NASCAR has perception problems – with fans, with the media (especially its own), and with the mainstream. It’s something I’ve written about twice (here and here). After spending what I’m sure was a lot of money on consultants, I think NASCAR finally believes it too – and they’re doing something about it.
This week they announced the reorganization of their communications department. According to Sports Business Journal:
Members of the communications team will be embedded in other departments, such as consumer, brand and corporate marketing, in an effort to broaden and help NASCAR’s communications efforts evolve both inside the sanctioning body and with the sport’s teams, tracks and sponsors.
What this means is NASCAR is going to be adding more PR people, what SBJ said could be 20 to the existing department of about 25, and hiring a chief communications officer. Among other things, this will, in theory, allow them to do a better job of shifting and crafting a more positive narrative for the sport. And lets be honest, the narrative has gotten away from them.
Right or wrong, we’re entrenched in a media environment that focuses heavily on the negative. I personally believe this has been the main contributing factor to the malaise among NASCAR fans – as Ed Hinton put it, NASCARmyalgia.
With the amount of negative coverage (and seemingly no coherent communications strategy from NASCAR), fans are just feeling down on the sport. There really isn’t one explanation either. I refer you back to the Ed Hinton article. Pretty much all of the comments on the NASCAR PR story on SceneDaily.com went a little like this: “The product stinks. We don’t need NASCAR to spin things for us.” It sounds good to say, but I’m not sure what there is to improve about the product (no one really articulated that). Maybe make the car look better? Shorten races?
I’m really at a loss for what’s so bad right now. I think a lot of people are. I certainly see issues, but I understand there have and always will be things wrong with NASCAR (just like every other sport). Nothing’s perfect. What I think we can improve on is how we talk about the sport.
For all NASCAR hopes to accomplish with this reorganization I think changing that conversation has got to be one of the top priorities. NASCAR is presenting a good product week in and week out, but if people aren’t seeing it, or interested in it, it really doesn’t matter.
We’ll see in the coming seasons whether this actually makes a difference, but it’s interesting to see how NASCAR is trying to improve things.
Oh, and if you need a job it sounds like NASCAR will soon be hiring…
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Wow, what a race! Drama. Damage. And a drag race!
What we saw Sunday in Montreal is why we all enjoy watching racing. There was no anointed winner, leading the most laps led to disaster, and the best funded team didn’t win. There was passion (and one middle finger), and boy was there carnage.
What really got me excited though was the large and passionate crowd. Our friends to the north love NASCAR and I’m starting to think they deserve more than just one Nationwide race a year.
NASCAR entered the Canadian market in 2004 and has since expanded with the acquisition of the former CASCAR series (now the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series), and the staging of that one yearly event at Circuit Gilles Villenueve in Montreal.
Unlike their four year foray into Mexico, NASCAR’s Canadian event has remained quite popular. And it’s no wonder given the occasionally strange, and always entertaining events Circuit Gilles Villenueve produces.
Some last week were calling for NASCAR to bring a Cup Series event to the track. And I say why not? Given the Nationwide races we’ve seen at the track I’d love to see what kind of hijinks the Cup cars could get into on the 2.71 mile road course. But honestly I’d be fine with a Cup race anywhere in the country. I thinks the fans have earned it – I think they deserve it.
Have you heard about the proposed Canadian Motor Speedway in Fort Erie, Ontario (near Buffalo, N.Y.)? It’s nothing more than an idea right now, but the developers are working with Jeff Gordon and they’re in talks with racetrack architect Paxton Waters to build the one mile tri-oval. They’re still a ways from anything being built, but the potential is interesting.
In the meantime we have a perfectly good (or as I should say, exceptional) facility with a group of people who can’t get enough stock car racing. I’m always an advocate for bringing the sport to people who want to see it, so why isn’t NASCAR doing more?
As we just wrapped up the scheduling for 2011 and saw what could have been pretty big changes turn into some cosmetic moves, we got a front row view of the politics involved.
NASCAR is privately owned by the France family. The France family is the majority shareholder (with 70% of the voting stock) in the publicly traded International Speedway Corporation. And then we have Bruton Smith and his publicly traded Speedway Motorsports Inc. Those two control all but three of the tracks that have NASCAR Cup Series dates and neither is giving up one of their very valuable dates anytime soon. Ask Jerry Carroll how hard it is to get a Cup date.
Still, Canada is a market NASCAR should be more involved in. We’ll see in the future if NASCAR thinks so. I just hope Canadian NASCAR fans get the respect they deserve.
