Ask Ask.com anything except about Ask.com

Yesterday, I read on Jayski about Ask.com's decision to part ways with NASCAR after a one-year stint as the sho-nuff search engine.

Ask.com leaves NASCAR: This time a year ago, Ask.com was preparing to make the splash of the season at Daytona. It had a custom-made motor coach, pretty girls dressed in red and white to act as Ask Ambassadors throughout the speedway, and up to 30 new 15-second ad spots. The eager search engine had seemingly thought of everything for its first year of an official partnership with NASCAR and a team sponsorship at Hall of Fame Racing. But as the industry rolls into Daytona this week for the start of the 2010 season, the major question will be: What happened to Ask.com? Despite trumpeting successful results from its sponsorships and advertising in NASCAR last year, the Barry Diller-owned company opted not to return this year, allowing its NASCAR partnership and team deal to expire after one year. A change in leadership -- CEO Jim Safka did the NASCAR deals last year but was replaced by president Doug Leeds in October -- led to changes in marketing. Ask.com spent about $15 million on its NASCAR sponsorships and activation last year, industry insiders said. Its official deal with NASCAR was in the low seven figures, while the team sponsorship cost Ask.com $4 million. The majority of NASCAR sponsors whose deals were up last year renewed, including Dodge, Unilever, DuPont, DirecTV, Kraft, and Procter & Gamble brands Gillette, Old Spice and Prilosec OTC. NASCAR also added Screenvision and Drive4COPD as new partners, with Screenvision being the official cinema ad agency and Drive4COPD, a group that drives awareness and screening for lung disease, serving as the official health initiative. Among the sponsors that didn't renew for this year: P&G brand Duracell, Best Western, Yardman/Cub Cadet, and Kellogg's, along with Ask.(Sporting News/NASCAR.com)(2-8-2010)

This news wasn't altogether earth shattering, and it hardly ranks among the top pre-season 2010 stories such as Danica's dalliance with a full-bodied...um, err, uh...oh yeah car, Dale Jr. will he/won't he...um, uh, ahem...oh yeah win again, and the 48 team's drive for five.

But its interesting nonetheless I suppose as the news reflects a bit of current economic news in the dot com space and a buzz metric for NASCAR in general.

I thought I'd search Ask.com for more information about their decision. This is a screen capture of my search results.

Interestingly, here are the first page of results from the same search phrase on Google.

Hmm.

TMC

Sponsored by Ken Sin

When NASCAR, Daytona International Speedway, and Anheuser-Busch monkeyed yet again with the rules for the Bud Shootout, one of the new rules for 2010 allowed former winners of the race to enter.

Among others who became immediately eligible for NASCAR's prime-time "We're back!" race on national TV was Ken Schrader. I like Kenny a lot because of his low-key, yet knowledgeable involvement with the sport.

Beyond his on-track talent, the best skill Ken has consistently shown over the years is his ability to draw sponsors with products that simply can't be good for you. Combining them all would seem to suggest folks should hang the nickname "Gluttony" on him.

For Saturday's night's Shootout race, Schrader was hired to pilot the #82 Red Bull Yota because Scott Speed wasn't eligible for the race - yet goodness knows Red Bull needed more exposure.

Going back to Kenny's start in the Cup series in the mid 1980s and working our way forward, let's have a look at some of his sponsors.

Junie Donlavey's #90 Ford - Sponsor: Red Baron frozen pizza

Hendrick Motorsports #25 Chevrolet - Sponsor: Kodiak smokeless tobacco

Hendrick Motorsports - Sponsor: Budweiser, The King of Beers (as it was still known back then)

Andy Petree's #33 Chevy - Sponsor: Skoal smokeless tobacco (props to K-Schray for double-dipping on the chew sponsors!)

Wood Brothers' #21 Ford - Sponsor: Little Debbie snack cakes from Collegedale, Tennessee (Oooh boy, I sure do like those oatmeal creme pies and banana twins though. Yum.)


