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NASCAR kicks the habit

Racing and tobacco have long been synonymous. But times change. As Winston fades, Nicorette steps up.

HAMPTON, Ga. - Roger Parkinson remembers those heady days well, when the next cigarette virtually was lit with the smoldering remains of the previous. Cartons of smokes flew from the Winston truck like care packages, and working the garages in NASCAR's top series was a blur of gas fumes and nicotine buzz.

At 50, starting to put on a little weight and too winded to do anything about it in the gym, the 21-year NASCAR veteran knew it was time to quit. NASCAR itself had kicked its smoking habit on a corporate level after three decades when cellular carrier Nextel replaced Winston as the title sponsor of its top series.

Reflecting a social change more than two years later, the hundreds of people who work in the garage are becoming increasingly smoke-free, too. Where once the mechanic with an ever-lengthening gray ash drooping from his cigarette was a common sight, there is now nicotine gum.

"I remember people smoking in the pits, even with the gas being in there," Parkinson said. "Everybody smoked. If they didn't smoke, they chewed."

Seizing on the climate and clear air, Nicorette wedged itself into a new niche market by taking its quit-smoking technique to NASCAR's teams - and through them, it hopes, to the fans. So convinced is the company that NASCAR is the proper vehicle to reach a fan base that research shows is especially addicted to cigarettes, the company paid well into six figures to sponsor today's Busch Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

"I doubt we could have done this with Winston as a title sponsor," said Steve Kapur, manager for the brand's NASCAR programs. "But I think NASCAR was and would have been appropriately loyal to their title sponsor. I think there's nothing wrong with that. That's something I can definitely understand. But, on the other hand, times change."

Winston routinely meted out five or six cartons of cigarettes to every team on a typical weekend, Parkinson said, "whatever brand you wanted," and they were so readily available that teams often found alternative uses without worrying about their nicotine fix.

"I remember people taking cigarettes and breaking the filter and using the filters for ear plugs," Parkinson said, laughing. "They weren't burning, but they tore them off and used them as ear plugs before they starting using ear plugs."

In a time when the Marlboro Man was the iconic macho smoker, race car drivers and their pit crews were perfect pitchmen just by indulging their habit for all to see during races.

"Winston very astutely, I think, used these guys as models for people to smoke and now they've got a wonderful opportunity to be role models for people to stop smoking," Kapur said. "A number of the guys I've talked to take this responsibility very seriously. They know that the fans watch them. The fans don't just watch the drivers. NASCAR is a sport of people connecting with people, so very often the Jeff Gordon fan knows the name of the guy who changes the front tires on his car. He knows whether he is married or has kids. They are minor celebrities."

A pit-road encounter in July at Sonoma, Calif., before the national anthem between Kapur and Les Huntley, then gas-man for Casey Mears, soon provided the impetus for a program that this year is proactively reaching out to NASCAR employees to help them quit the habit.

"This big fellow came up and grabbed my arm and said, "Steve, you got to help me,' " Kapur recalled. "And I said, "Oh, my gosh, what can I do?' and he said, "You've got to help me stop smoking. I've got Nicorette on the front of my shirt here and I can't stop smoking."

Kapur devised a program with Frank Vitale, a University of Pittsburgh employee who certifies smoking cessation counselors. Kapur took the program back to Ganassi Racing last year, where 16 people (including Parkinson and Huntley) enrolled and have stayed smoke-free. The program was made available to Hendrick Motorsports (46 signed up) and Petty Enterprises (20 more) with more shops calling every day, Kapur said. Nicorette is soon set to begin a serieswide program that teams are encouraging because healthier employees are easier employees.

Changes in personal views on health thinned the amount of smokers in the garage - as it has in society where from 1993 to 2004 the percentage of heavy smokers declined from 19.1 percent to 12.1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - even before Nicorette launched its program by becoming an official NASCAR sponsor in 2005 and an associate sponsor with Chip Ganassi racing. Still, research has suggested that there is a market to exploit with NASCAR fans. According to Simmons Market Research, NASCAR fans are 28 percent more likely to smoke than other adults, and 18 percent more likely than fans of any other major sport. The company will conduct on-site counseling at Atlanta.

And NASCAR understood when Winston left that their relationship, though key in raising the sport to major league status, was no longer mutually beneficial.

"It became especially evident in the last couple of years it was going to be very difficult to defend tobacco, even though tobacco to this day is a legal product," said NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter.

No drivers in the image-conscious Nextel Cup series smoke - at least not publicly, like former driver Dick Trickle or Curtis Turner, who would flick ashes out the window as he passed other cars during races. Hunter and Cup series director John Darby are among the last high-profile holdouts. A bobblehead likeness of Hunter distributed on the NASCAR media tour shows him holding a cigarette.

Darby, who oversees the minute-by-minute operation on race weekends, keeps his smokes tucked in a drawer in his office in the NASCAR hauler and rarely indulges in public.

But his raspy voice gives him away.