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Car Forum / Ford / Ford Cars / October 2008NASCAR: Soon Be Just Beer & Bellies, Boys: Money's Dryin' Up In Bush's Depression! It's All Over But the Pukin' ...
"Just four months before the 2009 season-opening Daytona 500, two of NASCAR's most revered teams, Petty Enterprises and Dale Earnhardt Inc., are searching for sponsors to bankroll four of the six racecars they intend to field between them." " 'Nothing could stay as hot as NASCAR was'" said Peter DeLorenzo, a former automotive advertising executive and editor of the Autoextremist.com blog. 'It had to have some sort of a correction.' " "Corporate sponsors that helped transform stock-car racing from a workingman's pastime into the country's dominant form of auto racing also are scaling back their investment." ---------------------------------- "Automakers Apply Brakes to NASCAR" By Liz Clarke Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, October 23, 2008; A01 For decades, the success of NASCAR's brand of high-octane, fender- banging stock-car racing has been intertwined with the fortunes of the U.S. automotive industry. NASCAR victories represented a nod to Detroit's ingenuity. And showroom sales, in turn, were credited to the exploits on race day. As the marketing adage went: "What wins on Sunday, sells on Monday!" But with the Big Three U.S. automakers struggling to survive, they have begun to dramatically scale back their financial involvement in NASCAR, threatening the economic model that has driven the sport's popularity. Other corporate sponsors that helped transform stock-car racing from a workingman's pastime into the country's dominant form of auto racing also are scaling back their investment as a result of the sagging economy. Some companies may not renew their commitments -- many of which run more than $10 million -- when current contracts expire. "The U.S. enjoyed a pretty robust economy that enabled the sport to grow, but that has changed significantly in the last six months," said Terry Dolan, manager of Chevy Racing. "And it's probably going to drastically affect what the sport may look like 12 months from now." Sports of all stripes are feeling the brunt of the global economic crisis. With season-ticket renewals lagging in the National Basketball Association, Commissioner David Stern has announced cuts in staffing at league offices. The National Football League is revisiting its labor agreement with players as a potential way of paring expenses. The Washington Nationals still haven't found a buyer for naming rights to their new baseball stadium, while Philadelphia's NBA arena is bracing for another name change now that its rights holder, Wachovia Bank, has been gobbled up by Wells Fargo. Individual and Olympic sports, which rely on corporate money more heavily, are feeling the squeeze as well. The U.S. Olympic Committee lost its $1 billion sponsorship from General Motors following the Beijing Games. In January, golf's hallowed Masters tournament lost its sponsorship from Cadillac. And insurance giant AIG, which averted collapse only after the federal government bought 80 percent of the company, is bowing out of its long-standing sponsorship of the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team, the Associated Press reported last week. But NASCAR is expected to get hit harder than traditional stick-and- ball sports because of its overwhelming dependence on corporate dollars. The 43 cars that start every race are essentially 200-mph billboards, advertising Miller beer, M&Ms, Office Depot -- virtually every product in the basket of American consumer goods -- not to mention the U.S. Army and, as of last Sunday, the Federal Communications Commission, which is using the No. 38 Ford to publicize next year's conversion to digital broadcasting. Corporate sponsors account for roughly 80 percent of the typical NASCAR team's budget -- roughly four times the percentage of an NFL team, which gets the majority of its revenue from the league's lucrative TV contracts and ticket sales. But just four months before the 2009 season-opening Daytona 500, two of NASCAR's most revered teams, Petty Enterprises and Dale Earnhardt Inc., are searching for sponsors to bankroll four of the six racecars they intend to field between them. To stay marginally competitive, seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty sold a controlling interest in his family's race team to an investment firm, Boston Ventures, earlier this year. Three other NASCAR teams have raised capital in the same manner. Now Petty Enterprises is entertaining three proposals to merge with a rival team -- among them, the one founded by the late Dale Earnhardt -- to remain viable. "Nothing could stay as hot as NASCAR was," said Peter DeLorenzo, a former