It is a Cup Series off weekend, but there was no shortage of news this week. After failing a NASCAR drug test earlier in the season, TV analyst and former driver Randy Lajoie was reinstated by NASCAR this week after completing the necessary substance abuse programs. Regan Smith signed a contract extension with Furniture Row Racing that will keep him behind the wheel of the #78 until 2012. Dave Blaney and Michael McDowell got new gigs, with Blaney scheduled to drive in some races for Front Row and McDowell moving to Whitney Motorsports. Kyle Busch took on the Truck Series on Friday night at Chicagoland, winning his second straight NCWTS race, and Marcos Ambrose is on the pole for the Nationwide Series race at Montreal. This is the NASCAR week that was, August 22 to 28, 2010.
Pit road is getting safer, but it’s far from safe in a NASCAR race
NASCAR sponsorship proves a boon for Nationwide Insurance
Time For ESPN To Reinstate Randy LaJoie
Wal-Mart to climb aboard Gordon’s car?
Reutimann admits to feud with Busch
Vintage Insiders
The Anatomy of a Pit Stop
A NASCAR Career Isn’t For Everyone
**Remember if you have a NASCAR blog or website and would like a recent article you wrote featured in this section email me and you could be part of next week’s NASCAR Week That Was. Please only send stuff you have written.**
Is it possible to be a successful, competitive team and not be located in Charlotte (or near it)?
This is something I was thinking about today as I saw the announcement that Regan Smith had re-signed with Furniture Row Motorsports through 2012. The Denver, Colo. based team has fielded a car in NASCAR since 2005.
Now don’t get me wrong, I write this not to bash the guys at Furniture Row. They certainly are able to do a lot given the difficulty of their situation. The fact is though, being in Denver is not ideal for any part of the operation of a NASCAR team.
While Furniture Row gets their chassis and engines from Childress, they are at a distinct disadvantage being away from the geographic center of NASCAR. They don’t have the pool of personnel to draw from (heck, even Petty Enterprises, in late 2007 moved closer in to Mooresville, NC because of difficulty in finding/retaining quality help willing to commute to Randleman), and they aren’t close to the equipment suppliers. Perhaps most importantly, they don’t have easy access to the technical support (the wind tunnels, k-rigs, shaker rigs, etc.) that all of their competitors do.
That said there are a couple of relative success stories.
Orleans Racing operated out of Las Vegas for years. Brendan Gaughan, driving for his family owned team, scored eight Truck Series wins and came very close to winning a championship in 2003. Though the team didn’t have as much luck upon Gaughan’s return in 2005 (they shut down in 2007), they ran a tight ship and maintained solid equipment. Still, the Gaughans spent a lot of money keeping up with their counterparts back in North Carolina.
Another relative success story is Thorsport Racing out of Sandusky, Ohio. The team has fielded a truck since 1996. While they haven’t been prolific in victory lane (they have just two wins in 464 starts), Matt Crafton has finished in the top-10 in points in four of the last five seasons (including second in 2009).
Still, running in the Truck Series is vastly different than running in the Cup Series. Thorsport gets a lot of technical support from Kevin Harvick Inc. and the Gaughans have a lot of money (thanks to the Coast Casinos, Southpoint and Boyd Gaming) – not to mention the length of schedules and lower budgets across the board.
Even with stable funding, I think there is a limit to how successful a team can be when they’re not in the area. You’ve got to hand it to Barney Visser though he is committed to making his race team work.
Were you booing or cheering Friday night?
There is nothing like a crowd at Bristol displaying their like, or in this case dislike, for a driver. Their opinion is deafening. And honestly, it was fantastic.
No matter your feelings toward Kyle Busch, chances are you aren’t indifferent about him. And he’s exactly what NASCAR needs right now – a polarizing figure who can win.
For all the improvements NASCAR has made to the sport in the last several months, there really isn’t anything they can do get moments like that – most especially, there is nothing they can do to cultivate drivers like that.
Ed Hinton wrote a great column last week about his search for what plagued NASCAR fans. His determination? NASCARmyalgia. You all have aches, but no one really knows for sure what the problem is. It’s funny, but it rings so completely true.
I think moments like Friday night are a good remedy, but we need more guys like Kyle Busch – that is more guys who are willing to express themselves and relish the position they have in the sport, and then back it up with wins – to do that on Sunday. Fans desperately want and need drivers they can cheer for, and against right now.
Thankfully for us NASCAR is allowing drivers to show a little personality on track, which is translating to personality off the track. While the action this weekend was unfortunately on Friday night (and Wednesday night too), the conflict was still apparent on Saturday night. Did you hear the driver intros? Awesome.
