Wide range of issues addressed at NASCAR's recent town-hall meetings
NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said a wide range of issues were discussed at NASCAR's recent town-hall-like meetings. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
TALLADEGA, Ala. – NASCAR conducted town-hall-like meetings last week at its research and development center in North Carolina to talk about the sport, and officials also have recently talked to the manufacturers about a long-term project to try to increase brand identity in the Sprint Cup cars.
Each race team was represented at the meetings last week – one on Tuesday that dealt with competition issues and one on Wednesday that dealt with business issues. The manufacturers’ meeting took place a week earlier.
While no changes were immediately planned as a result of the discussions, participants said it was good to bounce ideas off each other as well as learn about what works well at one race team that could also work well at another.
“We learned about NASCAR’s research and some of their initiatives,” said Hendrick Motorsports general manager Marshall Carlson. “We talked about building some more efficiencies in the sport, analyzing the schedules, looking at what rules changes have helped, what rules changes have created maybe unintended circumstances.
“It was a new experience. The first one was back in a May. [The teams] were enthusiastic to have this forum to be able to learn what the other teams are doing, for NASCAR to hear what we’re thinking, for us to hear what they’re thinking.”
Expenses, schedules, travel, hotels, horsepower, scorers, spare engines, spare race cars, tires and the media were all topics of discussion at the meetings, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said.
“It was a good discussion on a lot of things,” said Pemberton, who estimated there were about 25 people in the competition meeting. “We talked about everything from tires and how many tires they use in the race to qualifying procedures.
“It was a really good conversation. … It’s something we’re going to try to put together about every three months or so, try to get a small group together to talk about just those things to keep the teams healthy, keep us healthy, and it helps us not get too removed.”
At the manufacturers’ meeting a couple of weeks ago, the manufacturers stressed brand identity for the Sprint Cup car, said Ford Racing aero engineer Bernie Marcus.
“It was an open discussion of where everybody wants to go from the manufacturer’s point of view and NASCAR’s point of view,” Marcus said. “There’s going to be some ongoing discussions. The Cup car is now in its third year, and we all know there’s some room for improvement in brand identity and looks.
“We have to work out a sensitive plan that can be implemented that keeps the racing good and that’s cost effective. It’s all on the table for further discussion.”
Pemberton said the brand identity issue is more of a long-term project.
“That’s a little bit farther off,” Pemberton said. “There are some things that we’re working on short term and long term. [We’re] trying to get a feel and get synced up when it would be the right time to strike with new stuff as it relates to the manufacturers’ vehicles they’re rolling out.”
All teams were invited to the meetings last week. In the business meeting, ideas for selling the sport were discussed, especially where there are different ideas on how the sport should be administered that can come across with a highly negative tone.
“Sometimes, we’re our own worst enemies,” said Torrey Galida, executive vice president of TRG Motorsports. “We’d like to find some ways to make that a more positive message.
“On the revenue side, it’s going to be what it’s going to be, and we’re all working as hard as we can to put the right kind of packages together for sponsorship, putting the right spin on the [television] ratings, but we talked a lot about the cost-savings side as well. If we can limit the number of crews or eliminating scorers would be a help. Two-day shows is where we started off. There are things that we’re going to have to solve to get that done.”
Carlson said he expects more discussion and research of the issues talked about but no imminent changes. And while at some point there needs to be action, Carlson said he didn’t think this was just a meeting of talk that would result in no action.
“This is one of the first times that we’ve been able to do this in this way,” Carlson said. “If we’re sitting here a year from now and all we’re doing is still talking about stuff, I’ll give you that [it was just talk]. But to look at the last year and see how far things have come, where now we’ve got competitors, the sanctioning body and some track folks being able to communicate is a great start.”