automotive advertising executive and editor of the Autoextremist.com blog. "It had to have some sort of a correction." No sport came from more humble roots than NASCAR, which sprang from Southern dirt tracks, where moonshine runners faced off to prove whose souped-up Buick or Chevy was faster. Once the wild sport developed a following, automakers started funneling money to the front-running cars and touting their victories in newspaper ads to lure fans to their dealerships. NASCAR teams were still fairly modest operations as recently as 1992, when Alan Kulwicki drove a Ford Thunderbird to the Winston Cup championship with a team of 19 people, including the secretary. Today, Hendrick Motorsports, which appears en route to its eighth championship this season, boasts more than 500 employees and a racing compound that could double as headquarters for NASA. "The first year when I went to [work at] Hendrick, I was getting accused of not spending enough money!" recalled Robbie Loomis, a former crew chief for four-time champion Jeff Gordon who now manages Petty Enterprises' two-car team. "This is the toughest economic times we've ever experienced." But the cutbacks by Detroit's Big Three -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler -- have struck at stock-car racing's heart. Automakers fund NASCAR on several levels: making direct payments to flagship teams; providing technical expertise; setting up elaborate sales displays on racetrack grounds; buying title sponsorships of races; and equipping tracks with fleets of vehicles. GM's annual investment alone was rumored to be $120 million-$140 million at the peak of its involvement in NASCAR. But it severed sponsorships with Bristol Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway this summer, and deeper cuts are promised as part of GM's $10 billion cost-savings program. Ford officials announced yesterday that while they were extending their contract with Roush Fenway Racing -- its most decorated team in the elite Sprint Cup ranks -- they were also ending all direct financial support to teams in NASCAR's Nationwide and Truck series, considered developmental leagues. Dodge took a similar step in pulling out of the truck series, which also is losing Sears's Craftsman brand as its title sponsor at season's end. NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston concedes that the sport is feeling the effects of the slowing economy, with unsold tickets, sponsor-less teams and slipping TV ratings. But relative to other sports, he said, NASCAR remains the most compelling vehicle for reaching consumers. "We're still averaging 120,000 fans per Sprint Cup event, we remain the number two sport on television, and 17 of the 20 highest-attended sporting events are NASCAR events," Poston said. "All of those fundamentals continue to be strong." But even optimists in the garage project lean times ahead. Said J.D. Gibbs, president of Joe Gibbs Racing: "We're no different than any other business: Everyone is going to have to be real careful in the next few years." Gibbs Racing is fortunate in that all three of its primary sponsors -- Home Depot, FedEx and M&M/Mars -- are signed through 2009. But plans to add a fourth race team are on hold until economic conditions improve. The cost of sponsoring a front-running NASCAR Sprint Cup team is $20 million to $25 million a year. And belt-tightening alone can't compensate if a team loses a sponsor that accounts for $15 million to $20 million of that. Automakers originally involved themselves with stock-car racing to experiment with new technology and incorporate those findings into the design of production cars. Today, NASCAR is essentially a marketing tool -- a platform for Ford, Chevy, Dodge and Toyota to show off their range of models to an enthusiastic, automotively inclined crowd. A study by J.D. Power found that 56 percent of Ford owners classify themselves as race fans. The connection is even stronger among owners of Ford's F-series pickups, with 65 percent identifying themselves as NASCAR fans. The argument is similar for the roughly 100 Fortune 500 companies that have sponsored NASCAR cars. Whether selling consumer goods or services, corporate America has been eager to tap into NASCAR's uncommonly brand-loyal fans. But if corporations simply don't have the money, their marketing investment in NASCAR is likely to drop. "With the global economic situation, I expect corporate America, when their contracts come up, not to renew at quite as strong a rate. The money just isn't on the table," DeLorenzo said. "NASCAR is really a glass-half-full bunch, but they're having trouble masking the fact that this is really affecting them. I think they never really believed a day would come when Detroit's almost-blind embracing of NASCAR would even wane." