The 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season began with Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick sitting on the front row at the Daytona 500, the Superbowl of stock car racing. It was only the third time in the history of the event that a rookie had won the pole position (the best starting position which is won by being fastest during qualifying trials). Johnson, Jeff Gordon’s prodigy, blistered the track at 185.831mph. Harvick, the driver chosen to replace the late great Dale Earnhardt on Richard Childress’ team, shot to the outside position with a scorching 185.770mph.
It was a Sign of the Times. An apropos beginning to what will surely be a benchmark year in the sport’s history. Both guys are only 26. Both have racing dynasties behind them and have the talent to warrant it. Both are hot as hell.
And they’re not the only ones.
In the past three years, NASCAR’s stock car series — Winston and Busch — have been inundated with hot young things like Tony Stewart, Steve Park, Matt Kenseth, Hank Parker, Jr., Shane Hmeil, and, of course, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. And there seems to be a new one every time you turn around. Granted, I spend more time at indie-rock venues than football stadiums, so I’m not an expert on athletes. However, I’ve been to some NASCAR races and I know sexy and I can tell you that I haven’t seen so many hotties at a sporting event since the Portuguese soccer team came to Athens, GA for the 1996 Olympics.
No wonder more young women are watching NASCAR these days — a 70 percent increase in the past year alone. Women now make up 40 percent of the sport’s audience overall. And the exciting young drivers are bringing in more young guys, too. Girls want them. Guys want to be them. When Dale Earnhardt Jr. became the spokesman for Drakkar Noir cologne, it shot from #15 in US sales to #2 in a matter of weeks.
It’s a dream come true for sponsors. They already had the old guard fans and now they’re raking in fresh new dinero from the so-called MTV demographic that marketing firms always salivate over. In the past year, the 18-to-34-year-old audience has increased almost 40 percent for NASCAR. And when we came to the races or turned on the TV, we brought money. Last year, race fans spent $1.34 billion on NASCAR products — a 100 percent increase since 1995.
Keep in mind that NASCAR fans don’t just like what they like – they like it a lot. Stock car racing fans take devotion to a level unseen in other sports. Go to a race and look around. Everyone is wearing something with a number on it. Even old people and little kids. Most of the cars in the parking lot have numbers on them. The biggest news is that female fans are outspending the males in some areas. Surveyed chicks admitted that they are 75 percent more likely to buy products if they’re related to NASCAR over non-related products. Who says shopping isn’t a substitute for… uh… you know.
According to Angie Taylor, coordinator of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s fan club, women outnumber men among their 10,000+ members. “I’d guess that about 55 to 65 percent of the members are female,” she said. “And they all send letters letting him know that they’re single.” Junior recently did a chat on NASCAR.com, eliciting more than 1,500 posted questions. Most were from females. Many read like personal ads and directly asked him to email them.
Although Junior is perhaps the most sought after sex symbol of NASCAR, he’s by no means the only one. According to Tony Stewart’s fan club, about 40 percent of their 10,000+ members are female. And now that Jeff Gordon is getting divorced, his souvenir sales are sure to skyrocket.
At one point during a recent Winston Cup race, I looked around our section and noticed that most of the binoculars trained on pit road were being wielded by chicks, many of whom had clearly swiped them from their dates. Take a close look at pit road and you’ll know why. It’s not just the drivers — there are lots of hotties on the crews, too. A couple sitting behind us had quite the altercation because of it.
The highlights:
He said, “But they’re mine.”
She said, “But I’m looking for Junior.”
He said, “But they’re mine.”
She glared and set her jaw, “But I’m looking for Junior!”
He stomped off to get a beer to wash down his feelings of inadequacy. She soon located her prey, gasped, and then sighed. Audibly sighed.
It’s the je ne sais quoi. . .
Now when you flip through a race program looking for your own personal NASCAR crush, don’t expect to see some male models. These guys vary in actual straight-up good looks from the J. Crew-catalogue-handsome Steve Park to the quirkily adorable Kurt Busch. It’s mostly about the total package. So much is in the attitude and the juxtaposition of machismo and tactical acuity.
You can assume a few things about a race car driver: he’s fearless, he’s tough, he’s ambitious, and he’s smart. In my still new crush on this sport, I’ve read tons of books, magazines, internet articles, and I can vouch for the fact that it’s incredibly complex. (OK, just for you skeptics who think this assertion may be coming from a slack-jawed yokel: my IQ is over 160 and I have a degree in Classics. Man, since I got into NASCAR I’m always having to defend myself.)
It’s so seductive to see these men — sweaty, rough, fearless — talking physics and engineering. I just swoon when they start talking about aerodynamic drag, negative camber and fuel consumption equation variables, etc. The dichotomy is such a turn-on. They also have a wicked not-so-secret weapon — those Inexplicably Sexy Race Suits. Rawr!
Besides, there’s another variable in car racing that hits you as soon as they start the engines: it’s a very sexy spectator experience. Don’t judge me till you’ve felt your entire body vibrate from the noise and speed of 43 cars going almost 200 mph roaring right past you. It’s very visceral, and the speed truly is intoxicating. You get a vicarious thrill from knowing that the drivers are constantly pushing the envelope. Any slight mishap could send them flying through the air. But just sitting there is delicious — the furious purr of the cars, the whoosh of air as they whip past you, the heat and hot smells, the constant vibration of the air and ground and seats beneath you. Not to get too graphic, but it’s tailormade to make ladies think happy, happy thoughts.
Why does everything always come down to sex? Why can’t we just admire a person’s talent and be a fan without taking it there? We can – unless they’re of the right sex for our taste and happen to be attractive. It’s human nature.
But where did all the hotties come from?
