How to Woo NASCAR fans (Schneider)

American Enterprise Institute ^ | 12/12/03 | William Schneider

[bdeaner]

How to Woo NASCAR Fans

By William Schneider

Posted: Friday, December 12, 2003

ARTICLES

National Journal  

Publication Date: December 13, 2003

Stock car racing is a populist sport. That's the whole point. "When NASCAR was formed in 1948, there was a definite shortage of new cars in the postwar era," the association's Web site recalls. "The feeling was that race fans wouldn't stand for new cars being beat up on a race track while they were driving a rattle-trap prewar automobile." The tradition persists: Stock cars are standard-issue cars--Fords, Pontiacs--modified for racing. No Lamborghinis. The stereotype of the NASCAR fan is male, Southern, rural, blue collar--and Republican. The National Rifle Association advertises at NASCAR speedways for a reason. "NASCAR nation is NRA nation," says Wayne LaPierre, the association's executive vice president and CEO. Well, guess who's targeting those NASCAR dads? George W. Bush, of course. Last week, he welcomed a delegation of NASCAR drivers to the White House. But also targeting them is . . . Howard Dean? They appear to be the group Dean had in mind when he told the Democratic National Committee, "White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals in the back ought to be voting with us and not them." Are NASCAR fans really swing voters? Maybe. Steve Jarding, who managed Mark Warner's successful Democratic campaign for Virginia governor two years ago, says of the NASCAR constituency, "When you reach out and talk to them, they're very likely to say, 'You know, we thought we were Republican. But we're going to go with this guy now because he's talking our language, our culture.' " NASCAR claims 75 million fans. It's big in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles--not just Darlington, S.C. Polling conducted in September by the Tarrance Group (Republican) and Lake Snell Perry & Associates (Democratic) found 19 percent of voters identifying themselves as NASCAR fans. Forty percent of those fans are women, 20 percent are minorities, and 60 percent live outside the Southeast. They are more affluent than average Americans--42 percent earn between $40,000 and $100,000 a year. After all, tickets to NASCAR events cost between $40 and $100. In June, NASCAR announced a 10-year, roughly $750 million sponsorship deal with Nextel Communications to replace longtime sponsor R.J. Reynolds and Winston cigarettes. Next year, NASCAR's Winston Cup will become the Nextel Cup. Cellphones do not suggest the image of a tobacco-spitting redneck driving a pickup truck with a Confederate flag. NASCAR fans aren't downscale. They're middle Americans. With an obsession. "NASCAR is a way of life. It's a lifestyle," NASCAR President Mike Helton told the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sun-Sentinel. "Lifestyle" is a pretty '60s term. Jim Hunter, NASCAR's vice president for corporate communications, defends it. "It becomes a lifestyle because the fans are very loyal to whoever their favorite driver and team are," Hunter says. "They're very loyal to the sponsors of the cars. They live it week in and week out. They can't get enough." Researchers say that NASCAR fans are three times as likely as nonfans to buy products from companies that sponsor the sport. Buying the sponsors' products is the fans' way of showing loyalty to a car or driver, such as Dale Earnhardt, whose death in 2001 moved millions of Americans the way the loss of few athletes could. That kind of loyalty explains why dozens of Fortune 500 companies sponsor events and teams. It also explains why politicians like to link up with NASCAR fans. In 1971, Richard Nixon was the first president to invite a race car driver, Richard Petty, to the White House. In 1984, Ronald Reagan became the first president to attend a NASCAR race. The first President Bush attended Petty's final race at Daytona on July 4, 1992. What about Democrats? Mark Warner sponsored a NASCAR vehicle when he ran for governor in 2001. His campaign strategist, David "Mudcat" Saunders, saw it as the key to Warner's rural strategy. "Warner was from Connecticut!" Saunders declares. "Yet we were the first gubernatorial candidate or Senate Democratic candidate in a generation to carry rural Virginia." On the other hand, when candidate Bill Clinton showed up at a NASCAR race during the 1992 campaign, he was booed. Saunders maintains it had nothing to do with Clinton's politics. "These are religious people. But I tell you, you could bring Jesus himself out there, and if he started to give a speech at a NASCAR event . . . ," Saunders said, adding, "Bubba wants to see the race start." Democrats say they have an economic message for NASCAR fans, some of whom have lost their jobs during the Bush presidency. But to get NASCAR fans to listen, you have to show them that you respect their values. Especially their No. 1 value--patriotism. "You will find very few arenas in the country that are more patriotic than the Winston Cup races," Michigan Speedway President Brett Shelton told the Detroit News. "I think the patriotism that exists is the overriding characteristic of our sport." NASCAR is a daredevil sport. It's all about risk-taking and nerve. Not unlike President Bush's Iraq policy, and his tax cuts and his plans to remake Medicare and Social Security. Not necessarily reckless, but bold and nervy. "NASCAR fans feel like the president is one of them," Hunter said.

