“The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers,” and I’m here to say it’s time races need to return to race titles with relevance to the region.
As a 22-year-old male from Tennessee, I’d be part of the millennial audience that NASCAR so desperately longs after. Or I would be if I wasn’t covering this sport as a journalist now. So you might think I would be all for the changes NASCAR has done to cater to the younger crowds such as the caution clock. Well anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that’s not the case.
For as long as I’ve been involved in the sport, be it as a fan or a journalist, I’ve been stuck in the middle between the old school and new school way of running the sport. This past season, I’ve moved more towards the old way because of gimmicks like the caution clock.
But I’m not here to complain about the gimmicks (that’s a discussion for another day). Those two paragraphs above were simply to provide context as to where I’m coming from on this topic.
In August of 2014, NASCAR returned the Bojangles’ Southern 500 to its rightful place on Labor Day Sunday starting in 2015. This reversed a decision made by the sanctioning body a decade earlier moving it off Labor Day weekend in favor of Auto Club Speedway. To many longtime fans, including myself, this was a deadly sin that spat in the face of tradition (I go into much greater detail about it here). Only in returning Labor Day Sunday to Darlington Raceway was NASCAR forgiven of this sin.
Just a week ago, NASCAR announced Monster Energy as the new title sponsor for the Cup Series. I don’t know much about the company or their exploits. I’m told they’ve got a great reach on millennials like myself. I’ll hold any judgement of them until I see results.
I bring up these two examples to show there’s a way to build for the future while maintaining the bridge that keeps the past history and traditions of our sport alive. One way to maintain that bridge is for tracks to return to the practice of race name titles that have relevance to the city, region and/or state.
The younger fans might not understand what I’m saying, but the older fans probably remember a time when race names were relevant to the locality itself. These are races such as the Southern 500, the Daytona 500, the Virginia 500, the Old Dominion 500, the Dixie 500, the Southeastern 500, the Volunteer 500, the Mason-Dixon 500, the Delaware 500, the Pocono 500 and the Pennsylvania 500. Now race titles such as the Southern 500 and the Daytona 500 are still in use, but a lot of tracks don’t do this anymore.
It started to shift in the 1980s with an influx of corporate sponsorship of races. For a few years, the practice was “corporate sponsor,” “race title” and “race distance.” So instead of the Talladega 500, you’d get the Talladega DieHard 500.
In the 90s, that practice went almost entirely to “corporate name” and “race distance.” So instead of the Talladega DieHard 500, you got the DieHard 500, Winston 500, EA Sports 500, UAW-Ford 500, AMP Energy 500, AMP Energy Juice 500, Good Sam Club 500, Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500, Camping World RV Sales 500, GEICO 500, CampingWorld.com 500 and Hellmann’s 500. That’s every name this race at Talladega Superspeedway has gone by since 1990.
DieHard is a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation, based in Chicago, Winston is a brand of cigarette owned by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts, based in Redwood City, California, the United Automobile Workers is an American labor union based in Detroit and Ford closed its only Alabama factory (which produced die-cast parts, pistons and transmission casings) in 1983, AMP Energy and AMP Energy Juice are brands owned by PepsiCo, based in Purchase, New York, Camping World and Good Sam Club are both subsidiaries of Good Sam Enterprises, based in Ventura, California and Hellmann’s is a brand name for mayonnaise that’s owned by Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company based in Rotterdam, Netherlands and London.
You might have noticed that not one of those companies are based in the state of Alabama, nor do they produce any of their goods in the state of Alabama.
Now I’m not disparaging the companies that have sponsored this race or any race. I’m not even disparaging Grant Lynch or the team at Talladega that brought these companies in. I have absolutely no problem with any company outside the locality sponsoring an event. What I’m getting at here is that Talladega could go a step further by adding the word “Talladega” or “Alabama” to the title of the race so that race title actually bears some relevance to the region.
I also don’t mean to harp on Talladega either. Just about every track has done this. The difference is some of those races are sponsored by companies with ties to the region and even city. The Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway is a perfect example because, although not a company based in Tennessee, Food City is based in Abingdon, Virginia, which is part of the “Tri-Cities” metropolitan area of Bristol (Tenn. and Va.), Johnson City and Kingsport (don’t think too long on that). It’s a company that’s part of the local community.
Another example, albeit obscure to those outside the locality, is the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. Toyota, while a Japanese company, maintains the headquarters of its United States division in Torrence, California and Save Mart Supermarkets is based in Modesto, California, 92 miles east of San Francisco, of which Sonoma is a part.
Michigan International Speedway has both races sponsored by entities in the state of Michigan. The FireKeepers Casino 400 is sponsored by FireKeepers Casino and Hotel in the Emmett Charter Township. The connection of the Pure Michigan 400 goes without saying.
But these are few and far between. Most tracks go with the “corporate name” and “race distance” title. As I stated before, I’m not disparaging these companies for sponsoring races outside their localities, nor am I towards the tracks or track operators that bring these companies in. I’m not asking for tracks to only go after local companies or companies in the state. I’d just like to see more tracks return to using classic naming practices.
I’ll even give you track presidents some free ones for this season: the Kobalt Las Vegas 400 or Kobalt Sin City 400, the Camping World Valley of the Sun 500 (Phoenix), the STP Virginia 500 (Martinsville), the O’Reilly Auto Parts LoneStar State 500, the Toyota Owners Richmond 400, the GEICO Talladega 500, the Go Bowling Kansas City 400, the Coke Zero Firecracker 400 (Daytona), the Quaker State Bluegrass State 400 (Kentucky), the Bass Pro Shops NRA Volunteer 500 (Bristol), the Federated Auto Parts Capitol City 400 (Richmond), the Goody’s Fast Relief Old Dominion 500 (Martinsville), the Can-Am Arizona 500 and the Ford EcoBoost Miami 400.
To any track president that reads this, please consider adding these titles to your races this season. It’s a minor addition and it would go a bit of the way to bridging the past that made this sport so great to the future we all strive to create.
Now I’m limited to what Wikipedia and my books on NASCAR history have to say on this subject. If you guys believe I missed any race titles or have any you’d like to suggest, leave your comments below.
My flight is about to take off so I must get going.
