Erik Spanberg: Tracks, TV networks ready for big boost from NASCAR return of Danica Patrick

COMMENTARY

Jerry Gappens sees the return of Danica Patrick to NASCAR next week as a marketing bonanza. So, in grand summer tradition, why not treat it like a Hollywood blockbuster?

Welcome to what Gappens bills as "D-Day," his track’s slogan for Patrick as she resumes her part-time NASCAR schedule June 26 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the Nationwide Series. Gappens is general manager at the speedway.

As of this week, ticket sales for the Nationwide race there were running 20 percent ahead of last year’s pace. Gappens attributed the growth to one factor: Danica.

“It’s obviously going to have a major impact,” he said. “There is nothing different other than the fact that she’s racing. Even a fringe fan has heard of Danica Patrick. She’s a star.”

It helps that she has also enjoyed a bit of on-track success in recent weeks after a miserable start on the open-wheel IndyCar circuit as well as a predictable rocky performances in her first three NASCAR races early in the season. Patrick finished sixth at the Indianapolis 500 and posted her first top-5 finish at Texas a week later.

She needs no help with the publicity part, appearing in ads for primary sponsor GoDaddy.com during the Super Bowl, pitching Peak antifreeze and posing for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in recent years. No matter where Patrick goes, cameras find her. Last month, even the venerable New Yorker weighed in with a lengthy profile. That Patrick is fiery, attractive and willing to play on her sex appeal in a male-dominated sport makes her an even bigger story – and marketing magnet.

Now she’s taken on a new hobby: learning how to drive stock cars. In December, she signed a two-year deal with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports to drive in the Nationwide Series while maintaining her full-time open-wheel schedule.

In five-plus seasons in IndyCar, Patrick has been up and down. She has one career win (in Japan in 2008) and in the last three seasons has ranked in the top 10 in points for the season. This season, she has struggled and even endured boos and jeers from fans in Indianapolis after publicly criticizing her crew members.

Stock cars, as plenty of people in NASCAR have pointed out since Patrick signed with JR Motorsports, are heavier, more burdensome beasts than Indy cars. Evidence abounds when it comes to the difficulty of switching from one form of racing to another. Short of the masterly Mario Andretti, the landscape is littered with failed converts, including current Indy 500 champ Dario Franchitti, who lasted less than half of a season in NASCAR before returning to IndyCar.

Patrick’s representatives at IMG declined comment this week on her return to NASCAR, perhaps seeking to minimize expectations.

This season she will race in 13 events. Her first three races – at Daytona, California and Las Vegas – included a mid-race wreck that ended her day halfway through the first race and finishes of 31st and 36th. She then went on hiatus to focus on the IndyCar season. Starting with New Hampshire, Patrick will be driving in one Nationwide race each in June, July, August and September while continuing her full-time IndyCar commitment.

Beginning in October, she’ll drive in the final six Nationwide races.

This week could be a harsh setting for her NASCAR return. Beyond the challenge of switching from open-wheel to stock cars, New Hampshire is known for its unforgiving layout.

“She’s got a huge challenge coming at New Hampshire,” says ESPN analyst Dale Jarrett. “It’s one of the most difficult tracks to perform at because there is very little banking. It’s a tough place to come back after three months out of a stock car.”

Jarrett is among the NASCAR experts who believe Patrick must increase her NASCAR commitment to determine whether she can be competitive.

Her agreement with JR Motorsports is to race partial-season schedules this year and next. There has already been much speculation about whether Patrick will go full-time in NASCAR in 2012, when she has an exit option in her IndyCar deal. Even if she wants to do that, she first must perform on the track to warrant a full-time ride.

Next season, Jarrett believes anything less than 25 Nationwide races would prevent Patrick from making significant progress.

“If she has any desire to really do this, she’s going to have to forgo IndyCar,” after 2011, he says. “You can’t just do this part-time. You lose feel and touch, no matter how good you are.”

It’s widely known Patrick wants to win the Indy 500 above all else, but whether she would be willing to reverse roles and race in a handful of open-wheel events has yet to be addressed.

Jarrett notes a fuller Nationwide schedule would not preclude her from driving in the Indy 500.

If Patrick becomes a force on the track in NASCAR, marketing executives will, to put it mildly, go into orbit.

“What does she do for the tracks and for the sport? Everything,” says Trip Wheeler, a motorsports marketing consultant. “She’s a story, she’s sexy, she’s unique because she’s a woman – she’s everything a sport needs. Except for the wins.”

Early returns illustrate Patrick’s potential, a potential that could also lift the middling Nationwide Series’ fortunes, as well as NASCAR as a whole.

During her first three NASCAR races, trackside souvenir sales were strong. A Patrick merchandise trailer goes to every race, even those she’s not racing in – a sign of both her star power and the lack thereof in the rest of the field.

Joe Mattes, vice president of marketing and licensing at JR Motorsports, says Patrick’s per-capita sales at the Las Vegas race in February were among the strongest of any driver that weekend. He’s also bullish because sales have been balanced between males and females, and with interest from children and adults.

Even a few moves into contention later this season could help ticket sales beyond New Hampshire, as well as ESPN2, the home of the Nationwide Series.

Patrick’s Daytona debut in February drew the largest cable audience for a Nationwide race on cable. Interest cooled in subsequent weeks, with ratings at California declining from 2009, while the Las Vegas race had the same rating for 2009 and 2010.

ESPN producers plan on balancing coverage of Patrick’s return with the dominant story lines of what happens on the track. The network has also revived an ad used earlier this season promoting her presence on the track.

On the track, keep a close eye on Patrick during her return – or you might miss her.

“This is her biggest challenge so far in a stock car,” Jarrett says.