Democrats, on the other hand, have become the party of the safety net. At NASCAR events, there are no safety nets.

William Schneider is a resident fellow at AEI.

[bdeaner]

. . . when candidate Bill Clinton showed up at a NASCAR race during the 1992 campaign, he was booed.

LOL

[Batrachian]

"Stock cars are standard-issue cars--Fords, Pontiacs--modified for racing."

Bill Schneider should do better research. Stock cars are custom built racing machines that have nothing to do with "standard issue cars" except for their names. There isn't one single part on a stock car that came off of a production car, not even the paint.

Liberals from CNN talking about stock car racing is almost as ridiculous as expecting race fans to vote for Howard Dean.

[martin_fierro]

How to Woo NASCAR fans

"Hey, we're all about turning left!"

[org.whodat]

Stock cars are custom built racing machines that have nothing to do with "standard issue cars" except for their names.

Just a little hint, it is now called nascar and is no longer called stock car racing. Gm bought in and changed the rules because they could not win in the stock car game. But the writer was saying that at the start it was stock car and ford and dodge/plymouth ruled.

[hoot2]

2 outta 3 ain't bad...

[foreverfree]

Paragraphs are a FReeper's best friend.

foreverfree

[bdeaner]

Not sure what happened there. I copied and pasted the HTML, and even previewed the article -- but looks like something got changed, later, after I posted it.

[o_zarkman44]

Go fast, turn left! Politics and Nascar, a disaster for the candidate(s) who assume those fans are easy targets.

[tubebender]

Help needed...

[NormsRevenge]

woo hoo --- NASCAR has arrived.

William Schneider, pithy political analyst says so. BWAHAHAHAHA!

[185JHP]

The sight of that mug reminds me of his gleeful use of the word he used - "trifecta" on the night of infamy when the forces of media darkness tried to help Gore win. That said, I was thinking about NASCAR awhile back, and I thought of a good "marketing motto" NASCAR could use - "A Clean Sport For Clean People." Select every "nth" fan entering a NASCAR event and check them out for drugs and criminal records, and compare it with the results of checking out the other three biggest sports. Then check out drivers and other team members. Now, there is cheating - viz. Smokey Yunick's "No. 13" - but in general, it's the cleanest major sport. Not much wife-whacking, etc.

[Texas Eagle]

How to Woo NASCAR Fans Print Mail



By William Schneider
Posted: Friday, December 12, 2003

ARTICLES
National Journal
Publication Date: December 13, 2003

Stock car racing is a populist sport. That's the whole point. "When NASCAR was formed in 1948, there was a definite shortage of new cars in the postwar era," the association's Web site recalls. "The feeling was that race fans wouldn't stand for new cars being beat up on a race track while they were driving a rattle-trap prewar automobile." The tradition persists: Stock cars are standard-issue cars--Fords, Pontiacs--modified for racing. No Lamborghinis.

The stereotype of the NASCAR fan is male, Southern, rural, blue collar--and Republican. The National Rifle Association advertises at NASCAR speedways for a reason. "NASCAR nation is NRA nation," says Wayne LaPierre, the association's executive vice president and CEO.

Well, guess who's targeting those NASCAR dads? George W. Bush, of course. Last week, he welcomed a delegation of NASCAR drivers to the White House. But also targeting them is . . . Howard Dean? They appear to be the group Dean had in mind when he told the Democratic National Committee, "White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals in the back ought to be voting with us and not them."

Are NASCAR fans really swing voters? Maybe. Steve Jarding, who managed Mark Warner's successful Democratic campaign for Virginia governor two years ago, says of the NASCAR constituency, "When you reach out and talk to them, they're very likely to say, 'You know, we thought we were Republican. But we're going to go with this guy now because he's talking our language, our culture.' "

NASCAR claims 75 million fans. It's big in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles--not just Darlington, S.C. Polling conducted in September by the Tarrance Group (Republican) and Lake Snell Perry & Associates (Democratic) found 19 percent of voters identifying themselves as NASCAR fans. Forty percent of those fans are women, 20 percent are minorities, and 60 percent live outside the Southeast. They are more affluent than average Americans--42 percent earn between $40,000 and $100,000 a year. After all, tickets to NASCAR events cost between $40 and $100.

In June, NASCAR announced a 10-year, roughly $750 million sponsorship deal with Nextel Communications to replace longtime sponsor R.J. Reynolds and Winston cigarettes. Next year, NASCAR's Winston Cup will become the Nextel Cup. Cellphones do not suggest the image of a tobacco-spitting redneck driving a pickup truck with a Confederate flag.

