Checkered Past

Charlotte track's offers in the Vegas spirit

While their favorite teams are racing in Nevada, fans can take a spin and -- without having to go all the way to Las Vegas The ticket office at Charlotte Motor Speedway is expanding hours and offering specials on admission, premium access and more for the spring's stock car racing and drag racing events. Details are in this CMS news release from the track.

This weekend the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series descends on the entertainment capitol of the world, Las Vegas, and Charlotte Motor Speedway is getting into the spirit by offering fans a chance to spin the wheel and win tremendous savings to three major spring events at the Mecca of Motorsports.

    Beginning Thursday at 9 a.m., fans can enter the Charlotte Motor
Speedway ticket office and spin a giant prize wheel for a chance to save
Up to 50 percent on Diamond Tower tickets to the Coca-Cola 600 and NASCAR
Sprint All-Star Race, and East Grandstand tickets to the inaugural NHRA
Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway.

    The prize wheel contains ticket discounts from 10 to 50 percent,
plus VIP experiences that will rotate hourly on the wheel such as pit
passes, public suite upgrades, Speedway Club access passes, free Sprint
FanView rentals, dinner for two at the Speedway Club, passes to driver
introductions and much more.

    Each fan that spins the wheel can purchase up to 10 total
tickets at the winning discounted value. The 10 tickets can be used for one race or
spread across the three featured events. Also, each fan who spins the
wheel and purchases tickets will receive a free gift from the speedway.

    The ticket office will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day during
Las Vegas Spin and Win Week, which lasts through Friday, March 5, with the
exception of Sunday, when the hours adjust to 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
   
Tickets are on sale now for Charlotte Motor Speedway's Spring
Season of Speed, which includes the 51st running of the Coca-Cola 600 on May
30, the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race on May 22 and the history making,

inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, March 25-28, at zMAX Dragway.

To purchase tickets call the speedway ticket office at 1-800-455-FANS (3267) or go online at

www.charlottemotorspeedway.com.

Four-Wide 101: NHRA logistics

All that horsepower. And, all at once. How's that supposed to work? Reasonable question. With the NHRA's springtime visit to Charlotte fast approaching, this news release from Charlotte Motor Speedway might help in understanding how the four-wide spectacle is expected to unfold:

    CONCORD, N.C. (Feb. 19, 2010) - While the buzz around the inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway has been deafening in the drag racing community, questions are circulating among fans as to just how the biggest spectacle in drag racing will work from a logistical standpoint.

    History will be made on March 25-28 at the Bellagio of drag strips, when all four NHRA professional divisions run four-wide all weekend long.

Here's a glimpse at some of the unique procedures that will be implemented for this one-of-a-kind event.

Lane Designation

Lanes will be identified in numerical order from left to right facing down track. The outermost left lane will be lane No. 1, then lanes No. 2 and No. 3 will be in the middle, with the outermost right lane referred to as lane No. 4.

Track Preparation

In an attempt to maintain uniform traction quality in all four lanes, Sportsman classes, while only running two cars side-by-side, will run in all four lanes for the entire event. Certain Sportsman classes will only run lanes No. 1 and No. 2 while other Sportsman classes will run exclusively in lanes No. 3 and No. 4. Track prep, cleanup equipment and personnel will increase accordingly.

Safety Safari

The NHRA Safety Safari will be doubled for this event. A full compliment of safety personnel and equipment will be assigned to lanes No. 1 and No. 2 and a second safety team will be assigned to lanes No. 3 and No. 4.

Qualifying

 For the first of four qualifying sessions, drivers with the least number of Full Throttle championship points will be the first to run and the top four points leaders will be the last to run in each category. The highest in points will run in lane No. 4, second highest in lane No. 3, third highest in lane No. 2 and fourth highest in lane No. 1.

Subsequent qualifying sessions will follow normal qualifying procedures with the quickest elapsed times running last in each session.

Every effort will be made to ensure each team has the opportunity to make one qualifying run in each of the four lanes.

Qualifying Field

Since each team will make only one qualifying run in each lane, the standard qualifying procedure of transferring only the quickest 12 times from Friday to Saturday will not be in effect at this event. All elapsed times from all qualifying sessions, from both days will be used to establish the 16-car field for eliminations in each category.

Starting System

Since zMAX Dragway is essentially two tracks built side-by-side, with a center wall separating the two all the way to the Top End, each track will have the standard NHRA Christmas Tree. Atop each Tree will be additional pre-stage and stage bulbs. These additional bulbs will indicate the pre-stage and stage position of the two vehicles on the adjacent track.

