by richard teague tinynascars@yahoo.com
The “Big One.” No this ain’t about the 20 car pile up at Daytona or the one at Talladega, it’s about the “Big One” NASCAR is heading for in the next few weeks. I’m talking about last Friday when American Telephone and Telegraph, Inc. decided to take the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing in Atlanta to the U.S. District Court. Now we all know that the real Ma Bell is back with the buy out of BellSouth and Cingular, and don’t you know that ever since the break up of the company years ago, they have been planning for this re-organization of “The Family.” For y’all that don’t remember life before the government split them up, things where fairly simple back then. When you had a problem with your phone you called a number and it got fixed. Then “Big Brother” came in and said y’all got a Parker Brothers game and it’s not fair to the consumers.
So, for many years now, if there was a problem with a phone, you never knew who to call for help. And it got worse with cell phones. Well hopefully, now we can go back to the old ways with that one number. Even more hopefully, when AT&T gets finished with NASCAR, we can enjoy our sport more. I talked about how there is an “Official Sponsor of NASCAR” for just about everything you could possibly ever think of and how the France family is raking in the money just by letting this happen. Right here I want to ask a question, and maybe someone out there can answer this for me: When NASCAR signs up an “OSN” and gets a big check, does anyone else get a cut of the money? Do they share with the other track owners not affiliated with ISC or any of the teams?
Heck, I mean, doesn’t an OSN get to use the bragging rights at all the tracks and with any of the drivers, or are they limited to just NASCAR’s owned races and so forth? Do those sponsors really think that just because they are the OSN that you or I are going to stop buying the brand we do now and start purchasing their stuff? When Nextel became the lead sponsor I didn’t go get me a cell from them, I already had my AT&T and it gave me better service than any other company around, or at least I felt like it. All those years that Union was the gas provider, I didn’t run all over and try and find one of their gas stations. Heck, I ain’t seen one in years, have you? With Sunoco as the main gas people now, I still don’t burn it in my truck. And with Shell taking over for one of my drivers, I ain’t burned a drop yet, and probably never will. Give me the cheap stuff, please!
Back to Ma and NASCAR and their soon-to-be a major deal. Jim ‘Cat Fish’ Hunter says they don’t talk about legal matters while they’re on going, and it’s best they don’t, cause this stuff is going to hit the fan, and believe me they know it. Brian France may think they are too big to mess with, since they run the show for 36 weeks a year, but Bubbas & Bubba-ettes he don’t know what he’s got himself into if he thinks he can beat “Big Mama” in court. Funny thing is, like an old girlfriend of mine use to say, “hide and watch” and that’s what a bunch of companies are doing right now. Sure, NASCAR has had their little legal problems before, with the likes of Bruton Smith, and ya’ see how that went. (Now he’s ready for another race date at LVMS.) Poor little Kentucky Speedway hasn’t had many headlines lately, but about their law suit for another Cup race, we know just where that is going to go – nowhere.
So what if NASCAR signed a 700 million dollar deal with Nextel, didn’t Sprint say they might change the name next year? Well AT&T just wants too change the #31 car name this year. They feel so strongly about it that Brian has to spend some of the 700 million to keep that from happening. You might want to handle this like you did Robby Gordon in Atlanta last week. When you said no to his new sponsor for his Cup car, but then turned around and said “well OK, but you got to do it this way.” Nah, I don’t think that the Big Mother is going to settle for that, she is going to have her name all over that RCR car, and if she don’t, I’m afraid that she’ll drop Richard Childress Racing like a rock. Then what has NASCAR done for racing except kill a team? Can Richard find another multi-million dollar company to put on Jeff Burton’s car? Well, that would be a terrible thing for NASCAR to MAKE HAPPEN!
With all this starting Friday, I hear that Sunoco is thinking about taking Shell to court and making them take down all those Kevin Harvick banners they got hanging in their gas stations. All 15,000 of them. Are these people goofy or what? Weren’t they just pissing and moaning about the Daytona 500 and how big Kevin’s Shell was? Didn’t NASCAR come in and make them change things? And doesn’t Harvick’s new uniform debut with the COT this weekend? Just how much will Shell Oil Company put up with (or take off of NASCAR and Sun Oil Company) before they tell RCR, adiós? Why is this all happening to Richard just when it seemed that RCR was making things happen in their organization? Good things, very good things.
However this turns out for NASCAR and AT&T, it will be the start of a race that will have no caution flag waving. When Ma is finished, I think that more of the same is in store for Brian France. It is going to be something that could change the face of NASCAR for quite some time to come, and how they handle this “Official Sponsor” crap in the future might be an added factor for the teams and fans. Then again, it may be a real problem for team owners to find a sponsor to put up big bucks for a racecar knowing that NASCAR controls how their name is used on race day. I saw a joke the other day and I think I’ll pass it on here. I read that Victoria Secret and Smith & Wesson where merging and might sponsor a racecar together. The name on the hood would be “Titty Titty Bang Bang.” Now that’s a sponsor ain’t it?
Let me mention a couple of things here before I finish. The first is about the words: bite, more and chew. I’m referring to Michael Waltrip and his team’s problem getting into a race. Now Dale is about to use his last two provisional starts, and he ain’t quite in the top 35, so he’s got to make a race, and so far he hasn’t. Michael can’t get in one and, well the #00 car is another story, but the real deal here is that he’s got two big time sponsors that are really thinking about what they did. NAPA and UPS left two good teams to follow the spokesman for UPS and the Good Ole Boy Jeff Foxworthy Waltrip. Just how long can either of these companies rely on TV commercials during a race that costs plenty of dough, and still put long money into Michael Waltrip Racing’s cars? I wonder if any of Toyota’s top executives have been asked to get down on their knees and fall on a short sword over this deal.
One other little happening last week, and like I said before it happened, Mark Martin is taking a break and leaving while he’s on top and I am very happy for him. He is a driver that has raced so well for so long and came into this season with the deal he wanted from a team owner, unlike how he was treated at Roush Racing. I think that Jack Roush must have really beat him to death and made him feel so guilty about leaving so he could have Mark in that #6 car, just for sponsor’s sake. Mark, do what you want and enjoy it. When you race, I’ll enjoy seeing it even more, just like watching Ricky Rudd and that old guy from Dawsonville. Dang, I wish I could remember his name. Well that’s it folks, contact me: tinynascars@yahoo.com. If it ain’t NASCAR, It ain’t s**t!!
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