MB2 Racing (co-owned at the time by Nelson Bowers from Chattanooga, TN) - Sponsor: M&M's candy

BAM Racing - Sponsor: Schwan's home delivery frozen foods

Now, don't me wrong. I'm not blogging as a prude who dines only on organic vegetables and free-range chicken. I have used - and will continue to use - products from Schrader's sponsors far more frequently than I'll purchase DuPont industrial products or a FedEx overnight shipping service. Its just that Kenny's entry in the Shootout caused me to reflect on all the "sin products" he's pitched over a 25 year career. *Burp* Excuse me.

Disclaimer: Because our blog is named Bench Racing from the Volunteer State, I had to name-drop the Tennessee cities where I could. I figure you'll understand.

TMC

NASCAR's version of Who's On First

About this time a year ago, BankTruck and I made our 2009 pre-season predictions. Perhaps we'll get around to doing so again for 2010 before the checkered flag falls at Homestead in November.

To be honest, I'm having a hard time making predictions when I'm not really sure about who is running. After all the team mergers in 2008-2009 off season, I thought the craziness was over. Instead, as is often the case with NASCAR, 2009-2010 has resulted in even nuttier mergers, "alliances", and points swapping.

Here's a recap of what I think has transpired since Homestead 2009:

Richard Petty Motorsports - George Gillett's team (with minority interest held by The King) merged with Yates Racing. Or so it seemed. A.J. Allmendinger moved from the multi-personality #44 last year to the iconic #43 with majority sponsorship from Best Buy (shout-out to Paul on Twitter). Its taken a couple of years for it to happen, but this is the very scenario I hoped would happen when Red Bull Racing sidelined A.J. in favor of Mike Skinner in the spring of 2008.

With the change, RPM switched to Ford, now has an engine relationship with Roush-Yates, and picked up a full-time 4th car sponsor in Menard's home improvement chain. That's the upside. The downside can be reduced to one word: Paul.

Richard Childress Racing - With Jack Daniels retreating to Lynchburg, RCR's 4th car from last year was shelved for 2010 ... or so it seemed. In January, an announcement was made that RCR acquired an equity interest in FRR (but not a merger) and contracted for a “technical alliance” with FRR . As part of the alliance, the #07's 2009 points were transferred to a 2nd FRR car.

FRR still plans to run Hendrick Motorsports engines. A-ha, finally a deal that makes sense! RCR gives up access to the #07 owner points from 2009. In return, Childress gets the opportunity to look deep inside an HMS engine…maybe. Perhaps this is a "technical alliance" that makes sense - at least for Childress. If that's the case, I suspect HMS may wait to install their motors in FRR cars until race weekend & then retrieve them before leaving to hedge this very risk.

Furniture Row Racing - An announcement was made this week that Doug Yates is also now a minority owner of Furniture Row (in addition to Richard Childress). As part of the ownership, Yates brings with him owner points from 2009 to transfer to a FRR team to guarantee it a starting spot in the first five races. But you may ask how can that be since Yates merged with RPM and Yates' points obviously went to Menard's #98? Not so fast my friend.

It seems RPM didn't merge with Yates - it simply acquired its assets (a legal/accounting terminology difference), hired Menard, transferred the Menard's sponsorship and adopted the use of the #98. Menard will apparently start the 2010 season in the #98 using RPM's owner points from Allmendinger's #44 ride from last year. As a result, Yates' points from last year remained available. So Doug Yates joined FRR as a minority owner, and FRR can now take advantage of those valuable yet intangible points.

If you are keeping score at home, that gives FRR three cars with guaranteed starts in the first five races of 2010. The #78 car with Regan Smith gets in by virtue of his 2009 performance. Cars two and three get in through the new equity positions of Childress (07) and Yates (98).

Roush-Fenway Racing - Because of the laughable 4-car team rule, Jack Roush was forced to shutter a 5^th team that finished high in the 2009 points. RFR contacted Jamie McMurray's old #26 ride because the team no longer had value in NASCAR's eyes. Right? WRONG! The Cat in the Hat was essentially told the #26 had no remaining value as long as he owned it. However, in NASCAR's eyes and in an open market, the 2009 points had a lot of value. So Roush sold the team to a new outfit called Latitude43 Motorsports and transferred the 26’s points as part of the deal. Boris Said has been hired to race the team's car.