The Compulink AUTOSTART system will continue to be utilized at this event, however, unlike two-lane racing, the AUTOSTART system will not activate until all four vehicles are pre-staged and one vehicle has staged.

Ladders for Eliminations

In structuring the ladder, the primary objective is to have the top-four qualifiers meet in the final round, assuming the quickest qualifier advances in each round. The first two drivers in each pairing to cross the finish line (barring red-lighting), will advance to round two, therefore the pairings in round one will be grouped accordingly: Race A will have qualifiers 1, 8, 9, 16; Race B consists of qualifiers 3, 6, 11, 14; Race C will have qualifiers 2, 7, 10, 15; and Race D will have qualifiers 4, 5, 12, 13.

In the second round, first and second place from Race A will be in the same grouping as first and second from Race B, and first and second place from Race C and D will be in the other second round race. Again, the first two across the finish line (barring red-lighting) advance to the finals.

In the final round, teams will finish in the order they cross the finish line (barring red-lighting).

Lane Choice for Eliminations

First round lane choice goes to the quickest qualifier in each group of four. Second quickest in the group has second choice and third quickest has third choice.

In subsequent rounds, the first choice goes to the driver with the lower elapsed time from the previous round and so forth throughout the grouping.

Single-day tickets for the history-making inaugural NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, March 25-28, are available through the Charlotte Motor Speedway ticket office at 1-800-455-FANS or online at www.zmaxdragway.com.

USF1 on Twitter: 'We are not gone'

The USF1 operation’s web site flickered Thursday night, then went dark. Then this on Twitter:

“The US F1 Team web server is down and is being repaired as this is written. We are not gone, as many have reported. More news soon.”

And the USF1 site came back up.

The site had no news of Wednesday's meetings at USF1 headquarters in Charlotte. Argentine driver Jose Maria Lopez and his representatives came to town to sit down with the team's leadership.

Nothing on the group’s departure and travel to London for meetings with Formula One's top officials either.

The top of the home page was occupied by a Jan. 25 item announcing that USF1 had signed Lopez to drive in 2010.

Wheeler envisons radical changes in racing

By Bob Henry

ThatsRacin.com Editor
We’re finally catching back up to the field with more from Humpy Wheeler’s “Growing Up NASCAR.” But let’s first acknowledge a couple of things unrelated to the book:

1. Like Daytona’s Turn 2, our schedule’s got a hole in it. I really had hoped to run this second installment about a week ago.

2.  I am not just a customer of Road to Hell Paving Co., I’m the president. That doesn’t give me any inside line on paving contracts at Daytona. But at least I’m trying to underscore my best intentions.

The soon to be released “Growing Up NASCAR: The Humpy Wheeler Story” is pretty straight with readers. Which is why Wheeler would probably want you to know this: The cover art wasn’t his idea.

Life in racing has schooled Wheeler well in the art of give and take, so he let the publisher's people win that round.

But having his say about Charlotte Motor Speedway and his former boss, Bruton Smith? Not negotiable.

Some of that was detailed in earlier excerpts from the longtime and legendary racing promoter’s book.

The book is available online and hard copies are expected to be in stores in mid-March.

This time, the man who choreographed a mock invasion of Charlotte Motor Speedway’s infield, plotted the trajectory of a flaming school bus and even blew up an outhouse to entertain fans during pre-race shows looks ahead. He writes of a not-too-distant future that he believes will reveal racing and racers to be radically different animals.

Excerpts from Chapter 31: Racing of the Future

We are going to see some massive changes in NASCAR in the next decade and beyond. Right now the two controlling companies are the International Speedway Corporation, owned by the France family, and Speedway Motor Sports, owned by Bruton Smith.

Jim France recently announced his retirement, leaving the business to a third generation of Frances, and Bruton is eighty-two, and eventually he will be leaving his company to his son.

The Indianapolis Racing League is itself in a third generation of ownership.

What I envision is a time in the not-too-distant future when major media companies or equity investors buy all the existing companies. When that happens, we will see majestic changes in racing, because it will then be fueled by the people who run entertainment companies who don’t patiently wait around when ratings start to drop and attendance falls.

They make changes. That’s why Westerns went south and adventure/action films became popular. It’s why sitcoms have lessened and reality TV has upstaged them.

Once media companies take over, the executives won’t abide boring races. They won’t stand for drivers who are satisfied with finishing seventh in order to win points.

Instead, the entertainment czars will change the game so that the emphasis is placed on passing. Drivers will get a lot of points and prize money for passing and re-passing, so if a driver puts on a good show – even if he is knocked out at the halfway point – he will earn enough money to make his day worthwhile.