NASCAR fans aren't downscale. They're middle Americans. With an obsession. "NASCAR is a way of life. It's a lifestyle," NASCAR President Mike Helton told the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sun-Sentinel. "Lifestyle" is a pretty '60s term. Jim Hunter, NASCAR's vice president for corporate communications, defends it. "It becomes a lifestyle because the fans are very loyal to whoever their favorite driver and team are," Hunter says. "They're very loyal to the sponsors of the cars. They live it week in and week out. They can't get enough."

Researchers say that NASCAR fans are three times as likely as nonfans to buy products from companies that sponsor the sport. Buying the sponsors' products is the fans' way of showing loyalty to a car or driver, such as Dale Earnhardt, whose death in 2001 moved millions of Americans the way the loss of few athletes could. That kind of loyalty explains why dozens of Fortune 500 companies sponsor events and teams.

It also explains why politicians like to link up with NASCAR fans. In 1971, Richard Nixon was the first president to invite a race car driver, Richard Petty, to the White House. In 1984, Ronald Reagan became the first president to attend a NASCAR race. The first President Bush attended Petty's final race at Daytona on July 4, 1992.

What about Democrats? Mark Warner sponsored a NASCAR vehicle when he ran for governor in 2001. His campaign strategist, David "Mudcat" Saunders, saw it as the key to Warner's rural strategy. "Warner was from Connecticut!" Saunders declares. "Yet we were the first gubernatorial candidate or Senate Democratic candidate in a generation to carry rural Virginia."

On the other hand, when candidate Bill Clinton showed up at a NASCAR race during the 1992 campaign, he was booed. Saunders maintains it had nothing to do with Clinton's politics. "These are religious people. But I tell you, you could bring Jesus himself out there, and if he started to give a speech at a NASCAR event . . . ," Saunders said, adding, "Bubba wants to see the race start."

Democrats say they have an economic message for NASCAR fans, some of whom have lost their jobs during the Bush presidency. But to get NASCAR fans to listen, you have to show them that you respect their values. Especially their No. 1 value--patriotism. "You will find very few arenas in the country that are more patriotic than the Winston Cup races," Michigan Speedway President Brett Shelton told the Detroit News. "I think the patriotism that exists is the overriding characteristic of our sport."

NASCAR is a daredevil sport. It's all about risk-taking and nerve. Not unlike President Bush's Iraq policy, and his tax cuts and his plans to remake Medicare and Social Security. Not necessarily reckless, but bold and nervy. "NASCAR fans feel like the president is one of them," Hunter said.

Democrats, on the other hand, have become the party of the safety net. At NASCAR events, there are no safety nets.

William Schneider is a resident fellow at AEI.

[Texas Eagle]

"These are religious people. But I tell you, you could bring Jesus himself out there, and if he started to give a speech at a NASCAR event . . . ," Saunders said, adding, "Bubba wants to see the race start."

An utterly stupid statement but it brings up an interesting point about NASCAR. It is the only big-time professional sport that begins every event with a prayer.

And they don't invoke the name of Allah.

[vpintheak]

I guess the rats are screwed, no patriotism found there, only their false interpretation of it, to put it politely.

[Batrachian]

Hint for you: The writer is saying that they are currently based on production cars, and while NASCAR (which stands for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) is the organization, the cars are still called "stock cars".

It is especially ridiculous of Bill Schneider, who is obviously no race fan, because while almost all forms of auto racing began with production cars, none of them, at the higher levels, still use them. F1, Indy, drag racing have all long since moved past using production cars as the basis for their race cars. At least, as I say, at the higher levels. Rally racing is one exception, but I doubt Bill Schneider has ever heard of it, and would be horrified by the "damage to the environment" that it causes, so we'd better not tell him.

[Wil H]

The engine blocks used in NASCAR do start out life on the factory line and can only be modified within the rules set out by NASCAR.

[Batrachian]

The engine blocks aren't the same as what is used in production cars. They are special blocks from the factory race operations. Same for the cylinder heads. Everything else is pure custom, mostly built in race shops in North Carolina and Michigan.

[painter]

"There isn't one single part on a stock car that came off of a production car, not even the paint."

I beg to differ! You are getting into teritory I know something about.Most of the outside sheetmetal is exactly the same as the car it represents.You can take a hood of a brand new Ford Taurus and it will fit anyone of Jack Roush's team cars.To use it all you would have to do is cut out the under hood support weld tabs on the sides in the back for hinges and drill holes in the front for the hood pins,paint to match the car and you are good to go.The same for the top and trunk lid(you have to add a spoiller to it).

I own a specialty auto body shop and several years ago I repainted one of Bill Elliot's 87/88 T-Bird stock cars and it needed a new hood.I bought a new Ford replacement cut out the supports added tabs drilled the holes and it fitted right in place.This was in 1996 that I repainted the car.

[sausageseller]

Not any more. They have went to a standard "spec" body for all cars.

[sausageseller]

They being NASCAR.