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102203343.html > Automakers originally involved themselves with stock-car racing to > experiment with new technology and incorporate those findings into the > design of production cars. Today, NASCAR is essentially a marketing > tool -- a platform for Ford, Chevy, Dodge and Toyota to show off their > range of models to an enthusiastic, automotively inclined crowd. This is the fundamental problem with NASCAR The cars today have nothing in common with current stock cars. Years ago you could walk into a car dealership, plunk down your money, and the guy behind the counter could change a few parts order numbers on the build for your car that would change out some key components, and WAM you got the identical thing that was on the NASCAR track. For those who got grocery-getter stock cars, they could do the same thing by going into the dealership and buying the same bits and pieces over the counter then bolting them on themselves. That was the real draw of NASCAR. But today it's all about making the drivers into stars and the rules essentially make every car the same, and NONE of the cars have anything to do with real stock cars, they don't even share parts. If NASCAR wants to bring people in, they need to go back to their roots and start racing real stock cars again. Ted > The cars today have nothing in common with current stock cars. Years > ago you could walk into a car dealership, plunk down your money, and > the guy behind the counter could change a few parts order numbers on > the build for your car that would change out some key components, and > WAM you got the identical thing that was on the NASCAR track. I don't recall any time you could go to the dealer and order Junior Johnson's configuration. Or Fireball Roberts'. Or Richard Petty's. Or Cale Yarborough's. > For those who got grocery-getter stock cars, they could do the same thing > by going into the dealership and buying the same bits and pieces over > the counter then bolting them on themselves. Nor do I recall a time when dealers sold the high performance parts that went into those cars. > That was the real draw of NASCAR. For some, but not for nearly as many as people think. > But today it's all about making the drivers into stars and the rules > essentially make every car the same, and NONE of the cars have > anything to do with real stock cars, they don't even share parts. > > If NASCAR wants to bring people in, they need to go back to > their roots and start racing real stock cars again. I have to disagree Ted. Back in the day when the cars were much more like what you found on the dealer's lot, the attendance and the cash associated with NASCAR was a fraction of what it has become today. That's the point that people miss - for better or for worse, this sport has grown the most in the era where the superstar drivers prevailed and you couldn't but that car from any dealer. NASCAR is bigger today than it has ever been, and by orders of magnatude. Getting NASCAR back to its roots will not end up in making it more successful. It will decrease the following. Not that this would be a bad thing, but taking it back twenty or thirty years certainly is not going to make it more successful.  Signature-Mike- mmarlowREMOVE@alltel.net > I have to disagree Ted. Back in the day when the cars were much more like > what you found on the dealer's lot, You see, you understand what I'm talking about. > the attendance and the cash associated > with NASCAR was a fraction of what it has become today. The cash infusion happened in 1972. Note that a couple years later post-oil embargo, Detroit was making sh.t cars because in '72 NASCAR threw out the rule requiring a minimum of 500 cars sold as production for the car to be raced, and Detroit had no more incentive to produce good cars anymore. > That's the point > that people miss - for better or for worse, this sport has grown the most Grown the most? No. If by growth you mean more money, yes it's grown. Grown as in better racing? Hardly. Today all the NASCAR cars are the same. If you watch a race they all end up finishing within a few minutes of each other. BOOORRRING!!! There no incentive to make the car go faster with the restrictor plate rules. NASCAR rules specify the car so much they might as well put a speed limit on the track. > in > the era where the superstar drivers prevailed and you couldn't but that car > from any dealer. NASCAR is bigger today than it has ever been, and by > orders of magnatude. And it's getting smaller. Or didn't you read the article? The glory days of fake racing are over. Just like the Brat Pack has all grown up now, yet there's still people of my generation wanndering around singing "Old time rock 'n' roll" > Getting NASCAR back to its roots will not end up in > making it more