No longer will he be thinking, “I have to be around at the finish so I can finish fourth” and not excite anybody.

Another thing the entertainment people will do is take the lid off the behavior of drivers. Fans love fiery drivers.

They screamed and hollered when a Bobby Allison would get mad at a Curtis Turner and wipe out his car. They loved it when Dale Earnhardt would spin out a competitor, and then, when asked about it after the race, he’d grin and say, “That’s just racin.’

That sort of thing never happens anymore because the sponsors want their drivers to be squeaky clean and corporate. They have to be properly dressed, and they have to speak properly, and they have to behave themselves, and boy, that is so boring.

We need a return of the Bobby Allison-Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt-Geoff Bodine feuds that we used to have.

The single biggest change, though, will affect the race fan sitting on his couch at home. The fan of tomorrow watching from home will actually be able to participate in the race.

He will pay the entry fee of $29.95 for pay-per-view. He’ll sit in his seat with his computerized steering wheel, brake, and clutch – equipment that is available today – and he will watch himself on the TV actually driving in the race.

All the race cars are equipped with GPS, and as a result it would be possible to transform the existing live telecast into a situation where the fan at home could drive his car on the track anywhere the real cars weren’t.The fan’s car would be animated. He couldn’t put his car where Jeff Gordon Jr.’s car is, but he could put his car right behind him if there was a space. Come Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon, hundreds of thousands of race fans could pay their $29.95 entry fee and race against the real race cars.

Once the computer geniuses figure out how to determine the virtual winner, there would be two winners at the end of the race: the actual winner at the track and the virtual winner, and conceivably, the virtual winner would make as much prize money and earn the same trophy as the actual winner.

s I said, once the computer geniuses figure out the technology, this will come, and it will come because racing is one of the only sports where individuals compete against other individuals rather than teams competing against teams.

Charlotte-based F1 team still a no-show

As Formula One testing continued in Spain on Wednesday and a new season drew closer, Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel posted the fastest lap.

The English team Lotus made a splash, returning to F1 after 17 seasons and dominating many of the headlines. The new USF1 operation, based in Charlotte, N.C., again dominated the anonymous quotes and whispers.

The first U.S. team to proclaim its entry in Formula One competition for three decades was nowhere to be seen.

On a rainy day and a soaked track, Vettel topped the charts, the Associated Press and others reported. Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher was sixth fastest with the Mercedes GP entry. Fairuz Fauzy was 11th in a Lotus.

Now back in F1 with Malaysian support, the Lotus team’s racing history is an extremely rich one.

A fraction of that history, but a significant part of the U.S. racing fabric: Lotus founder Colin Chapman, along with American hero Dan Gurney and two-time world champion Jim Clark of Scotland accelerated the revolution at the Indianapolis 500 nearly 50 years ago.

Emboldened by Jack Brabham’s top-10 showing in an underpowered mid-engined Cooper in 1961, Chapman put the Memorial Day weekend classic in his cross hairs.

With thumping Ford power, the nimble Lotus would quickly push the long-dominant Offenhauser roadsters off the Indy grid and out of the picture.

Stock car racing’s stamp was on that revolution as well, with the Stuart, Va.-based Wood Brothers operation recruited to handle the pit work at Indy. Champ car pit stops of the era were yawners compared with what had years earlier become routine in NASCAR racing.

The Woods’ reliability and speed rocked open-wheel racing’s world.

Unfortunately, USF1 appears less and less likely to weave any magic in the heart of stock car racing country and present it on a world stage in 2010.

Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone has for weeks expressed doubts about USF1, citing sponsorship difficulties.

"I think we won't see Campos and I don't think we will see the Americans," at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on March 14, the billionaire boss of F1 told the Sunday Express.

There was no response from team principals Peter Windsor or Ken Anderson to Ecclestone's claims.

It was now being widely reported that YouTube founder Chad Hurley has withdrawn his support. He is said to be talking with established F1 teams.

Argentine driver Jose Maria Lopez, signed only last month, appears to be looking, too.

Martin Urruty of the Argentine sports newspaper Diario Ole, told ThatsRacin.com on Wednesday that Lopez had met with Windsor. An account on the web site of cable TV's Speed also noted the meeting.

Additionally, Brian Bonner, USF1's head of business development, has left, SpeedTV.com reported. The site also noted that the team's Charlotte building is for sale, but said it holds a long-term lease.

And still, nothing from Windsor, an alumnus of Speed's F1 coverage, or Anderson a designer. The most recent post on USF1's site is a Jan. 25 item about the signing of Lopez.

