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"Tailgating" on platforms atop pickups is unique to NASCAR (above, left).
Kyle Petty memorabilia on sale at the 1998 Winston Cup Series MBNA Gold
400 race at the Dover Downs International Speedway in Delaware (above, right).
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Fans--such as Renee Randall at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama--who
proudly display corporate imagery, aren't only found south of the Mason-Dixon
Line anymore. Actual racing jackets are popular inner-city wear, and urban
companies like PhatFarm produce their own versions.
Photos: Top, Megan Doyle; Bottom, Julie Hunter/AP Photo Archive
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From shirts and caps to Hot Wheels/Mattel toys and collector models, NASCAR
auto designs show up on all sorts of products. Several states have even
licensed the names and images of drivers for their lottery tickets. "What's
the most unusual licensed product I've seen?" Rodway asks. "The
question is, what haven't I seen? The bobble-head dolls were big this year.
The latest is fuzzy dice."
The NASCAR Cafés in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Orlando, Florida;
Las Vegas; and Sevierville, Tennessee apply the theme-restaurant approach
to auto racing. The booths are called "pits"; the menu runs to
such items as "o ring" onion rings, Darrell Waltrip steaks, and
oilcan-shaped soda containers. Although all repeat the basic franchise-style
format, the most elaborate café is in Las Vegas, where gamblers play
electronic card games beneath a race car suspended from the rafters.
Stock-car racing was originally founded to show off the engineering prowess
of American cars sold for the street. "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday,"
was the unofficial motto, but it wasn't long before any resemblance
between race and dealer car became superficial. The break became complete
in the 1980s when the dominant technology of American passenger cars shifted
to front-wheel drive. NASCAR remained rear-wheel drive. Today the shells
of NASCAR Tauruses or Monte Carlos are strictly cosmetic, with painted-on
headlights and grilles to suggest the production models they're based on.
NASCAR was born in 1947 as a scruffy sport with crew-cut drivers in open
cars, the inspiration of founding father Bill France Sr., who came up with
the idea of taking cars off dealer floors and racing them with only
minor modifications. It was a radical departure from building cars
specifically for racing, but the manufacturers gradually came around
to the idea that NASCAR could sell Chevrolets and Dodges.
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The national franchise of cafés features photos and iconography
like this wax figure of Richard Petty (above, right). At the NASCAR
Café in Las Vegas (above, left and below), customers gamble
beneath a ceiling-hung racecar.
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Photos: Courtesy NASCAR
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NASCAR is owned by the France family. They also operate International Speedway
Corporation, which runs 11 major NASCAR tracks nationwide, from Daytona
Beach to Watkins Glen, New York, to Fontana, California. Its competitor,
Speedway Motorsports, operates six major tracks, from Charlotte, North Carolina,
to Fort Worth, Texas, to the San Francisco Bay Area. Car manufacturers provide
funding and equipment, but do not directly operate the cars. The key unit
is the racing team, a combination of engineers, drivers, and pit crew that
usually fields several cars. Enlisting advertising sponsors, the established
teams spend millions on three or four drivers, each with a major corporate
sponsor's name blazoned across the hood. But fan loyalty is to driver, not
team or brand.
Drivers' personality images are important and exaggerated into almost cartoon
simplicity. Earnhardt was famous as the "Intimidator" and stood
in contrast to the handsome Jeff Gordon, who won the championship last year
for the fourth time. In the new suburban NASCAR, Gordon is the JC man of
the year--the nice young man you can take everywhere. In the South almost
everyone declares a favorite driver as one picks a baseball team elsewhere.
Mark Martin is a fan favorite, an affable hardworking driver who is also
a perennial runner-up. A dogged competitor who works out with weights to
enhance his endurance, he may be the Brooklyn Dodgers of NASCAR--wait till
next year.
Martin's shift in sponsorship, for a reported $14 million a year, from Valvoline
to Pfizer's Viagra, may have been the most important event in NASCAR's
mainstreaming. Overshadowed by Earnhardt's death, Martin's switch was accompanied
by a widely seen commercial, which began with the number-six Viagra race
car dashing around the course and pulling to a stop. The helmeted driver
emerges, marches coolly toward the camera, and takes off his helmet. "Who
did you expect," Martin says, "Bob Dole?"
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A Mark Martin lighter (above) and wind chimes (right).
Photos: Annie Schlechter
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For the first time in many years Martin did not win a race last year
and there were track-side jokes about his "stiffer suspension,"
but the Viagra car was a hit. Still, nothing in the surrealistic history
of NASCAR could prepare one for the image of good old boys going into bars
wearing caps boldly marked with the blue Viagra name intertwined with the
number six.
At AJ's Diecast NASCAR Collectibles, in Wanaque, New Jersey, proprietor
Jim Sandford is asked how sales of the hats, license-plate frames, models,
and other items in the Viagra/Martin livery are going. "Not too well,"
he says. "He didn't have such a good year. Didn't win." The Viagra
car hints at a new motto for NASCAR: Win on Sunday, sell merchandise on
Monday.
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