successful. It will decrease the following. Sure, sure. Go ahead and think that. That's what all the NASCAR promotors think. And they will continue thinking that while ticket sales continue to go down and sponsors continue to leave. In the meantime, "U-Car style"racing attendance is increasing at tracks all over the country that engage in it. NASCAR got the attendance because the carmakers put money into it, because when they were racing stock cars that were the same cars people could buy, there was a tie-in. You watched a NASCAR race and when a car won, all eyes were on the make and model. That translated into increased sales for the automaker who made the winner. When NASCAR dropped the use of real stock cars, it took people a while to figure things out. Eventually they did but by then the tradition of going to the races had been planted. Today, that tradition is being sacrificed on the recession/depression altar. By the time that the country recovers in a few years and people have money again to go racing, it will have been long enough since they last went to a NASCAR race for them to realize how fake it is, and they will instead be going to the local drags and watching racing with real stock cars, and won't have enough interest to bother with NASCAR anymore. Ted > The cash infusion happened in 1972. Note that a couple years later > post-oil embargo, Detroit was making sh.t cars because in '72 NASCAR > threw out the rule requiring a minimum of 500 cars sold as production for > the car to be raced, and Detroit had no more incentive to produce good > cars anymore. Only the most diehard race fan would say that Detroit's plunge into the crap pool with the products they produced in the 70's and 80's was due to NASCAR dropping the 500 car minimum. >> That's the point >> that people miss - for better or for worse, this sport has grown the most > > Grown the most? No. If by growth you mean more money, yes it's grown. > Grown as in better racing? Hardly. Of course I meant in terms of money and in terms of attendance. I made that very clear in my total comments. > Today all the NASCAR cars are the same. If you watch a race they all end > up [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > rules specify the car so much they might as well put a speed limit on the > track. True, but that is quite a different matter than growth. >> in >> the era where the superstar drivers prevailed and you couldn't but that [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > And it's getting smaller. Or didn't you read the article? Sure, but again - that has nothing to do with the cars not being more like what is on the dealer's lot. The sport grew the most during an era when the cars least resembled the consumer product. >> Getting NASCAR back to its roots will not end up in >> making it more successful. It will decrease the following. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > style"racing > attendance is increasing at tracks all over the country that engage in it. Been watching the economy lately Ted? > NASCAR got the attendance because the carmakers put money into it, > because when they were racing stock cars that were the same cars people > could buy, there was a tie-in. You watched a NASCAR race and when a > car won, all eyes were on the make and model. That translated into > increased > sales for the automaker who made the winner. Decades ago that was the cry. It's never even been demonstrated that it was really ever true. > When NASCAR dropped the use of real stock cars, it took people a while > to figure things out. Eventually they did but by then the tradition of [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > real stock > cars, and won't have enough interest to bother with NASCAR anymore. I think it would be good for people to again go to the local track on a Friday or Saturday night, but I'm not so certain you're going to see a huge growth there. It is not the type of action and draw that today's mind wants. It may see some rather small growth, but not hugely significant. Of course the top series will fall from its heights. That's to be expected. No organization can continue to grow, and all that do grow as NASCAR did over the past 15 years, are bound to decline at some point. There's really nothing surprising about that. I certainly would not associate it with the not-so-stock cars. People watching today just don't show that they care that much about that. Boring racing, NASCAR interference with how races run, etc.? Most certainly - I believe a large percentage of the fan base is tired of all of that. I believe that will have an impact on NASCAR ticket sales. It should. Signature-Mike- mmarlowREMOVE@alltel.net > I think it would be good for people to again go to the local track on a > Friday or Saturday night, but I'm not so