The silence contrasts sharply with the noise made when Windsor and Anderson proclaimed their intentions a year ago.

The names of NASCAR standout Kyle Busch and Danica Patrick were bandied about.

More recently, the team's defenders talked about plans to test a car at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. Never happened, Viv Bernstein reported in a blog on nytimes.com. And no test has been scheduled, the longtime racing writer says.

“The bottom line is really simple: Sponsor money didn’t come through the way it was supposed to,” Bernstein quotes an anonymous source.

“They’re having trouble making payroll, they’re having trouble paying suppliers, and that’s the situation they find themselves in,” the source said.

With preseason testing in Spain, where the new team says it’s European base will be, there is still no USF1 car.

Another source told Bernstein the team might buy a car rather than build its own. That way, USF1 could still have a place on the season-opening grid.

Swell.

Fans and even some of the financial supporters of the first team carrying the American flag into Formula One competition for 30-something seasons will apparently have to adjust their expectations.

They might have thought they were getting a chance to cheer, maybe even chant “USA!, USA!, USA!” It looks more like Darrell Waltrip just paid Carl Long for a starting position in a race he would have otherwise had no business running.

But at least Waltrip would be willing to talk about it.

The TV numbers game

Nearly 30 million people saw at least part of the Daytona 500 on television Sunday, Fox Sports says.

That would represent a significant increase over early audience estimates for NASCAR’s season opener and biggest race last year. But there also are significant asterisks attached.

Nielsen Media Research’s estimate of 29.8 million viewers would represent a 14 percent gain over last year’s 26.2 million for the Daytona 500. A Fox news release acknowledges that Sunday’s race telecast lasted more than six hours.

And you almost want to ask: What kind of numbers do you get with a telethon that’s on all danged day? Or those endless infomercials no one claims to watch? What about “The Wizard of Oz,” again?

I know which I’d rather watch. And that’s even if I’ve already seen the same cut-away car and cheesy animation 100 times. Even if I’ve heard Darrell Waltrip’s monologue enough to recite it right along with him.

The two delays on Sunday, to allow for attempts to repair deteriorating asphalt, put the race on hold and parked the cars on pit road for nearly two and half hours. Nielsen excluded those delays from its early accounting, treating that time the same way it does rain delays in Major League Baseball games.

Here’s a part of the overnight Nielsen report that might provide a little pause:
The race portion of Sunday’s broadcast earned a national rating of 7.7/16, with 13.3 million viewers. Last year, the race itself drew 9.2/19 in those reports.

So is that up? Or is it down? That might become clearer in the full reports Nielsen will provide later this week. The numbers are important to the business of advertising rates, which mean more to the network and its advertisers than viewers. At least until the cable bill increases.

Fox Sports said it sold out ad slots for Sunday’s Daytona 500. An AP report put that at nearly 85 units, between $500,000 to $550,000 each.

That’s just what they said. We’ve all heard what’s said while a race broadcast is under way.

How much do ratings reports and pegging the hype-o-meter really matter when fans decide whether to watch a race, a telethon, a Jury Garland movie, or if they’ll go see mama instead?

NASCAR’s pubic relations people have pointed out that the numbers are only numbers. They help determine what’s working and what’s not. They are guideposts, so to speak, along the way. As such, they are not determining factors.

Let’s also note that the very same guys were pushing those ratings reports – and even bragging about them – during the Great Growth Period that NASCAR enjoyed a decade or so ago.

As the numbers -- whatever they mean -- have changed, the banter from the booth has seemed increasingly disconnected from the races we're watching.

Maybe that's just human nature, rated or not, according to Nielsen.

If you can back it up, it's not just bragging. If it gets fuzzy, just talk a little louder.

Sabates is right: His apology wasn't to NASCAR

ThatsRacin.com's reports from late January don't directly contradict the quotes in Tom Sorensen's Feb. 11 column, in which Felix Sabates asserts that “NASCAR doesn’t care what you say. Nobody in NASCAR has ever criticized anything I’ve said. Not once.”

Michigan International Speedway is owned by International Speedway Corp., which is a publicly traded sister company to the France family's NASCAR.

ThatsRacin.com contributor Brant James on Jan. 25 posted an article based in part on Sabates' remarks during the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour in which he criticized the NASCAR schedule and proliferation of NASCAR-themed TV shows.

Roger Curtis, the Michigan track president, responded Jan. 28 to Sabates' quotes. An apology from Sabates appears below, followed by the remarks of MIS's Curtis, then Brant James' post of Jan. 25:

Felix Sabates, Jan. 29

"In an attempt at humor I made some comments about the city of Detroit and the people of Michigan that were in poor taste and that I sincerely apologize for.

