Eddie Gossage says Danica Patrick good for NASCAR but needs to help promote races
Danica Patrick is considered to be in the running for a NASCAR Nationwide Series ride at JR Motorsports next season. // Ivan Veldhuisen, NASCAR Scene
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FORT WORTH, Texas – Danica Patrick will be good for NASCAR but she will need to help promote stock-car racing and the Nationwide Series, said Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage.
With JR Motorsports emerging as the leading candidate for the IndyCar Series driver for a partial Nationwide schedule in 2010, Gossage talked about her potential impact on the sport.
“She is a figure that has grabbed the American attention and I think she’ll be really good for NASCAR if she comes here,” Gossage said Thursday at TMS, which plays host to the three NASCAR national series this weekend. “At the same time as an IndyCar promoter, I really hate to lose her more over there than I would like to gain her over here because she is an incredibly valuable, marketable icon for IndyCar racing.”
Will she help sell Nationwide Series tickets?
“A little bit,” Gossage said. “Performance will be more important in NASCAR than IndyCar racing. She’s going to have to run at the front of the Nationwide field to make an impact on the ticket gate because there are more drivers and Nationwide races are typically paired up with a Cup race.
“At IndyCar races, you have 18-22 drivers and it’s the feature event of the weekend, so there’s less clutter for her to have to break through, so performance is less critical in the IndyCar stuff.”
Patrick, who has one career IndyCar win and finished fifth in the 2009 season standings, will have to go to markets to help promote the sport, Gossage said.
“She needs to understand that she has to take on an active role in promotion of the sport,” Gossage said. “That is something that I don’t think that the people around her have made her understand as much as they should in IndyCar racing.
“And so I think NASCAR will make her understand that we’re all in this together and she’s going to have to be more proactive in the promotion of these Nationwide races. She needs to come to the market in advance, she needs to do the advance media work and things of that nature. She does at some of the IndyCar races. If I were around her, she would do a lot more of that.”
Gossage said that those people who don’t do that aren’t respected in the garage.
“Those people that don’t want to do that stuff don’t make it in this business,” Gossage said. “Every driver I know is reasonably accessible. I can’t name a driver that hasn’t come to the market and done things to promote these races, to promote the series and, of course in the process, promote their sponsors, their team, etc.
“It’s the circle of life. … That is institutionally not as recognized in IndyCar racing as it is in NASCAR racing.”