Despite Roush's not having any equity position in the new venture, NASCAR announced a "one time exemption" (cough...ahem...B.S.) allowing the new owner to use the points in 2010 earned by another owner in 2009. So in the end, Jack turned something worthless into something valuable. As the adage goes, he made chicken salad out of chicken s**t.

I realize all these mergers and alliances are a by-product of two things:

• NASCAR's top 35 rule which guarantees a starting spot in the field to teams (not drivers) in the top 35.
  
• A lingering, brutal economic situation where big dollar sponsors are as scarce as hunters in church on a fall Sunday morn.

Without franchises, the only thing of any value in NASCAR anymore is a guaranteed spot. What bothers me is the lack of clarity by NASCAR as to what qualifies as a valid transfer of points plus their stubbornness that franchises aren’t the way to go.

So here's who I think we've got as guaranteed starters for February through March to start the 2010 Cup season. Once the first 5 races are completed, we'll have to re-visit who is in/out of the top 35.

00 - Reutimann - Michael Waltrip Racing
1 - Jamie McMurray - using Martin Truex's points from last year
2 - Kurt Busch
5 - Mark "GoGrandDaddy.com" Martin
6 - David Ragan
7 - Robby Gordon - but only plans to run a part-time schedule
9 - Kasey Kahne
09 - Aric Almirola - but not in top 35 and has already lost his sponsor before the season even began
11 - Denny Hamlin
12 - Brad Keselowski - using David Stremme's points from last year
13 - Max Papis
14 - Smoke
16 - Possum
17 - Matt Kenseth - with new Crown Royal colors
18 - Rowdy Busch
19 - Elliott Sadler - with new sponsorship from Stanley Tools, Air Force, Hunt Brothers Pizza, etc.
20 - JoLo
21 - Bill Elliott - still part-time with Wood Brothers
24 - Jeff Gordon
26 - Boris Said - with 2009 points transferred from Roush
29 - Happy Harvick
31 - Jeff Burton
33 - Clint Bowyer
34 - John Andretti - FRR team #2 - points from RCR #07 team in 2009
38 - FRR team #3 - driver TBD - points from Yates #98 team in 2009
39 - Flyin' Ryan Newman
42 - Juan Pablo Montoya
43 - A.J. Allmendinger - with 2009 points from Reed Sorensen's #43 team
47 - Marcos Ambrose
48 - The 4x Champ
51 - Michael Waltrip - in part-time schedule and with new number (inverse of #15 from DEI years)
56 - Martin Truex, Jr. - with 2009 points from Michael Waltrip's #55 team
71 - Bobby Labonte - using 2009 points accumulated by David Gilliland and Labonte
77 - Sam Hornish Jr.
78 - Regan Smith - FRR team #1 with his own points from 2009
82 - Scott Speed
83 - Brian "Kris Kringle" Vickers
87 - Joe Nemechek - who has gone from Front Row Joe to Start/Park/Collect The (Neme)chek
88 - Dale Jr.
98 - Paul Menard - with 2009 points from A.J. Allmendinger's #44 team
99 - Carl Edwards

Driver/teams who now appear to be gone or off-the-radar for now:

• #08 team with Terry Labonte
• #96 Hall of Fame Racing - though I think they have points of their own that may end up being sold to someone
  
• David Stremme (now reduced to wrecking on NASCAR for XBOX 360 from his couch)
• Casey Mears
• Reed Sorenson
• David Gilliland
  

TMC

NASCAR and TMC - One Month From Now

A lot of sports activities will be crammed into the short month of February. The Super Bowl, the winter Olympics in Vancouver, NASCAR's Speed Weeks and Daytona 500, and several critical college hoops games affecting March Madness will all occur between now and then.

Perhaps the most relevant event for me, however, will happen one month from the posting of today's blog entry: February 28. The Shelby American Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway!