Right now Kyle is injecting a little bit of spice into a sport that desperately needs it. While I think it’s hard to disagree that the racing is some of the best its ever been, it’s hard to say, personality wise, things are as good as they could be.
Though things aren’t perfect right now, and they really never will be, these moments of dogged fight, and boiled over frustrations really make it all worth while.
Thank goodness we’ve got a guy like Kyle Busch to help bring some drama into our beloved sport. Now where is everybody else?
It was back to the world’s fastest half mile this weekend as NASCAR inches closer to the start of the chase for the championship. It was more Silly Season news that led the headlines this week. Richard Petty Motorsports announced Tuesday Marcos Ambrose would be the driver of the #9 in 2011. Ambrose will be sponsored by Stanley Tools. And Richard Childress Racing announced Budweiser would sponsor Kevin Harvick in 2011. Budweiser takes over, partially, from the departing Shell/Pennzoil. And finally Brian Vickers announced on Saturday he has been cleared to race in 2011. Vickers has been sidelined since May because of blood clots. This is the NASCAR week that was, August 15 to 21, 2010.
Ballew an example of succeeding against the odds
NASCAR’s Star Mangled Banner
NASCAR fans unhappy…But why?
Q&A: Brian France ponders changes
Almirola’s rise gains steam
Not Every Crew Guy Is Making $100k A Year
The Other Side of the Garage
It’s official… NASCAR has released the schedules for the 2011 season, and seasons of speculation are finally over – both Kentucky and Kansas got their long-anticipated Cup dates.
I’ve never been the biggest advocated for giving Kentucky a Cup date and Kansas a second Cup date. They’re really just more of the same. That said, I’m glad NASCAR, ISC and SMI are bringing racing to fans who appreciate it.
Though I haven’t been the biggest proponent of adding dates to those two tracks, I (and TC) have been a proponent of taking a date away from California. The racing is never very good and for whatever reason the crowds just couldn’t be maintained. Some markets just cant support two dates.
I believe that’s the story in Atlanta. Though I like the track and the racing it produces, it too was having issues with attendance. From a business prospective it made more sense giving its second date to Kentucky – a place I think will be able to support the event.
Other welcome news was that SMI didn’t pull a date from New Hampshire – I thought for sure Bruton would use the police issue in Loudon to give Las Vegas a second date. The man in the gawdy sunglasses surprises.
Overall, while the 2011 schedule does bring us changes, there aren’t really a ton of surprises. As always, the internal politics of NASCAR, ISC and SMI keep the possibility of changes to a minimum. I’d certainly like to see a Chase that was more representative of the whole schedule, but I’m good with what is hopefully just the beginning of a truly improved schedule in NASCAR.
Some Thoughts on the Truck Series Schedule
With 24 scheduled events for the 2011 season, and another one TBA, the Truck Series schedule is much improved over this year’s. Gone is the three week break between Daytona and Atlanta, and the two week break between Atlanta and Martinsville. Those successive breaks were a little excessive – not to mention they killed the momentum of the season.
There are a couple of two week breaks early on in 2011, and a month long break in the middle of the summer, but all in all they’ve done a much better job keeping the series flowing.
As far as filling that TBA date, why not have a triple-header at Richmond in September? There might be some logistical issues with the haulers, but who wouldn’t love to see the trucks make their RIR return?
I’m not sure what NASCAR is working on for that date, but my plea is that they keep them at a short track.
And finally a couple of disappointing spots. Pocono is back on the schedule. I think we all know my thoughts on that. And I don’t really understand the reasoning for moving the Phoenix date. It’s going to be weird for them to have an off-weekend before the season-finale at Homestead – and we’ve had such great end of season showdowns there.
What are your thoughts on Kentucky and Kansas and all three schedules for the 2011 season?
Kevin Conway doesn’t have a ride. And his season up to this point has been… well not good. Despite the less than impressive stats and a now unclear future, Conway will very likely go into the NASCAR record books as the best rookie of 2010 – the Raybestos Rookie of the Year. Unfortunately, the winner by default.
Conway started 2010 driving the #37 for Front Row Motorsports – his home until last week. His competition through the first 10 races of this season for the ROY was Terry Cook. Cook qualified for just three of ten races he attempted in a very underfunded Whitney Motorsports ride before he and the team parted ways.
That left just Conway, the only full-time competitor, competing for ROY honors this season. For his part, Conway has said he is excited about winning his race of one.