certain you're going to see a huge [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > tired of all of that. I believe that will have an impact on NASCAR ticket > sales. It should. Well I don't see much of a future for NASCAR then. These sports are really dependent on some kind of grounding to the real world. It's why football and the NFL have lasting popularity. Obviously, just about every beer-bellied fan in the football stand would get creamed if they tried playing on the field with the football players that are down there - but the romance still exists where ordinary Joe Sixpacks can look at a football game and think "I could do that". And everyone knows someone they grew up with in High School that played professionally at least for a while. When NASCAR decoupled from that, it turned into a sport that no fan watching it could fantasize for a moment that they could ever have a chance of getting behind the wheel of a car like that. It reduced the sport to merely watching a bunch of prima-donnas play with each other. Ted > When NASCAR decoupled from that, it turned into a sport that > no fan watching it could fantasize for a moment that they could ever > have a chance of getting behind the wheel of a car like that. It > reduced the sport to merely watching a bunch of prima-donnas > play with each other. I don't know how much impact it will have on NASCAR Ted. Certainly, the old fans like us will continue to lose interest, die off, find other things more important to do with out time, etc. Some amount of the fan base will simply move on. Many will not be able to continue to afford the ever increasing costs to attend and support racing. And, many new fans will come along to fill in some of those holes. That's just the way it always works. The untouchable, prima-donna driver of today seems to fit more with the driver from other series, and time will tell what the total effect will be. I do believe it will drop off, but I've never believed it could continue its popularity of the past 10 years. Signature-Mike- mmarlowREMOVE@alltel.net > > When NASCAR decoupled from that, it turned into a sport that > > no fan watching it could fantasize for a moment that they could ever [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > move on. Many will not be able to continue to afford the ever increasing > costs to attend and support racing. That's fine, since the smaller series are ready and waiting to step in. The entire racing business is going to be in for a shock pretty soon anyhow. The days of the gasoline powered auto are on the wane and there isn't enough Ethanol in the world to replace gas. We are going to see electric become the order of the day, and that will drive battery technology. I predict with 50 years your going to see batteries that have higher energy density than a gallon of ethanol or of hi-test gas, or AV fuel or any of that. It will eventually be possible to build an electric racecar that drives and accellerates faster than a piston engine car. And without the emissions restrictions, it will be again possible to build these in your garage for street operation. Once we see an electric car beat the pants off an alky-fueled stock car, that is licensable on the street, you may see the sport move back to what it was in the 60's. > And, many new fans will come along to > fill in some of those holes. That remains to be seen with Indy racing, aka open wheel racing. There hasn't been a sport that has undergone such a fundamental change that has survived intact. They still play Baseball the way they did 100 years ago. Ted > The entire racing business is going to be in for a shock pretty soon > anyhow. The days of the gasoline powered auto are on the wane and > there isn't enough Ethanol in the world to replace gas. We are going to > see electric become the order of the day, and that will drive battery > technology. Well, one thing is for certain - when they do, someone is going to tweak the hell out of that mother to make it go faster... And in that way, it will all begin. Signature-Mike- mmarlowREMOVE@alltel.net Not sure what you mean about "configuration".... Used to be you could order up a "wannabe".... Plymouth Superbird, Charger Daytona, Torino Talladega, Mercury Cyclone.... an old mans fading memory keeps me from listing others... Boss302 for the TransAm kinda stuff.... it was all there... Pre 1973, the dealerships were a horsepower oyster.... A pearl to be had if you looked close.... factory dual quads on a street car... "tri-power" was a GM term for Dodges "six pack". (whoops... that's vice-versa). "Here come dah judge" - I think it was Sammy Davis Jr. that used to utter this line on "Laugh In" and Pontiac cashed in on it with the GTO Judge... Not a strictly NASCAR thing, but in the same league... Used to be that NASCAR (and other