time, and at the end of the year, the one with the most points wins the championship. Beneath the Winston Cup point series are eleven other NASCAR divisions; the two highest-level minor leagues—which have smaller albeit still-substantial purses and often have races scheduled the day before a Winston Cup race—are the Busch Grand National Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. Drivers in the Busch series are largely up-and-comers, though a few Winston Cup drivers are sprinkled in, and the Craftsman Truck Series features several older drivers and the only woman competing at the top level, Tammy Jo Kirk, racing modified pickup trucks. The lower divisions are dedicated to specific categories, such as late-model cars, or to geographic regions.
Being a great driver means more than just knowing how to put the gas pedal to the floor. It’s about passing, maneuvering in tight situations, knowing how to save fuel by riding in someone’s back draft, and deciding when to take a risk and when to stay back. More often than not, coolheaded racing based on experience triumphs over aggressive gambling. Most drivers peak in their thirties and forties, before their reflexes begin to diminish, although some compete into their fifties and even their sixties. When a driver hangs it up, he might become a pit-crew chief.
He could also start his own team. Though the drivers get the glory, competing is very much a group effort. It begins with the owner, the person willing to bankroll the whole enterprise by underwriting the costs of one or more vehicles—an expense that can easily run into the millions for each car. The owner makes the deals with the car manufacturers, negotiates for sponsors, hires the driver, and puts together the rest of the team, including the chief engine builder, the crew chief, the mechanics, the tire changers, the gas man, and the spotter, who directs radio communications between the pit and the driver. Drivers are regarded as freelancers constantly in search of the ideal machine. Fifteen switched racing teams during this year’s off-season.
Following a race is actually pretty simple. Refer to the scoreboard to see who is in the lead. Keep an eye on the pit area to see who is spending too much time getting fixed up. Pay special attention to who gets banged up in a wreckand who doesn’t; it’s the wild card factor of any race. As with any sport, it’s smart to bring your radio (Fort Worth’s KTCK-AM will air the Interstate Batteries 500). And never count out great drivers like Dale “The Intimidator” Earnhardt or Dale Jarrett, no matter how far back they are in a race.
FOR ALL THE THRILLS OF STOCK CAR RACING, though, NASCAR would be just another minor sport without the aggressive marketing and ancillary activities that have accompanied its growth. Truly addicted fans can get their fix on the Internet (http://www.nascar.com) and at NASCAR Thunder stores across the land. They can even dine at NASCAR Cafes in Nashville and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. But such hard-core selling isn’t limited to the sport itself. Corporate sponsorship was cool in NASCAR long before anyone dreamed of the IBM Tape Measure Home Run or the Poulan/Weed Eater Independence Bowl. The presence of not one but two sponsors in the official title of the Texas Motor Speedway’s first big race—the NASCAR Winston Cup Racing Series Interstate Batteries 500—is both intentional and telling. “Money buys speed, and sponsors provide the money,” said Eddie Gossage, explaining the equation that created the walking-billboard look favored by NASCAR drivers, who may wear the logos of dozens of companies on their racing uniforms.
The sport goes back to a mechanic and part-time racer named Bill France, Sr. In 1948 France persuaded some of his buddies hanging around the Union gas station in Norman Beach, Florida, to race on a course in the sand, thus creating the humble beginnings of the Daytona 500 and NASCAR. The races proved so popular that France started organizing races like it at tracks in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
In 1971 Congress moved to ban the advertising of tobacco on television—and inadvertently helped turn France’s concept into the corporate-sponsored spectacle it is today. Recognizing that money once earmarked for TV ads was now available for other media, an R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company salesman named Ralph Seagraves approached popular driver and car owner Junior Johnson about putting RJR’s Winston brand logo on his car and the uniform of its driver. In exchange, Seagraves offered, RJR would help pay for the car’s upkeep.
Pshaw, said Johnson. Why not sponsor an entire series of races? So RJR launched Sports Marketing Enterprises in 1971 and put up a $100,000 purse for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. By sponsoring the series, RJR tapped into a loyal group of consumers receptive to the company’s tobacco products. It also took stock car racing to a new level, helping pave parking lots, improve speed walls, and spruce up track facilities.
While RJR sponsors the Winston Cup Series itself, every other aspect of the sport is up for sale too, which explains the parade of familiar brands that have followed in Winston’s footsteps. Among the sponsors of star cars in the Winston Cup and Busch Grand National circuits are McDonald’s, Mattel Hot Wheels, the QVC television channel, Spam canned meat, Skoal Bandit snuff, Budweiser, Lowe’s home improvement stores, Remington firearms, the Cartoon Network, and Circuit City. Even Walt Disney World is getting in on the act with its new Richard Petty Driv-ing Experience, where for $99.99 you can take a three-lap ride in a race car.
THOUGH SPONSORSHIP HAS ENDOWED NASCAR with the biggest pot of prize money in motor sports—$6 million alone dedicated to the Winston Cup point series in 1996—it also has created a breed of sports celebrity who is the antidote to Michael Irvin, Dennis Rodman, and Albert Belle. “The problem with other pro sports is that people can’t identify with the stars,” said Eddie Gossage. “I think we’re tired of hearing substance abusers saying how great they are. Our guys get paid well. They have their airplanes and their homes, but they’re smart enough to wear their jeans and be normal people with normal values.”
The drivers’ wholesomeness is part of an image honed by legends like Earnhardt and Richard Petty, who went out of their way to thank fans and sponsors at every opportunity. Drivers play it straight for two reasons. For one thing, at this level of competition you can’t be crazy or strung out and survive for long: Mess up and you die. For another, the team owners and drivers answer directly to their sponsors. Whether making personal appearances or endorsing products, drivers have to be on their best behavior—otherwise, they lose their sponsors. Without sponsors there is no money, and without money there is no speed.
I witnessed the drivers’ graciousness at the 1997 Winston Cup Preview in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on a Saturday in mid-January. Twenty-five thousand people ignored miserable icy weather to participate in racing’s equivalent of Fan Fair in Nashville, where country music enthusiasts are allowed to touch the stars. Nearly a thousand fans patiently waited up to four hours for an autograph from Corpus Christi native and NASCAR star Terry Labonte. He obliged them all, free of charge, with a smile thrown in.
My Library