For me, all of a sudden my hard work created some opportunities and now to find myself in the middle of the Rookie of the Year championship in the Sprint Cup Series is beyond comprehension in many ways
Nevermind it was clever maneuvering of points, and start-and-parks that kept Conway going for as long as he did. Through 21 races he had an average start of 40th, and average finish of 31.6 – he finished on the lead lap in just three of those races at Daytona, Watkins Glen and Sonoma.
For all intents and purposes though Conway is the best rookie of this season. Though I don’t know if I’d be too stoked about winning a competition where I was the only competitor, I guess it’s something.
Going back to late last season the talk was how there might not even be a rookie class in the Cup Series. While that didn’t occur, we did end up with the weakest class since perhaps 1958 (I say that only because the winner, Shorty Rollins, was the lone competitor).
Now thanks to a bad economy, an increasing lack of sponsor interest in funding development drivers and plethora of other reasons, we now find ourselves in the same situation we were in last year – the prospect of a season without a ROY participant in the Cup Series.
While it really isn’t that big of a deal, it’s kind of sad to not see a competition for an award whose winners include the sport’s greatest drivers. The award deserves better than this. The sport deserves better than this. But it is what it is.
NASCAR makes its second trip to Michigan this weekend as the Silly Season kicked into high gear. Hendrick Motorsports and Kasey Kahne led the news this week as they announced Red Bull Racing would be Kahne’s home for 2011. What car Kahne will be in, and who his teammates will be is not clear. In other news Richard Childress Racing announced this week Paul Menard would join the organization as its fourth team in 2011. Menard joins the team after spending two seasons with Yates Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports. And finally Extenze Racing and Kevin Conway announced a ‘hiatus’ from NASCAR on Friday. It’s unclear if and when the team would return. This is the NASCAR week that was August 8 to 14, 2010.
Bold moves for NASCAR
Those Footstops Might Sound Familiar
It’s official: Kahne to Red Bull for next year
Jerry Carroll’s dream now big reality with Sprint Cup race
Flow of talent between USAC, NASCAR has slowed
Is EGR Really All That Unstable
The Off Track Businesses of NASCAR’s Drivers
It’s not often I see press releases that truly catch my attention. I mean something beyond the standard pre-race and post-race (which are both useful enough). The last couple of weeks I’ve seen two that had me talking – one for the good, the other for the bad.
Something different? Go Red Bull!
This one was a first – and something I’ve been advocating for for a long time. Why not get creative with your communication efforts? Everybody puts out the same formulaic pre and post-race releases with a ridiculous amount of spin. We get it, you’re trying to turn a 30th place finish into a positive thing.
Lest we be disappointed by yet another post-race we’re probably not going to read, someone finally did something about it. Thank you Red Bull!
You may have seen this – it made the rounds on twitter – after Pocono the folks over at Red Bull, instead of doing a recap of the race that we all saw, injected some humor into their release with some fun facts.
The first bit on their release read:
Pocono Raceway is like the Death Star when it comes to rain. There’s some sort of triangular tractor beam that seems to suck in ominous clouds.
Haha. What? The Death Star? It continues like that, but I had to finish reading. They even managed to sneak in some information about their teams and drivers. All in all, not bad. Check out their turn by turn Watkins Glen post-race – equally entertaining.
The beauty of this is, they’re not running great, but they’ve got people buzzing about something positive. A win-win for the team.
The clock starts now to see how fast someone steals this from them – or tries to outdo them.
Bad luck? Or the funding fell out?
Generally start-and-park teams don’t put out pre and post race releases. It’s obvious why. But I found an exception.
Michelle Theriault has been running a start-and-park for Andy Hillenburg’s Fast Track Racing. After Theriault’s first race at ORP the sponsor’s marketing company (yes, a start-and-park with a sponsor) put out a release claiming it was bad luck that forced Theriault out of the race.
From the drop of the green flag, Theriault fought a tight condition which inhibited her climb through the field. The crew planned on making adjustments on the No. 48 ProGold Lubricants Chevrolet, but bad luck struck on lap 52. A kink in a line going to the radiator caused the motor to overheat, which relegated the rookie driver to a 32nd-place finish.
A kink in the line? Bad luck? Sounds to me, as Michael McDowell put it on his twitter page a few weeks ago, the funding fell out on the front stretch.
What’s worse than being a start-and-park? Trying to pretend you’re not one. This was just plain insulting to anyone who read it – and it all but guaranteed I wouldn’t be looking at another of their releases.
Luckily, though they’ve been putting out pre-races, they quit doing the post-race.
Sometimes its just best not to say anything at all.