NASCAR-envy

3/8/05

ecently I had the opportunity of covering the Auto Club 500 NASCAR race at California Speedway. I noticed two things; there was no shortage of entrants in Nextel Cup, Busch series or Craftsman Truck series and there were enough print and electronic media on hand that virtually every team at the event could have had their own media type on the crew. There were well over a hundred working media representing the Internet, ink and paper magazines, newspapers, radio, and television.

Having this weekend away from my usual beat of drag racing, I was hoping to get a little “compare and contrast” time, since many sanctioning body management and even drag fans find it necessary to regularly compare drag racing, deemed by some the #2 motorsport, with king NASCAR.

Everyone knows how popular NASCAR’S Cup Division is with corporate advertisers, but NASCAR’s support series that is sponsored by Busch Beer has strong Madison Avenue support; Crown Royal, Jack Daniels, Country Crock, DuraFlame, Old Spice, Hickory Farms, Reese Candies, Kleenex, and CitiBank’s are just a few examples of mainstream advertisers who promote their products at all levels of NASCAR racing, but don’t have a presence in drag racing. The Coast Guard, Marines, Navy and Army are also all involved with the Busch series hunting for recruits. Only the Army is involved with drag racing. Is the Army the only service who thinks big time drag racing’s fan base furnishes the demographics for recruitment?

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Is the problem that T/F and Funny Car races are finished in less than 5 seconds and don’t deliver the on-screen TV corporate logo time that racing on a 2 1/2 mile oval does? Is it drag racing’s former “Rebel Without a Cause” image from its distant past a problem?

In my opinion the vast majority of national advertisers will begin paying attention only when drag racing’s public relation groups find a way to get the mainstream news and sports media to attend and cover our events and include that coverage as part of the evening newscast.

Rarely does FOX Sports, NBC, CBS, ABC Eyewitness news or the local newspapers notice drag racing unless there is a spectacular fire or crash or death. Until recently even ESPN SportsCenter could have paid more attention to drag racing instead of professing their everlasting love of a huge NASCAR TV deal in 2006.

To the mainstream media, drag racing has very few recognizable stars other than John Force, Kenny Bernstein, Greg Anderson, Shirley Muldowney and possibly Garlits, but that’s about it to the media who only occasionally cover drag racing.

NASCAR and its Busch series have star after star drivers and some owners who are stars in their own right. Friday’s practice sessions at California Speedway brought out thousands of faithful fans hoping for a glimpse of their favorite driver. Above the roar of the engines on the Fontana oval I heard one mid-forties woman barking orders to her husband stationed outside of the garages, “Honey get me a photo of Jaime McMurray and Kasey Kahne.”

That scene made me wonder if one of the most appealing features about drag racing, the easy accessibility of our stars, is one of our downfalls. Drag racing’s drivers are very accessible. Hell, you can get an autograph and perhaps even talk some of them into a tour of their transporter - if the time is right, but just try to get past one of the yellow-jacketed NASCAR security guard with anything but a full garage pass, it ain’t happenin’ Jack!