NASCAR Bubbas

November 22, 2002

From the Indianapolis Star

Don't buy Bubba image; NASCAR's savvy about selling

November 18, 2002

MIAMI -- Yee haw, Bubba, we got all 'em other sports plum fooled. They keep thinkin' we a buncha Southern-fried rednecks, cashin' all these fat checks with Jack Daniels on our breath, Confederate flags on our trucks and country music on our minds. Funny, ain't it? That they think we're the dumb ones? Because we in racin' are a whole lotta things, but Lord knows we ain't ever slow.

You go ahead and keep thinkin' the face of racin' has a one-tooth smile, speaks through a slur and spits chaw. Truth is, it looks a helluva lot more like a smilin' Jeff Gordon, corporate and polished, and with a team of handlers. Every driver, every engine, every sponsor had at least one PR person shillin' in Homestead, Fla., this weekend, and those people ain't got an ounce of hick in 'em.

You think it's funny our concession stands were selling cigarettes? It's only because we're using a huge pool of tobacco-industry sponsorship money other sports ain't even touchin'. We encourage smokin' at the track, except near the fuel, where only the tires are allowed to smoke.

Backward? Whatever. You keep thinkin' we're white trash because some of us drive our homes. Yeah, hundreds and hundreds of RVs were parked around the racetrack Saturday, but those RVs pack up and follow us, the lives inside them literally revolving around our sport. You think Pat Riley wouldn't want a following like that for his Heat? The Marlins, with their crowds, could play in an RV.

Beer don't stop flowin' in the fourth quarter here, either, not when Anheuser-Busch just reupped as sponsor through 2007. The beer is given to fans from taps actually stuck in the side of beer trucks.

Money flows into our sport like fuel flows into those cars. That's why there was a large space reserved near the track Saturday for the rich folks to land their helicopters.

But let them other sports laugh at us from on high, in their corporate skyboxes, when we put "Viagra" on that Ford in real big letters. And let 'em keep thinkin' we're busy polishin' our guns, drinkin' our Bud and thinkin' of new bumper-sticker slogans. Maybe they won't notice we're stealing their fans, one by one. And their wallets, too.

Because there ain't nothin' in sports bigger now, Bubba. Football and basketball and baseball and hockey are trying to figure out how to bring up TV ratings, but ours keep rocketin' up faster than that Viagra car. Helps, too, that we have Tony Stewart, the charming, insane punk who is the most polarizing figure in this sport since we buried Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s daddy.

We sell out tracks all over the country, get televised on all the networks and fill even toy stores with our products.

You could see it for yourself this weekend. Right there next to that expensive, empty stadium where baseball couldn't make it go because it was supposed to be too far from civilization fans keep coming from all over wearin' T-shirts with their favorite drivers on them. There were more than 70,000 of them here Sunday, here in football country, on a day the first-place Dolphins needed a TV station to buy tickets so they could sell out.

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Le Batard writes for The Miami Herald.