race bodies) would require a body style to be "homolgated" (Gran Turismo 'OMOLOGATO" comes to mind) . Homolgation means that a certain number of a nonstandard body style had to be produced and offered for sale to the public before that body style could compete. For Nascar, this was (IIRC) 500 units.... We (my loving bride and I) used to watch NASCAR back when NASCAR wasn't cool... Brutal cubic inches in stock framed cars with tacked on roll cages was the norm.... It is still fun to watch the races (more like a chess game now, though, rather than the hard charging days of Glenn Roberts, Marty Robbins and Lee Petty... f.ck - a lot of you young guys can't tell the difference between Leroy Yarbrough and Cale Yarborough. In modern times..... NASCAR is treading a thin line.... It is no longer about "racin'"... It is about "big bidness".... It's still fun to watch if you know what to watch for.... And I'm still watching for a two door Taurus. >> The cars today have nothing in common with current stock cars. Years >> ago you could walk into a car dealership, plunk down your money, and [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > would be a bad thing, but taking it back twenty or thirty years certainly > is not going to make it more successful. > Not sure what you mean about "configuration".... Used to be you could > order up a "wannabe".... Plymouth Superbird, Charger Daytona, Torino [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > "tri-power" was a GM term for Dodges "six pack". (whoops... that's > vice-versa). If you believe you could order up the car that was run on Sundays, then fine, but if you took one of those dealer cars to Daytona and tried to compete, you'd have been left at the back of the pack. Yeah - they sold HP back then, and they sold racing inspired options, but the cars you saw at Daytona were not dealer option packages. > "Here come dah judge" - I think it was Sammy Davis Jr. that used to utter > this line on "Laugh In" and Pontiac cashed in on it with the GTO Judge... > Not a strictly NASCAR thing, but in the same league... How does that have anything to do with anything? I remember Sammy doing that spot well, as well as the song from that time. I hope you do not believe that Judge was the car you saw on Sunday afternoons. > Used to be that NASCAR (and other race bodies) would require a body style > to be "homolgated" (Gran Turismo 'OMOLOGATO" comes to mind) . Homolgation > means that a certain number of a nonstandard body style had to be produced > and offered for sale to the public before that body style could compete. > For Nascar, this was (IIRC) 500 units.... Again - you are stating things that are common knowledge, but have nothing to do with the points under discussion. In most cases, you could not get your hands on those 500 parts, or cars. To make it even more emphatic, those cars are not what you saw going round and round at Daytona. > We (my loving bride and I) used to watch NASCAR back when NASCAR wasn't > cool... Brutal cubic inches in stock framed cars with tacked on roll cages > was the norm.... It is still fun to watch the races (more like a chess > game now, though, rather than the hard charging days of Glenn Roberts, > Marty Robbins and Lee Petty... f.ck - a lot of you young guys can't tell > the difference between Leroy Yarbrough and Cale Yarborough. You young guys? I watched those same races you did. I remember all of those same cars. The notion of teams going to the dealer's lot and buying a car, pulling out a seat, installing a roll bar and racing to the win is a romantization of what happen back then. If you believe Cale or any of those other drivers simply drove around in that car from the dealer's lot then I have a bridge to sell you. > In modern times..... NASCAR is treading a thin line.... It is no longer > about "racin'"... It is about "big bidness".... It's still fun to watch if > you know what to watch for.... And I'm still watching for a two door > Taurus. Of course it has become big business. Many have bemoaned that for years now. That does not change the facts though. As I stated, in spite of all of the decisions many of us may not have liked from NASCAR, it grew more in the past 10 years than it ever has. I have not taken a stand of defending NASCAR's decisions over the past 10 years or so, I simply challenged the often proposed notion that if they went back to showroom cars, popularity would increase. It has already been proven otherwise. Despite the deal only identification of cars, the sport grew more over recent years, than ever in its history. Signature-Mike- mmarlowREMOVE@alltel.net > difference between Leroy Yarbrough and Cale Yarborough. Heck many can't tell the difference between Leroy, Cale, and GLEN Yarborough. |
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