I'm not much of a gambler (at least not at the tables), and I've been to Vegas enough times to scratch my itch. But I'm always up for a race weekend at a track I've never attended. Until this trip, the track farthest west where I've attended a race was Texas Motor Speedway where I watched the inaugural Busch and Cup races in 1997. I've driven by California Speedway and Sears Point - but not to a live event. So getting to cross Vegas off my list of tracks to see will be great.

As with any TMC trip, I'm doing this as frugally as possible. (Please don't call me cheap. It sounds so crass.) Our itinerary looks something like this:

• Friday, February 26 - Fly to Vegas for free (using Delta SkyMiles)
• Pit stop at area retail store (see below for more details)
  
• Check-in at Excalibur with deep-discounted, race fan special, multi-day rate special
• Redeem 2 free drink vouchers in casino lounge as part of hotel package
• Saturday, February 27 - Sam's Town 300 Nationwide race with free tickets (where we'll get to see everyone's favorite race diva compete - and no I'm not referring to Vegas' own Kyle Busch)
  

• Saturday night - Well, I can't tell you. Because as everyone knows, some things that happen in Vegas stay in Vegas. (Others end up on a blog, Twitter, cell phone camera, or in your bloodstream.)
• Sunday, February 28 - NASCAR Shelby American Sprint Cup race with free tickets

• Monday, March 1 - Sport sunglasses, pop a couple of Goody's Orange Flavor headache powders, wash it down with a luke-warm, leftover Schaefer, and settle into my cross-country seat on Delta with eyes closed for the long trip home.

I haven't stayed at the Excalibur before, but the reservation staff has been super to deal with so far. Plus, they are right next to New York New York, MGM Grand, Luxor, Tropicana, etc. So we will have no shortage of places to roam if we want to leave the castle.

For those wondering about the additional key detail of the trip - yes I've done my advance scouting for Schaefer. My initial plan of action involved packing a couple of ceremonial cans in my luggage as I did when I last traveled to San Diego.

Instead, SUCCESS! Schaefer is still distributed in Vegas, and Lee's Discount Liquors about 5 miles south of the strip sells it. So guess where our first stop will be upon arrival at McCarran Airport Friday afternoon?

While I'm excited about going to this track for the first time, the place already has one strike against it. Unlike most tracks in the south, mid-Atlantic, and even New Hampshire, coolers are prohibited inside the Vegas track. [cynicism] I'm sure we'll have the good fortune to see the track sell cold ones at a reasonable price. [/cynicism]

So far, all our plans are falling in line nicely. Now, if we can just figure a way to wrangle a ride in the convertible with The King and his ladies...


TMC

January 20 - This day in Petty history

Yesterday, January 19, 2010, was kind of a weird day in the annals of Petty racing. The announcement during the NASCAR media tour wasn't earth shattering. As a matter of fact, it was pretty much old news. Richard Petty Motorsports announced it had formally finalized its "merger" with Yates Racing. (I'm still not sure how the contribution of Yates Racing to RPM equals a merger. Seems to me it was more of a bailout for them. But whatever.)

Two surreal elements about the news for for me were:

1. the King had a sudden family situation he had to attend causing him to miss the presser and
   
2. the presence of Paul Menard sitting on stage wearing a Petty-emblazoned shirt. Has it come to this? To get sponsor money, the Gillett/Petty contingent had to sink this low? Soulpatch Paul may well end up making former Petty drivers such as Rick Wilson and Buckshot Jones look like HOFers.
   

(Photo from Lynne Allmendinger's TwitPic.)

But that was January 19. Its done and over with. On to January 20th and the rest of the season. which brings me to this entry.

An even bigger press conference was held 364 days ago that did make me sit up and take notice. On January 20, 2009, Richard Petty announced the merged Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises teams had been named Richard Petty Motorsports. Petty Enterprises was no more.