"I have worked directly or indirectly with the auto industry for over 40 years as both a auto dealer and a NASCAR owner and it was never my intention to put down the auto industry, its workers, the city of Detroit or the state of Michigan.

"I have such respect for all of them. I am so frustrated over the challenges that this tough economy has brought to everyone in this country that I inadvertently joked about one of the areas hit the hardest. Those of us that have the luxury of getting to work in such a great sport like NASCAR owe a great deal to the city of Detroit and their support of the auto industry because without either, the sport of NASCAR would not be what it is today.

"In fact, Michigan International Speedway, even in this tough environment, drew an impressive 100,000 fans to the track at their last race. My sincerest apologies to anyone that I might have offended, it was certainly not my intent."

MIS president Roger Curtis, Jan. 28:

"It's a shame Felix Sabates doesn't see Michigan race fans are some of the most loyal, hard-working people in the world. He clearly doesn’t appreciate the natural beauty of our state or understand the challenges that Michigan, its residents and the city of Detroit will overcome.

"Perhaps his car sponsor Chevrolet, Jack Roush, Roger Penske, all fine examples of Michigan’s resilience, can explain it to him.

"If not, I’m sure the hundreds of thousands of loyal race fans that annually attend MIS events twice a year can.

"In fact, I will give him and his family tickets in our grandstand so he can experience why MIS fans are so loyal to our racetrack and this sport. Maybe that will help him remember it’s the hard-working and loyal race fans – even those he dismisses as 'unemployed' – that make NASCAR what it is."

Brant James' post, Jan. 25:

Felix Sabates understands supply and demand. That understanding puts the linen shirts on his back and the yacht under his finely crafted loafers.

And NASCAR, the longtime Sprint Cup car owner and partner with Chip Ganassi and Teresa Earnhardt said, is supplying more than fans demand right now. Hence stock car racing's recent attendance and television ratings problems.

"I think we grew too fast," said Sabates, whose business-marketing ventures have included yachts and the Teddy Ruxpin bear. "Some of these race tracks put in 140,000 seats, 120,000. That's crazy.

"We had no business increasing those seats. Bruton (Smith) probably started that with (Charlotte Motor Speedway) because NASCAR, the France family, hadn't done anything to Daytona for a long time. And tickets there are hard to get.

"(In Charlotte), there's always tickets for sale. And Bristol, if I was Bruton, I would cut the two top rows off. When you can only get 100,000 in there, man it's like “My daddy died and I inherited the ticket." Now, who cares? You can go down and buy a ticket. Too many seats."

There also are too many NASCAR television shows, Sabates said.

"We got like 27 of them now.":

And then the thorny issue: There are too many races, he said. Six should go, cutting the Cup schedule to 30.

Sabates' list of the expendable events (and the tracks at which the infield parking spot for his motor coach is likely to change):

Pocono Raceway. "Nice people," Sabates said, "but we don't need to go to Pocono twice." At all, actually, he said.

That'd be at least one down.

Michigan International Speedway. "I mean, there's nobody left in Detroit other than the police and the unemployed. I'd cut Michigan off the schedule altogether. Michigan – I'm talking about the state – is never coming back to what it used to be, so why go there and throw good money after bad money?"

Auto Club Speedway at Fontana, Calif., one.

Atlanta Motor Speedway, one.

Phoenix International Raceway, one.

Fixed.

Indianapolis made his cut only because of attendance, Sabates said.

"Too many of everything," Sabates said.

"I came from the Mercedes dealer this week. We have cars that have limited production. We got people that wait six months for one of those.

"And then we've got cars that you can get all you want. Go to my lot, I've got 60 of them over there. Supply and demand."

'Growing Up NASCAR' is typical 'Humpy' Wheeler: No holds barred

By Bob Henry

ThatsRacin.com Editor

If you thought H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler was aggressive – he was a boxer, a football player and a small-town racing promoter who became one of the biggest-time racing promoters, after all – Wheeler knows someone who might top him.

Bruton Smith, his former boss.

"Bruton is absolutely the most aggressive human being I have ever known or could even imagine," Wheeler says in a book soon to be released.

Wheeler's “Growing Up NASCAR” isn't all about his relationship with the colorful and controversial Smith, the Speedway Motorsports Inc. founder and head man. Wheeler was a major player in the building and operation of Smith's speedway empire until his retirement in May 2008.

You wouldn't have to look far for a Humpy story. And most of the tellers were pretty much stunned when Wheeler and Smith parted ways. One of my favorites is still this one told by ThatsRacin.com and the Observer's late friend David Poole.

