Word: nascar
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Along with winning his second straight Coca-Cola 600, which now rivals the previously unassailable Indy 500 for attention, Gordon is not only driving himself into a broader marketplace, but he is also taking NASCAR with him. They are like drafting partners, the racing strategy in which two cars driving bumper to bumper together can go faster than either individually. In the 50 years since NASCAR, the popular acronym for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, crawled from the beaches of Daytona, Fla., and dirt tracks of the Southeast, it has evolved into a national draw...
Boom defines NASCAR. More than 5.8 million fans attended the 32 Winston Cup races last year, up 66% since 1990; an additional 160 million watched on five broadcast and cable-television networks. NASCAR's TV ratings regularly beat professional basketball, baseball and hockey and are second only to the NFL in major league sports. "The real value that is going up," says Brian France, grandson of NASCAR's founder Bill France and the organization's senior vice president of marketing, "is the amount of media that companies are willing to dedicate to NASCAR. Five years ago, they didn't think...
Pepsi, a longtime NASCAR sponsor, has in fact redirected its race against Coke by hitching its wagon to Gordon, hoping it can emulate his ability to win coming from behind. "They said all the right things," notes Gordon of the Pepsi switch. "They've really got behind me and done exactly what they said they were going to do." After ceding its "official soft drink of NASCAR" status to Coke this year, the company has essentially said, We'll take Gordon, you take the rest. "He's an exciting new-generation athlete who matches up with Pepsi's personality," effuses...
That's all the marketers need to hear. Notes Charlotte's Wheeler, who has seen all of NASCAR's 50 years: "He's got the potential of doing what athletes like Palmer and Ali, Joe Namath and Babe Ruth and DiMaggio did, and that is to transcend the sport they're in." At 200 m.p.h., that may be especially easy...
Bowers has lived for years in a black neighborhood on the poor side of the railroad tracks in Laurel. He runs a pinball and vending-machine company called Sambo Amusement. He loves NASCAR racing and cars in general and drives two classic baby-blue Ford Falcons. He attends the mainstream Hillcrest Baptist Church, where he has taught Sunday school. He gives generously to the poor, including a family who recently asked the church for children's clothing. "What you see on the news and what you see in the church are totally different," says former Hillcrest pastor Max Parker...