View 200 MPH Billboard
“The 200-MPH Billboard: The Inside Story of How Big Money Changed NASCAR”
By Mark Yost
Book Review by Gregg Leary
Category:NASCAR -> Sprint Cup
From the dedication to Chris Economaki through fifteen chapters and an epilogue, Mark Yost uses paper and an artist’s brush to erect a very visible billboard to the fascinating sport of NASCAR racing. Brian Williams, Anchor of NBC Nightly News, is a good choice to pen the Foreword. Williams writes, “Does the spectacle of the first, full-speed lap at Talladega or Bristol cause your chest to thump and bring tears to your eyes? Or did you read about the sport in Time magazine and watch the Daytona 500 from a glassed-in luxury hospitality suite?” The answer probably separates the “old” NASCAR fans from the “new” NASCAR fans.
Williams writes, “Real fans commit the starting field to memory,” BUT, “the fans are getting squeezed as the sport expands…hours in traffic, a parking spot miles away and exorbitant prices on ticket packages that force fans to buy for three days worth of events when all they want to see is the main event on any given Sunday.” Such is the dilemma NASCAR faces in trying to balance its “old” and “new” fans.
In the Introduction, “Fifty years of Racing at Daytona,” Yost contrasts Johnny Allen with Jimmie Johnson. “Johnny Allen drove to his first Daytona 500 in 1959 and slept in his car. Jimmie Johnson flew down to Daytona on a private jet and spent the week of the race on the 150-foot yacht that he owns with fellow driver Jeff Gordon. When he was at the track, Johnson spent his down time in his new 1.4 million-dollar motor coach. The most money Johnny Allen ever won was $7,500 for finishing second at the Atlanta 500 in 1960. Jimmie Johnson’s single biggest payday was $1.5 million, for winning the 2006 Daytona 500. Over his thirteen-year career, Johnny Allen won $62,963. Jimmie Johnson, who is in just his seventh year of Nextel cup competition, has won more than $45 million. How did NASCAR get from Johnny Allen to Jimmie Johnson?” Mark Yost traces the meteoric rise of NASCAR in fifteen chapters.
1: A Good Old Boy Goes Courting: How NASCAR Wooed Corporate America
2: The Suite Life
3: Betting the Farm: The Early Days of NASCAR
4: From Rags to Riches: Junior Johnson Turns Tobacco into Gold
5: The Sponsorship Shepherds: Four Hundred Cases of Coffee and a Side of Viggy
6: Mama, I’m Gonna Be on TV: The Small Screen Revolution
7: When NASCAR Comes to Town: How Much is That Track in the Midwest?
8: Speed Dating for Dollars: Inside the NASCAR B2B Council
9: See the Brown Truck Go: How UPS Took NASCAR to Mexico
10: Fantasy Accidents: Allstate’s All-Star Ad Campaign
11: What’s DLP?: Educating the Public at 200 Miles Per Hour
12: The Military Marches In: Recruiting at the Racetrack
13: Bringing the Big Show to the Little Store: How Associate Sponsorship
Changed the Game
14: Teaching Old Brands New Tricks: A Wunderkind Helps Goodyear Leverage Its
Legacy
15: We’re An American Brand: Toyota Comes to NASCAR
Epilogue: What’s Next for NASCAR?
“The 200-MPH Billboard” is fascinating. It answers many interesting questions and brings to light many little known stories, tidbits and trivia that help tell the full NASCAR story. For instance:
Why is the date February 15, 1979 important?
Why 1971 laws banning cigarette advertising on television were a godsend to NASCAR.
Who brought RJ Reynolds into the sport?
How much does it cost to be a primary sponsor on a Nextel Cup car today?
Who was the only driver to retire as NASCAR Cup Champion?
Who sold a prize cow to buy his first race car?
What was NASCAR’s first national sponsor?
Who was Bill Brodrick?
How did Tim Flock check his tire wear during a race?
Whose race car was pulled from Lake Lloyd during the 1960 Daytona 500?
How Mario Andretti lost $1,000 by NOT showing his underwear.
How the Maxwell House Racing Simulator revolutionized marketing.
What did Lowe’s pay for naming rights to Charlotte Motor Speedway?
Why were Folger’s and Tide so important to NASCAR?
How did NASCAR take a page out of the NFL playbook when it came to consolidating television rights?
What is the NASCAR B2B Council and why is it so important to sponsors?
When did Toyota become involved with NASCAR?
Will NASCAR build all the Cars of Tomorrow and sell them to the teams?
“The 200-MPH Billboard” is a thought provoking read that documents a largely untold side of NASCAR racing. I would have given it five out of five lug nuts…but an error in the introduction that says the banking at Daytona is 35 degrees instead of 31 degrees knocks the rating down to four out of five lug nuts.