To give you an idea of how far back the Petty organization goes, here are a couple of additional January 20th Petty-related trivia items:

January 20, 1974 - Hershel McGriff raced a 2nd Petty Enterprises #04 Dodge Charger to a 10th place finish in the Winston Western 500 at Riverside. Richard finished 2nd in the race. (Ignore the photo caption. That is not Chargin' Charlie Glotzbach in the 04.) For those unfamiliar with McGriff, here's some context for you:

• He raced in the first Southern 500 at Darlington in 1950.
• He raced at Portland International Raceway in Juy 2009 - at age 81!
• 'nuff said.
  

January 20, 1963 - Jim Paschal, in a 2nd Petty Plymouth, loses a wheel and barrel rolls over the fence in the Riverside 500. Fortunately, he wasn't injured badly and returned to run several more races for the Pettys - and won his share of them.



TMC

Review of 2 Racing Books

In terms of reading, I'm starting off 2010 better than I ended 2009. Reading used to be a positive habit for me a few years ago, but I've slacked off the last 2 or 3 years. With a renewed interest beginning this year, I started with appropriately enough a couple of racing-related books.

The first one I read was Ray Fox: Sly in the Stock Car Forest by long-time motorsports writer Godwin Kelly.

Even though I consider myself an "old school" fan, my knowledge of NASCAR is really from about the mid 1970s forward. What I know about racing in the 1960s and before is pretty limited to the Pettys. I knew about Ray Fox, but I didn't know much about his contributions.

Mr. Fox is still alive, lives in Florida in his 90s, and assisted Kelly with the book. Fox built cars, crewed them, and owned them. Though he never won a championship as an owner or crew chief, he did oversee some great wins. The book covers some great wins by drivers piloting his cars such as:

• Junior Johnson in the 1960 Daytona 500
• David Pearson in the 1961 World 600
  
• Buck Baker in the 1964 Southern 500
• Buddy Baker in the 1967 National 400 (his first career win)

After his tenure as a competitor, NASCAR hired him many years later as an inspector. Fox pulled some pretty crafty mechanical tricks on his cars though he denies he ever "cheated". Like NASCAR did with Gary Nelson and Robin Pemberton who tricked NASCAR inspectors on more than one occasion themselves, I guess the France family decided "if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em" and hired Fox as one of their own.

One of the things I found most interesting was how drivers jumped around from ride to ride within a season. Multi-year, driver-owner contracts really didn't exist back then. Also, certain year-end accolades didn't mean jack squat when a new season rolled around. David Pearson was rookie of the year in 1960, but he didn't have a steady ride in 1961. He pulled together a car owned by himself to soldier on, but he had his greatest success that year in a limited schedule for Fox.

Here's Ray Fox with then ARCA rookie Joey Logano a couple of years ago...

As fun as it was to read about Fox's contributions, his wars with NASCAR, his friendship AND rivalry with Smokey Yunick, it was equally difficult and frustrating to read such a poorly written book. Kelly frequently repeated himself between chapters and sometimes even within chapters.
Also, the book didn't seem to have a solid flow to it. The book didn't have to flow chronologically - though the book did make a reasonable attempt to do so. And it wasn't as if Kelly was just compiling random stories either. The stories were relevant and interesting, but the structure of it wasn't the best. I'm guessing Kelly wrote and then edited his own book.

The second book I read was Dr. Steven Olvey's Rapid Response: My Inside Story as a Motor Racing Life-Saver. While I've been a life-long fan of NASCAR racing, I've always had at least a minor interest in other forms of racing including the open-wheelers of Indy racing. Olvey was the long-time Director of Medical Affairs for USAC when it still sanctioned Indy cars. He later took a similar position at CART when a group of owners broke away from USAC to start the rival, yet ill-fated, competing sanctioning body.

Many folks - drivers and writers - have said that in the 1960s and before, drivers knew wrecks that looked bad were likely even worse than they looked. The mortality rate amongst Indy racers in that post-war through 1960s was unacceptably high.

Olvey's book flows naturally and quickly from the late 1960s through the bankruptcy of CART in the mid 2000s. He covers some of the most incredible crashes, injuries, and unfortunately deaths in open wheel cars - Emerson Fittipaldi, Rick Mears, A.J. Foyt, Alex Zanardi, Nigel Mansell, Greg Moore just to name a few.