The book lets Wheeler tell his own.

"We argued constantly," Wheeler writes. "Bruton wanted more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, and I wanted the races to be better, better, better because I knew instinctively that no matter what we did or how gorgeous we made the track, if we didn’t have the product when the green flag dropped, we wouldn’t sell tickets.

"Of course all this massive expansion has come back to haunt him as many tracks today fill less than seventy percent of their seats."

Wheeler was a giant among the men who promote stock car racing well before he helped oversee his final 600-miler at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Other giants, with such names as Earnhardt, Petty, Foyt, Pearson, Baker, France and Allison considered Wheeler their friend. There were many others.

That he'd grow to such stature might have looked a little unlikely early in Wheeler’s career. But he was a fast learner. And he never was one to forget a helpful lesson, no matter the teacher.

He figured out pretty quickly that promoting races at his hometown track wasn’t just about selling tickets. Some of the spectators had to be chased out of the trees that afforded a free view of the racing action.

And once he heeded his mother’s advice – and didn’t cut down the trees – Wheeler came to understand that getting fans to climb down was only a first step. So he set about learning how The Show could make people more willing to buy the tickets he was selling.

And he learned it well enough that they were glad – maybe even proud of themselves – for having done so.

Such lessons were surely never lost on Smith.

Following are some excerpts from Wheeler’s “Growing Up NASCAR.” Smith is a major player in this chapter.

We'll soon have more from the book, along with information about its availability.

From Chapter 16: Bruton and I

Bruton and I didn’t have a boss/employee relationship even though that’s what he tried to promote. When I’m pushed around I can be one mean son of a bitch, and Bruton truly knew that. He would push everyone else around, but for years we had a pretty close relationship, because he knew he couldn’t elbow me without my knocking his teeth out. Also, I really liked many of his ideas, and I was grateful he pretty much gave me license to do whatever I wanted.

We were two intense, creative, aggressive men in a business loaded with violence, intrigue, mystery, and two-fisted testosterone – where the Wild, Wild West met the Scotch-Irish toughness of the Southeast.

Bruton is absolutely the most aggressive human being I have ever known or could even imagine. He seemed to want it all, so in order to get it I worked all the time – days, nights, and weekends.

We argued constantly. Bruton wanted more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, and I wanted the races to be better, better, better because I knew instinctively that no matter what we did or how gorgeous we made the track, if we didn’t have the product when the green flag dropped, we wouldn’t sell tickets.

Of course all this massive expansion has come back to haunt him as many tracks today fill less than seventy percent of their seats. I felt that we weren’t selling a race ticket – we were selling drama. I argued this with everybody, including Bruton and Bill France, Les Richter, Mike Helton, Tony George, and anyone else I encountered in races I was promoting.

I wanted color and excitement. I didn’t like black race cars, even as great as Dale Earnhardt’s car was. You just couldn’t see it because it blended in with the track.

Going into the 1980s, everyone was starving for financial sustenance. Even a small company has a financial base, something to fall back on in hard times. Not so for the race teams before the 1980s. They had a shop, equipment, and parts, but they did not have cash.

And when a team decided to get out, a lot of what it had couldn’t be sold for much. There was no franchise system. In the past, car owners looked to Ford or Chrysler for help, and sometimes a rich guy like Carl Kiekaefer came along, but usually, if you wanted to race, you were pretty much on your own.

Until R. J. Reynolds came along, almost all the sponsors were connected with automotive services and parts. STP sponsored Richard Petty, for example. But after RJR came into racing, there was a consumer revolution in racing. You began seeing non-automotive sponsors like Hanes, Coca-Cola, Texas Jeans, Hardees, Gatorade, and Busch beer.

Hanes had a brilliant marketing guy by the name of Jack Watson. It was Watson who put Wrangler together with Dale Earnhardt, a great move. When Hanes got into it, it was this old-time Southern textile company acknowledging the fact that a stock car race was a way to sell product. They didn’t have to go to the ACC college basketball tournament or the Masters golf tournament. They could go racing.

There was another distinct reason why so many sponsors were now non-automotive, and that was the influx of women coming to the races. In 1976 I did a survey of fans coming to the Coca-Cola 600, and fifteen percent were women. I felt we were in trouble because that was far too low.

I came across a very interesting study in Fortune magazine about what oil companies did during World War II to get women to come to their filling stations. Before then, it was their fathers or husbands who went to service stations. Women felt out of place there.

