CASCAR's date with destiny
I was ready to write off the phrase "It's time for CASCAR" as so
much PR mumbo jumbo, but after hearing speaker after speaker, after
talking to drivers, after seeing the cars and taking the pictures, I
came away convinced that for once, the PR people might be
right&emdash;that CASCAR's time has finally come.
It's certainly CASCAR's time if it's following the same trend that
NASCAR set in the States; down south, after a relatively long period
in the background, it has surged forward, becoming the number-one
sport, period, in all of the country&emdash;bigger than basketball,
bigger than baseball, bigger even than professional football. Forget
the million-dollar commercial spots during the Super Bowl or the
incredibly hyped halftime shows; cars, drives, and engines surpass
all of them and then some, with the amount of money they rake in.
CASCAR, the brainchild of league founder Tony Novotny, has been
around for sixteen years now, but has only achieved any kind of
momentum in the past seven or eight; its growth curve, after years of
modest, almost flat, increases, has finally reached the point where
it is starting to climb exponentially. In 1990, after the Exhibition
Stadium race in Toronto, the league doubled its number of driver
registrations, then promptly appeared in Florida, its SuperSeries
coinciding with the Daytona 500 weekend. After that came CASCAR west,
the expansion into Canada's western provinces; and now comes the
Castrol SuperSeries, with Castrol getting involved nationwide to
promote the series, hoping to bring it into everyone's
conscience&emdash;not just those of auto enthusiasts.
And from all indications,they've done their
homework&emdash;stock-car racing in general, and CASCAR specifically,
are poised to make a major impact on Canada's sports scene. And
they're going to change it radically.
Most of the sport's appeal lies in the fact that it's real; real
in the sense of its cars, its people, and its attitude; Novotny and
Castrol are counting on this reality, this link to Canada and its
people, to make the impact that they're predicting.
Take real cars, for instance. While the cars circling racetracks
at two hundred klicks might share only a few parts in common with the
cars coming off the assembly line with the same name, the rules do
stipulate that their profiles and body openings must be the same.
High-performance engines, unmuffled exhausts, and fat tires
notwithstanding, the Monte Carlos, Avengers and Thunderbirds are cars
that look like they can be driven off any dealer's lot&emdash;by
anybody. Unlike Formula 1 or Indycar racing, which distance
themselves from "our" automotive reality, stock cars bring the sport
closer to its fans, not farther away.
Real people, too; they're not the high-strung, intense and
overwrought prima donnas that are typical of other, more esoteric,
racing series. But they're not ignorant, boorish rednecks
either&emdash;they're local, but they're pros, with articulated
speech and more automotive knowledge than you or I could probably
ever amass in a lifetime. Drivers like Dan Shirtliff, D.J. Kennington
and Kelly Williams really are the people next door, local heroes who
have worked hard, made their dreams come true. And they don't make
millions of dollars a year; they have jobs&emdash;ne of the drivers
owns the auto parts store whose decals cover his race
car&emdash;families, and desires like the rest of us. (Even the
prizes for the winners are close to home&emdash;a Dodge Dualie pickup
goes to the national champion.)
These real people also help to bring the sport close to the
community that it serves; CASCAR is heavily involved with Big
Brothers and Big Sisters in every community it races in; so not only
does CASCAR come into a community where it races, it becomes part of
it&emdash;a good deal both in terms of money (stock-car racing fans
are among the most loyal of any sport) and in terms of public
relations; and they do a lot of good in the process. It's no wonder
that the sport is very quickly displacing the other so-called
"professional" sports as family entertainment&emdash;local heroes
involved in the community tend to generate a much more steadfast
following than million-dollar-a-year baseball or basketball stars
whose fans are as fickle as a kid in a candy store.
Real as it may be, CASCAR is also going to be depending on its
size to make itself the household name it wants to be; without big
media coverage, big corporate sponsors, and big numbers of people
involved in the organization, reality, good as it is, won't have the
exposure that it needs to bring CASCAR into every home.
Big media coverage like TSN, which will be broadcasting almost
half of the twenty races being held across the country, from British
Columbia out to New Brunswick. TSN, one of Canada's most successful
and fastest-growing TV networks, serves a huge audience, and will be
instrumental in CASCAR's success or failure (its large, faithful
viewership suggests success rather than failure, though.)
Big corporate sponsors, too. Castrol, of course, which has ponied
up enough to have the series named after it. But also Ford, GM, and
Chrysler, who not only donate the cars' namesakes, but also time,
personnel and expertise. Companies like Midas, STP and Loctite are
also involved, as are Canadian Tire and Snap-On Tools. Cooper
Automotive supplies Champion spark plugs and Moog steering and
suspension bits.
What do they get for their involvement? A great return on their
investment&emdash;stock-car racing fans are a huge, profitable
market, and are unfailingly loyal. Information, too; the
manufacturers get to test out new technology in an intense,
high-pressure environment that is many times more stressful on a part
or collection of them than regular driving; if a part works in an
environment like CASCAR's, it's going to work on the street, and work
well. The racetrack is the ultimate testing ground for the
manufacturers, whether of parts or of cars themselves.
There's also a huge number of people involved in CASCAR, besides
the five-hundred plus drivers on this year's roster. There are
literally thousands of people involved in the business and publicity
ends, and as many staffing the pits at races. Stock-car racing,
people-intensive even in its smallest iterations, in the form of
CASCAR, employs tens of people for every one driver we see whizzing
across our TV screens.
And if anything is going to bring CASCAR to its "destiny" of
becoming the dominant spectator sport in Canada, it is going to be
its people. Not only are there many of them, but they are
professionals in every way. Everybody at the Ontario Place press
conference I attended was a pro&emdash;from the people staffing the
doors right up to the drivers, crew chiefs and sponsors themselves;
they're all well-spoken, intelligent, and perhaps most importantly,
passionate about their sport. Listening to one of the backers of the
racing teams is like listening to a proud parent talking about their
favorite child; their emotion, their conviction, is evident in every
word. Never mind the drivers&emdash;Shirtliff was close to tears as
he tried to describe what it meant to be the national CASCAR
champion. And the emotion in the room wasn't of the canned,
seen-it-all-before type; it was as genuine as it comes.
It is, in the end, this emotion, this conviction that it really is
time for CASCAR that will eventually carry it through; while any
sport is comprised of professionals, and while almost all of them are
involved with major corporate sponsors and have extensive media
coverage, none of them, it seems, are so close, so important, to
their people&emdash;while Michael Jordan may go for a round of golf
after a basketball game, it's back under the hood for Shirtliff,
Kennigton, and all of the drivers and people that support them;
they're always with their cars, in their cars, thinking about their
cars, talking about their cars and driving to anyone who will listen.
So, after hearing the speeches and meeting the drivers, looking
over the cars, seeing the conviction in the eyes of everybody
involved with CASCAR, it's hard to fault them when they start talking
about the sport's destiny, about how its time has finally come. In
fact, by the end of things, not only are you convinced that they are
right, but you're cheering them on. And with sixteen years, countless
dollars, dozens of races, and gallons of sweat and tears behind them,
CASCAR and the people involved in it almost deserve the success that
they talk about.