Could a NASCAR sponsorship be the vehicle for a candidate to win the presidential race? The idea raises red flags.
By BRANT JAMES
Published December 15, 2003
Michael Waltrip is a walking, talking billboard.
Like his peers in NASCAR's top stock car racing series, he is associated with the products that adorn his blue-and-yellow fire suit and similarly festooned No. 15 Chevrolet. The auto parts retailer, furniture outlet and pizza delivery chain that help form the sponsorship package that fuels his team and forms the gaudy collage on his uniform are Michael Waltrip.
It is no secret that NASCAR drivers have the power to sell.
Performance Research, a sports-advertising research firm, claims that 71 percent of NASCAR fans - studies show there are 75-million of them - patronize companies that sponsor NASCAR teams over those that do not.
So 11 months from the presidential election, these high-velocity pitchmen could be asked to sell a politician, a Democrat more specifically, as that party tries to crack into a Southern belt that has been a Republican bastion.
It's not a new idea. Democratic operative David "Mudcat" Saunders helped multimillionaire suburbanite Mark Warner connect with the rural electorate and win the Virginia governor's office with the help of a NASCAR sponsorship.
Florida Sen. Bob Graham spent about $200,000 to sponsor Jon Woods' Ford in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series this year. Although Woods was successful, winning his first race under the sponsorship in Kansas, the presidential candidate went behind the wall more than a year from the finish line.
Many saw that as money wasted. But what if a charismatic, successful Southern driver was offered a monstrous sum of money to plant Democratic front-runner Howard Dean's face on his hood for the Daytona 500? Would that be enough to connect Dean with Southern voters?
If "NASCAR dads," the middle-class, white rural men who have become the target demographic for political strategists this campaign, are to be sold on presidential candidates such as Dean, Gen. Wesley Clark or Al Sharpton, could there be any better salesmen than drivers like Waltrip?
That's where ideology makes things interesting. Car parts, pull-out couches and pizza are one thing, but in a sport whose drivers reflect its base's conservative Southern views, many say there is no amount of money that would convince them to make a drive for a liberal New Englander like Dean.
"I would not do it," Waltrip said. "It would be like me having NAPA on my car and shopping at another auto parts store. That's not cool.
"If George Bush came to me and wanted to give me $5-million in order to do that, I'd jump up and down because then I'd get to talk about someone I truly admire and respect and love and at the same time convince other people he would be the man."
Of the 18 regular Winston Cup drivers registered to vote in states that disclose party affiliation 14 are Republican, three (Jimmie Johnson, Todd Bodine and Kevin LePage) non-declared and one (Mark Martin) independent.
Dean for America representatives did not return calls to the Times about the possibility of sponsoring a team.
Kurt Busch, a registered Republican who is "pretty conservative on most things," thinks teams should consider their legacy.
"You can't put yourself in a position where you could be hurting the longevity of the (car) number or the team itself," he said, "because he's only going to be running for president for so long."
Waltrip and Busch admit they are in a privileged position. Fully funded in a sport in which about $20-million is needed annually to run a competitive team, they can afford to be opinionated.
If Gus Larkin had something to say to the Dean campaign it would be this: "Call me."
As program manager for BAM Racing, a one-car Nextel Cup outfit owned and fully funded until now by Beth Ann and Tony Morgenthau, he is responsible for finding a primary sponsor for Ken Schrader's No. 49 Dodge. So far, Larkin has no takers, and the Morgenthaus have expressed an unwillingness to provide the roughly $10-million needed to keep the car on the track.
If Dean's or anyone else's check cashes, Larkin said, they can have themselves a race car.
"We would definitely entertain it," he said. "We'd treat it as a sponsorship and afford all the privileges that come with it. You're buying real estate in a race."
Affable and salty-tongued, Schrader would be an interesting choice as a liaison between a candidate and an electorate Dean called "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
"We are an emerging program and Kenny is a racer," Larkin said. "He knows the importance of having a full-time sponsor. I think you kind of look at it and say that you're a Republican off the track but part of your job is to keep the lights on at the shop."