He also describes the monumental safety advances made over that span of time - better seats, placement of gear shifts, height of the carbon fiber tubs, HANS device, a dedicated, adoption of on-site medical/trauma care (something NASCAR still doesn't have), advanced treatment of orthopedic injuries, concussion and other brain injury research, etc.

When covering the injuries or describing a scene where a driver has perished, he does so with clinicial objectivity, respect, and without morbid sensationalism. Some degree of detail is needed to describe the scenes to the reader, but he does so without getting overly gruesome. (Video clips of many of the accidents described in the book are also on YouTube - if you can handle them.)

Not knowing much about Indy cars, I don't really know many ticky-tack inaccuracies the book may have. Two little ones I noticed should be mentioned but really don't detract from the overall book.

• One, he refers to CART's cancellation of its race at Texas World Speedway. - TWS is in College Station, TX. Texas MOTOR Speedway is in Ft. Worth.
• Two, he says Dale Earnhardt was trying to keep Jimmy Spencer and Sterling Marlin away from his race-leading teammate, Michael Waltrip as the laps wound down in the 2001 Daytona 500. - Spence was in the race but waaaay back. Not sure who Olvey was referring to. Mikey was employed by DEI, but he was not Earnhardt's teammate. And I'm not sure where Dale Jr. was as Olvey wrote his memories of that day. I'll cut him some slack because he admitted in his role with Indy racing, he had very limited knowledge about NASCAR. Yet an editor should have caught these obvious flaws.

I recommend both of the books be read. If you want to learn more about the early days of NASCAR, the Fox book should be considered - but be forewarned you won't be reading any Pulitzer-prize winning prose. For pure education and a quick read about motorsports in general, the Olvey book is great. If its a coin toss for you as which one to get first, go for Olvey's book.

TMC

Schaefer and NASCAR...The Sequel

A two-year, multi-person, arms-race search for an elusive photo of a Schaefer beer sponsored NASCAR ride culminated in finding one last summer. Cooperation came from a fellow searcher/friend, racing history writer/blogger Rick Houston, and long-time NASCAR car owner D.K. Ulrich. I blogged about it, and the story of our successful search for a picture of Al Loquasto's #99 Schaefer Buck was featured on Rick's website, StockCarHistoryOnline.com.

Based on what I had learned about Schaefer's limited involvement with Loquasto's career including their one Cup race sponsorship of him, I thought our search was complete. Wrong.

A couple of months ago, Willard e-mailed me to say he'd scored a picture of a second Schaefer-sponsored car. I wasn't willing to believe it at first because I thought our research was thorough. But the pics tell the story. The Pontiac Grand Prix was driven by Joe Ruttman in the 1989 Daytona 500. Chuck Wellings is listed as the car owner. His only other race to field an entry was the 1990 Daytona 500 - again with Ruttman.

As the first picture shows, Joe almost never made it to the big show. He tangled with Mark Gibson in the #59 and spun during his 125-mile qualifying race. But he recovered well enough to finish 9th and comfortably earn a transfer spot to the 500. From there, Joe went on to finish a respectable 13th.

After the first picture was found, once again the hunt was on for more photos. This time the search didn't take near as long as it did for the Loquasto car. A couple of my fellow Petty fan brethren responded within just the last couple of weeks with a video capture of the rear of the car and a full-blown, high-resolution side view of the car - including a great view of a completely laid-back spoiler and the use of Hoosier tires.

Even though Schaefer was scattered, smothered, and covered on the hood and the rear panel, the "official" sponsor of record appears to have been Machinist's Union. All the sources we searched leading to the finding of the Loquasto/Schaefer car didn't turn up this additional car because the union sponsorship prevented a successful Google search for Schaefer.

While I am pleasantly surprised to locate yet another Schaefer car, I'm even more pleased it was Joe Ruttman who piloted it. I had the opportunity to meet Joe at Nashville Speedway back in my teenage days when he drove the Levi Garrett Chevy for owner Ron Benfield. No question about it - the photos of the Schaefer car are far more flattering than the look of my youth.

TMC