On any given Sunday, the 43 drivers waiting for the green flag are polarized into the 40somethings and the 20somethings. There just doesn’t seem to be many in their 30s, so the younger guys stand out even more. To be fair, there are some quite attractive drivers over 29 such as Michael Waltrip and Mark Martin. Yep, he’s not a bad rep for Viagra after all.
I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s a safe bet that Jeff Gordon started it all. He has definitely shaken things up in the world of NASCAR since bursting onto the scene in. . .He’s a clean-cut, All-American guy who happens to be one hell of a race car driver. In fact, he was too good, too quick for a lot of Old Guard fans. Plus, he committed the unforgivable sin — he’s not Southern. He’s an outsider who defected from Formula One and has proceeded to kick some serious Winston Cup ass, winning the championship four times already. And he’s only 30.
Perhaps most importantly, he became NASCAR’s unofficial ambassador to the mid-American middle class. He reached out, and suburbia took his gloved hand. It didn’t take long for sponsors to notice a new demo, ripe for the picking.
It’s reasonable to assume that Jeff’s success in attracting new audiences, both on the track and off, has opened the door for the new breed now taking the sport by storm. Teams and owners are more willing to take a chance on a young hotshot and sponsors are drooling for the chance to make sex-symbol revenue off their drivers.
But things are never easy for trailblazers. While earning millions of dollars and becoming really famous, Jeff has endured a lot. There’s the whole Fans Against Gordon thing. I personally think that any guy who has worn a t-shirt with that on it, or says that Jeff is gay, is a closet homosexual desperately in love with him and can’t get him out of his head. Any chick doing such reprehensible stuff is just resentful because her fellow is a closet homosexual desperately in love with Jeff and can’t get him out of his head.
Another factor in the sexing of NASCAR was timing. The crown prince of the sport came of age — Dale Earnhardt Jr. And he brought thousands of women with him. Junior has done for NASCAR what Quentin Tarantino did for John Travolta — he made it sexy and hip.
Don’t think the hotties are just window dressing, either. They’re tearing up the tracks. Seven of the 11 races so far this season have been won by drivers solidly in the hot category. The only two drivers who have won twice in 2002 are Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, definite trophy dates.
Anyone doubting that youngsters are dominating the sport was surely convinced by this past weekend’s event in Charlotte, The Winston. Known as the “all-star”race, this survival-of- the-fittest shoot-out doesn’t count toward the championship, but it’s very much an indicator of who’s hot. The last leg of the event in which only the 10 fastest cars of the night cut loose in a dash for $750,000, saw just one member of the old guard hanging with the young guns, Bill Elliot. Of the nine Gen Xers in the final 20-lap run, it was a rookie who took the checkered flag: Ryan Newman. Dale Jr., who won the Winston as a rookie, finished a close second on Saturday and was followed by his buddy Matt Kenseth in third. Junior commented on the make-up of the pack afterwards.
“It was me, Matt, Kurt, Newman, Jimmie Johnson — all the young guns that everybody’s talking about. It was fun,”he said, laughing. “It was an interesting little group. As we were coming around three and four for the green flag for the 20 laps, I was thinking that. I was looking at the guys I was around and I was like man, Rusty, Jarrett, all those guys aren’t here. It was so amazing that it was our little fraternity up there having a good time.”
It wasn’t always like this. . .
My dad raced cars when I was little and back then stock car racing, especially on the local level, wasn’t populated with dreamboats. It was a dirty, ramshackle, dubious, beer-gutted scene. Like Junior Johnson, one of the all-time Big Daddies of stock car racing, my dad honed his skills while bootlegging. Not exactly squeaky clean like Jeff Gordon. The pits where my sister and I would huddle in the back of the pick-up, plugging our ears, seemed to be a chaotic extension of daddy’s juke joint — dangerous, loud and very white trash. That may still be the scene at some smalltime local tracks, but not at NASCAR races.
Since Bill France got the whole thing organized into the National Association of Stock Car Racing back in 1949, things have come a long way. Now it’s a very hi-tech, sleek, multi-billion dollar industry. Small towns in North Carolina, such as Mooresville, are dotted with world class garages that have a lot more in common with NASA than my dad’s old car shed. After France got it organized, Junior Johnson got it funded by finding the first sponsors, R.J. Reynolds. The money started flowing in and stock car racing slowly bus steadily drove out of the NC backwoods and Florida beaches and into mainstream America.
Not everyone is thrilled about the progress, though. Many fans lament the loss of accessibility to their heroes. Stock car racing used to offer close-up access unparalleled in other sports, but those days are rapidly coming to an end. Until fairly recently, fans felt like they were in on a good secret. Now, the secret’s out. Hopefully, the sport will survive the transition. You can still mail something to a driver’s garage and wait for it to be autographed and returned to you. However, if it’s Dale Earnhardt Jr., be prepared to wait two years, according to his fan club.
It’s just another irony to add to NASCAR’s long list: the supposedly redneck sport that’s very expensive to follow (high ticket prices have not dropped a cent in spite of NASCAR having secured a big national TV deal), the supposedly redneck sport that’s incredibly complicated, the supposedly redneck sport that is increasingly having to retreat behind velvet ropes.
One of the best opportunities remaining to meet drivers is coming up soon here in Charlotte. Speed Week activities leading up to the Coca Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway on May 26 will bring many favorites to the masses including Matt Kenseth, Michael Waltrip, Steve Park and more. Let the drooling begin!
But seriously: NASCAR is truly fascinating and interesting on many levels. You’d be missing out if you only go to ogle the tight butts in race suits. The more you learn about the cars, the tracks, and the teams, the more you’ll enjoy it. Hmmm. . . maybe some guys really do read Playboy for the articles…*
This article appears in May 22-28, 2002.
