From Raceline
Stock car racing in Canada hit a major milestone last week with the establishment of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. A few days later, the old tattered, bullet-holed CASCAR battle flag was dipped and retired after the 2006 season-closer at Kawartha. The series Tony Novotny founded back in 1981 bowed its head to Motorsport history.
Raceline Radio’s association with CASCAR runs deep, with 6 seasons of TV production for TSN in the late 80’s, through the birth of Raceline Radio in the early 90’s. The so-called “deal” for NASCAR to purchase CASCAR percolated for about 2 years.
In the meantime, NASCAR was supposed to be helping CASCAR steer their marketing and promotion. The whispered complaint from drivers was that it was having little positive effect. Constantly asked about when the purchase was going through, lost to explain it any other way, we started telling fans that if NASCAR really wanted CASCAR, they would have written a cheque long ago.
So last week, all the wondering and theories came to a point with a somewhat subdued media conference staged outside in downtown Toronto in a light drizzle. Peter Gibbons was the only driver visible as NASCAR announced their new series. But did they actually purchase CASCAR? Our contacts tell us no. The better way might be to say NASCAR simply absorbed CASCAR, gave it a new coat of paint, changed the first “C” to an “N”, and said, “here ya go folks!”
What NASCAR downplayed was that The Canadian Tire Series wasn’t some brand new concept imported north of the border, it was simply a new re-labelling of CASCAR’s drivers, teams, rules, tracks and schedule. Not that that’s a bad thing! The deal took a while because they needed something Novotny wasn’t able to land the last few seasons: a national sponsor. Canada’s best known retail brand, Canadian Tire steps up. Nice work. About time.
And time will tell if having the golden-egg NASCAR logo on a Canadian stock car racing series shakes a few more sponsorship apples from the Canadian corporate tree for the teams. Time will tell if Canadian Tire’s partnership means a lucrative enough purse structure to grow the series into a true national sanction, and be rich enough to get racers who are still not full-timers to travel the length of this huge country of ours.
Will it be wealthy enough to attract kids in go karts to late model stock cars if they fly a NASCAR flag? We certainly hope so. Our experience tells us it should. Will The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series mean better racing for the fans? Might it entice CUP drivers to guest-drive more frequently? Perhaps. Let’s sit back and wait for the desired effect.
I certainly hope it’s all good! But if for nothing else, knowing as many of the CASCAR veteran warriors like I do, it has to be VERY cool to finally race in a full-blown NASCAR sanctioned series on home soil. As I stated on the air, they at the very least, deserve that!
Hey! Come on! Your servers down? Keep your electronic notes, questions and comments coming for The Griddly Headz E-Mail Bag Contest! Same address: erik@raceline.ca If your note is chosen E-Mail-of-The-Week, you win their hot new NASCAR BOARD GAME!Until next time, talk to ya’ll on Raceline Radio! ET
Sunday September 24th, 2006
Our 2006 “Night of Champions!” Series commences with the now 3-time Indy Racing League champ. Sam Hornish is back with us.
ChampCar/RuSport team president, Canada’s Jeremy Dale, updates Cristiano da Matta’s progress and why Dario Franchitti won’t be coming on board to finish the season in the 10 car.
Plus our “E-Mail of the Week” contest to win a Griddly-Headz NASCAR board game!
Check the Raceline site for station listings & skeds....
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