What the oil companies did was install beautiful new restrooms, and they cleaned their places up. I remember as a kid working at a gas station. The guy in charge would be on me all the time asking, “Is the women’s room clean?” He never once asked me about the men’s room.

I decided, “Let’s build some really nice restrooms.” Bruton agreed. I did one other thing. I started changing the sort of people we had at the gates of the Speedway. We used to have prison guards, gruff people who would bark at the customers. I began hiring teachers, coaches, salesmen, and saleswomen – people used to handling the public and putting them at ease. We stopped barking at them like we used to. We planted flowers and began treating everyone with great respect.

We started to get a lot more women, and then an amazing thing happened: The security problems dropped drastically to the point where we hardly ever had an altercation at a racetrack. That’s because she’s just not going to let you do it."

NASCAR's D4D announcement: The Class of 2010

The NASCAR news release dated Feb. 9, 2010, about the Drive for Diversity program. With funding and support from NASCAR, its subsidiaries, sponsors, teams and other organizations, the program seeks to increase minority and female participation in NASCAR-branded racing series.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Having just completed perhaps the program’s most exciting preseason to date, the 11-member 2010 Drive for Diversity Class was introduced Tuesday night at the Daytona 500 Experience’s IMAX Theater. This latest group of young, talented and diverse NASCAR drivers was announced for the first time during Speedweeks.

The evolution of the Drive for Diversity program, NASCAR’s leading on-track diversity initiative continues its seventh year in 2010 as competitors relocate to Charlotte and enter “academy-style” development under a single team ownership structure.

The 909 Group, which took over operational responsibilities for Drive for Diversity in 2009, will own and operate one team fielding 11 Drive for Diversity competitors. Under the Revolution Racing banner, these minority and female drivers will compete on five NASCAR K&N Pro Series teams and six NASCAR Whelen All-American Series teams.

“Drive for Diversity, under the day-to-day management of The 909 Group, will continue to provide strong opportunities for minority and female competitors,” said Marcus Jadotte, managing director of public affairs for NASCAR.

“This preseason provided key validation of the program’s new structure for developing young drivers and crew members. Academy-style training is proving a welcome evolution of an initiative that has seen 31 drivers compete, winning 33 races. D4D drivers are located in the nerve center of NASCAR with greater access to industry resources, technology, training, testing, and shop experience.”

The 909 Group, a sports and entertainment agency, will continue to provide marketing support to NASCAR’s diversity initiatives. Max Siegel will maintain his role as chief executive officer of both Revolution Racing and The 909 Group.

“We spent most of 2009 thinking about ways to expand opportunities available to the drivers and crew members involved in Drive for Diversity,” Siegel said.

“To better assess and develop talent, we are putting drivers under one roof and in identically-prepared cars at Revolution Racing. Our extended evaluation process and training is allowing us to better identify talent and produce results for Drive for Diversity with the goal of getting drivers to NASCAR’s premier series.”

Andy Santerre, a four-time NASCAR K&N Pro Series champion as a driver and team owner, has joined Revolution Racing to oversee that developmental series’ operations.

Blair Addis, who has been involved with Drive for Diversity this past season as a team owner, oversees Revolution Racing’s NASCAR Whelen All-American Series program. Current and former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series drivers will serve as coaches and mentors to the drivers, who will be given additional seat time and be allowed to compete in more than one series as they develop.

Revolution’s drivers for the 2010 season were determined following the Drive for Diversity Combine presented by Sunoco last October at Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Va.

The 11 drivers in the 2010 class will also be featured in a television series, “Changing Lanes,” developed in collaboration with the NASCAR Media Group and set to air this summer on BET. The eight-part series will showcase the development of young Drive for Diversity competitors trying to make it in the world of NASCAR racing.

The following 11 drivers were selected to compete in the program in 2010:

-- Mackena Bell of Carson City, Nev., returns to the Drive for Diversity program, and will race in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. In 2009, Bell was the highest-finishing female in track history in Super Late Models at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale (Calif.), with a third-place finish.

-- Jessica Brunelli of Hayward, Calif., will race in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. She became the youngest competitor in the Modified division at All American Speedway in Roseville, Calif. to win a trophy dash.

-- Michael Cherry of Valrico, Fla., returns to the Drive for Diversity program and will race in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. Last year he competed in the Late Model division at Greenville (S.C.) Pickens Speedway. In 2008, Cherry was rookie of the year at Motor Mile Speedway in the Late Model division.

-- Ryan Gifford of Winchester, Tenn., will race in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. In 2009, Gifford, a Richard Childress Racing development driver, caught the eye of RCR Vice President of Competition Mike Dillon, with his success in dirt Late Models. He had three top-five finishes in four starts in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East last season, including a runner-up finish in the season finale at Dover International Speedway.

