by richard teague tinynascars@yahoo.com
Talk about switching? When I was kid and I did something wrong or didn’t mind my Dad, he would go outside and break off a small limb of one of the big ligustrum bushes we had and then strip the leaves off and switch the fire out of me. That is one form of switching. Another is when you’re in the middle of a stream and you change horses, which everybody knows is a definite no-no. Those are just two kinds of switching that aren’t good for you, but when the villain gives you a glass with poison in it and you switch glasses with them, well that can be a good switch. In NASCAR over the past several months we have heard about drivers switching teams either by choice or by force and I’m still not sure how all that is going to turn out for next season, maybe good or maybe bad, we’ll just have to wait and see.
There seems to be another kind of switching going on this season and that is sponsors switching even more than last year. If NAPA and UPS didn’t prove to the big corporations how bad things can get when they make a car change I don’t know what will, guess they don’t learn from others. A sponsor sees they don’t get exposure on race day because the driver isn’t up front with the leaders or never in a victory lane so that sponsor tries to find a team that can put them there. Can you blame them for that? I don’t think so, especially when they fork out millions of dollars a year to only have the names wind up way back in the field? For the bucks they spend they should get some kind of return, don’t you think?
If a sponsor ain’t got their name on a top driver or team it seems fans don’t get to see it much on the track. TV networks don’t do an awful lot to show all the cars in a race. I mentioned before how when NASCAR made their big money deal with NBC, TNT and Fox the first few races of that inaugural season the network used graphics to hide the car’s sponsors that didn’t buy time for commercials with them. That had everybody from owners to crew members up in arms, but not NASCAR. They figured they had their bucks, let them do it the way they want. Even now NASCAR doesn’t give a rat’s behind about the team’s sponsors. You can see how they fought so hard with AT&T, again they had Nextel’s money in their bank and the heck with the team.
When NASCAR did finally work things out with Ma Bell it was only so that Richard Childress could have a year to find a new sponsor for Jeff Burton. I couldn’t believe that AT&T was back on the 31 car that next race. Then I found out that Nextel or Sprint (or whatever name they are this week) said it would be alright but their asses were out after 2008, gee thanks guys. I think now is the time to go back to my old acronym for The National Association of Stock Car Racing which for some unknown reason (even to me) I had stopped using. NA$CAR. I don’t understand why I am still a fan of NA$CAR when the main reason I quit caring about baseball, football and basketball was that there was just too much emphasis on the almighty dollar.
A few years back when I started doing this column I would complain about NA$CAR and the money deal and I would hear from fans on how they felt the same way. This last season, and so far this year, I have somewhat refrained from these views. So have the fans, or at least it appears that way. Perhaps NA$CAR will continue to get away with it. As of now, I am back on the bandwagon and spreading the word about how I feel and how my readers feel about the money-loving. It is doing dramatic harm to this sport I have enjoyed for so long. Dad burn it all, there is that dang word that I am sick of again: drama.
Now back to the switching of sponsors. We’re not talking about your little one or two race guys or the associate ones either, we’re talking about Budweiser, Coors, M & Ms and several more. These are the guys that have their name on the hood and side of the cars because they spend unfathomable amounts of dollars every week to have it there. First let’s look at Bud and see what the deal is. You know we will never know for sure why they aren’t at DEI anymore. Why didn’t they go with Junior to the 88 car when Gibbs Racing said that was the main reason they weren’t trying to get him with that team? Did Rick Hendrick have too many sponsors in his pocket and just tell them thanks but no thanks we don’t need y’all’s millions? I don’t think so.
Hey, as far as I am concerned Bud made the best deal in NA$CAR when they signed on with GEM and Kasey Kahne and the number 9 Bud car sure does look Great!! They couldn’t have got a better driver and as for GEM, well isn’t Ray Evernham back in racing now that the womanizing is over. You saw how Dodge said that they were happy to relinquish the 9 to Bud and save some bucks, and now with the UAW talks headed their way they need to save money everywhere they can. I’m kind of glad they left DEI and with Martin sharing the # 8, I don’t think he would have looked good in a Bud car, I always thought of him as a Miller Time guy myself, didn’t y’all? Whatever, look for good stuff from GEM, Ray, Kasey and Bud next season, I will be.
Coors Light switching was a non-shocker for me since they needed more talent than they were getting this season. The # 40 with Chip & Felix wasn’t a bad move. To go and give NA$$$CAR 20 million dollars to be “The Official Beer of NA$CAR” is just a little weird to me. Budweiser will continue to have the Bud Shootout, but that could change. Rumor is that Coors is going to DEI as the # 01 car’s sponsor. Just goes to show how sponsors want big name teams or close ties with NA$CAR to get their name up in lights and will spend long money to do it. The next question is weather they will really buy their way into the fan’s eyes and be the replacement in the NA$CAR Busch Series. Aw, go ahead and do it guys, it’s only money. It also only hurts for a minute or two (or five years0, what the heck?
Well there ain’t no way I can blame Mars US, which is one of my favorite sponsors (only because I lover their 3 musketeers and M&Ms – oh okay, all of their candy, but I can’t eat it anymore since the big D type 2 came along) for “switchin” to another team. To get a driver like Kyle Busch, what a deal? Then again the name is going to be on a Toyota, so it will be hard to see much of it on race day. Face it guys, the first year with Gibbs Racing when it’s their first year with Toyota ain’t going to be a pretty thing. Here again you have a sponsor that hasn’t been getting their money’s worth this season with (just Yates, not Robert anymore) Yates Racing and a mediocre driver in David Gilliland. I can’t blame them either.
Just one more switching and I’m done for this week. If a driver, sponsor or team change to another sponsor, team or car manufacturer, does a fan switch to another one of the above? Without some kind of national survey I can’t answer that one except from my own personal point of view. NO. Isn’t the point of being a fan that you like he or she no matter what the car, team or sponsor is? That’s me for now and if ya’ got comments you know how to make them. Like always, If it ain’t NA$CAR, It ain’t $**t!!
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