-- Katie Hagar of Damariscotta, Maine, returns to the Drive for Diversity program and will race in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. Hagar set a track qualifying record at Stockton (Calif.) 99 Speedway in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series in 2009.

-- Paul Harraka of Wayne, N.J., returns to the Drive for Diversity program and will again race in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West. Harraka won two races and the Sunoco Rookie of the Year Award in 2009.

-- Rebecca Kasten of Mequon, Wis., will race in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. Last year, Kasten competed in touring Late Model divisions at a number of tracks across the U.S. In 2008, she won two Late Model feature events.

-- Sergio Pena of Winchester, Va., will race in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. In January, he made his series debut at the Toyota All-Star Showdown at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale, winning the pole and finishing second.

-- Megan Reitenour of Miamisburg, Ohio, returns to the Drive for Diversity program in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. Last year she competed in the Late Model division at Tri-County Motor Speedway, winning the rookie of the year award. Reitenour is a three-time Ohio state champion in the Bandolero and Legends series.

-- Jason Romero of Cameron Park, Calif., will race in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. Romero won the Late Model championship last year at All American Speedway in Roseville, Calif., also finishing 11th in the national standings.

-- Darrell Wallace Jr. of Mobile, Ala., will race in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. A development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing, he got his start racing Legends cars. In 2008 he picked up his first Late Model win at Franklin County Speedway, becoming the youngest driver to win a Late Model race there.

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ESPN-ABC and 'a little travelin' music'

OK, I'll admit it. The Jackie Gleason reference in the headline is a stretch. It's very likely lost completely on fans of the teen band Comic Book Heroes. The line was a staple of early television and Gleason's show.

You knew the monologue was ending and the show segueing to the skits when you heard Gleason call out to bandleader Sammy Spear: "A little travelin' music, Sam!"

The music's tempo and volume came up, carrying the anticipation with it, straight into the break. And, more importantly, helping assure the audience would still be there when the commercials were over.

There are a lot more viewing choices now, of course, but that show-biz dynamic – and the accompanying hopes that audiences will stay – haven't changed since Gleason's time.

Hence the news release below about the deal with CBH, whose music, videos and promotions will be part of ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC race telecasts this season.

"And awa-a-a-y we go!"

To kick off their new relationship with ESPN, CBH filmed a video for “Move Out of the Way,” portions of which will be used throughout the season during ESPN’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race telecasts. A new music video for the teen rock band’s first single, “Catch Me If You Can,” and six original songs from CBH also will be included in promotions for ESPN’s NASCAR coverage. Throughout the 10-month NASCAR Nationwide Series season, CBH’s music, videos and promotions will be featured in 35 races televised on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. 

 
"Our music is fast and loud just like a NASCAR race, which makes working with ESPN on the Nationwide Series a great match.  We know ESPN will showcase another great season and are thrilled our music will be a part of it,” said Comic Book Heroes’ Steve Kowalski and Collin MacGregor.
 
Much like the NASCAR Nationwide Series, which has become a proving ground for up-and-coming stars of the sport, CBH is a rock band on the rise in the music scene. With a fan-base and influences as vast as the ESPN audience and a sound as clean, loud and fast as the cars racing throughout the NASCAR season, the band will seamlessly fit into the culture of one of today’s top sports.  
 
“NASCAR racing is a sport with sights, sounds, and speed that lends itself to rock and roll music in a very natural blend. With their fresh look and huge sound, Comic Book Heroes will add an exciting element to our NASCAR coverage in 2010,” said Rich Feinberg, ESPN vice president, motorsports, event and studio production.
 
After being named a Radio Disney “Next Big Thing” artist in January 2009, CBH continued their break-out year with “Catch Me if You Can” becoming a top 15 Radio Disney single, being named to Popstar Magazine’s Top 100 Stars Of Summer and enjoying a successful summer tour including a stop on the Van’s Warped Tour. In November, Comic Book Heroes attended the American Music Awards as the only selected artist to play the official after-party of one of the music industry’s biggest nights. CBH’s recently released second single, “Move Out of the Way,” is receiving great reviews from the band’s ever-growing fan base. CBH has also been named as one of 100 bands to the lineup for the Taco Bell Feed The Beat Virtual Music Festival. In conjunction with this program, “Move Out of the Way” was also featured throughout the X-Games
 
Comic Book Heroes self-released their current EP “Take a Seat,” which is available through iTunes.  They are currently writing and recording their follow-up EP to be released in 2010 and are planning a summer tour.