GA ads in NASCAR?

genna

genna

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So, I normally don't watch NASCAR, but stumbled on the truck series today. Inside at least one truck, "Cessna" and "Beachcraft" signs are all over the cabin and the driver's suit.

Is that a thing in NASCAR? I never knew either brand advertised on TV(even if indirectly).
 
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I only watch the last 10 or so laps of a NASCAR race (unless I'm at an actual race) as the rest of it is pretty boring. I've noticed a couple cars and driver suits that carry the Beech and Cessna logos. I'm guessing Textron must have inked a sponsorship deal with one of the teams.
 
Once those guys realize they drive in a circle for a living, a lot of them look to add something exciting to their lives like GA.
 
If you see a company's logo on the car and/or uniform, they are a sponsor. There are different rates for different parts of the car, such as the hood which is one of the prime spots so it's more expensive than say, the back of the race car.
 
eman1200 said:
Once those guys realize they drive in a circle for a living, a lot of them look to add something exciting to their lives like GA.
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Many of them do have pilot certificates and own airplanes. Rusty Wallace was a big GA pilot. I flew for Bill Elliot Racing years ago and he not only flys many different personal and company airplanes (Extra300, Citation, etc), he has his own airport just west of Dawsonville GA.

And they do turn right at two road courses, Sonoma and Watkins Glen.
 
Way back in the late 80's Davey Allison came by our FBO to have some work done on his Aero Commander. Spent time in the lounge talking nothing but planes. When he found out I was a CFI, the conversation turned to instructing and ratings and how the new crops were doing. We talked for 2 hrs and never mentioned NASCAR. Easy to tell he was an avid GA fan. Too bad he lost his life in a chopper crash.
 
mscard88 said:
If you see a company's logo on the car and/or uniform, they are a sponsor. There are different rates for different parts of the car, such as the hood which is one of the prime spots so it's more expensive than say, the back of the race car.
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Chip Ganassi Racing has had primary sponsorship from Textron brands for several seasons now.
 
Yep, Davey had a bright future ahead of him. The old Alabama Gang. His daddy, Bobby, was big on aviation so I imagine Davey grew up around it. Bobby had something that he modified on Aerostars but I don't recall what it was.
 
GA is huge in NASCAR.

We have a track nearby. They have 2 (?) events per year. Teams fly mechanics, engineers, crew members, and others in and out of the local airports all weekend. Many of the drivers have their own jets.

I talked with a couple of crew members in the FBO one day. They were waiting to get into their jet. They had flown in from NC in the morning, worked on the car all day, and were headed home. They were planning on flying back the next day.
 
GA and NASCAR are so intertwined.

Statesville, Hickory, Concord, Winston Salem, Rowan County all house teams aviation divisions. There may be more but these I have seen...run up FlightAware on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday near a track and you'll see what I mean...
 
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I was working part time for a small NASCAR team back in the day. One day the owner was talking about looking at an airplane, and I mentioned I would like to fly it for him. He said get your ratings and then come talk to me. That is what really got me started flying.

The flying job didn't happen, that team did not last much longer....:(
 
genna said:
So, I normally don't watch NASCAR, but stumbled on the truck series today. Inside at least one truck, "Cessna" and "Beachcraft" signs are all over the cabin and the driver's suit.

Is that a thing in NASCAR? I never knew either brand advertised on TV(even if indirectly).
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Like has been already said, Textron Sponsors Ganassi in the Cup series, but also KBM in the truck series so you see Cessna and Beechcraft quite often. It is true, GA is pretty big in the sport but that doesn't really have any connection to the sponsorship deal, that's just independent and coincidental for the most part. Several teams have their own planes, not as many as used to though. Gibbs and Hendrick have a couple 50 seat RJ's each (both had a few Saab 2000's until last year), Roush was flying two 727's until two years ago (yes, two full 727's), SHR has a couple RJ's and so does Ganassi...kinda. RCR had a Brazilia until last year, bought an RJ, but have been flying charter this year. The charter deal is getting pretty big now days for the smaller teams when you can get a few different teams on the same plane.

mscard88 said:
Many of them do have pilot certificates and own airplanes. Rusty Wallace was a big GA pilot. I flew for Bill Elliot Racing years ago and he not only flys many different personal and company airplanes (Extra300, Citation, etc), he has his own airport just west of Dawsonville GA.

And they do turn right at two road courses, Sonoma and Watkins Glen.
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His son Chase is actually an avid pilot himself. And yes, there are quite a few drivers that are GA pilots, there used to be more before Carl and some others retired. There are several of us on the crew side as well that fly GA, a guy from another team and have flown his 172 to the track a few times and beat the team plane home once

Kelvin said:
GA and NASCAR are so intertwined.

Statesville, Hickory, Concord, Winston Salem, Rowan County all house teams aviation divisions. There may be more but these I have seen...run up FlightAware on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday near a track and you'll see what I mean...
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Exactly, check out JQF or SVH on a Sunday night...it gets BUSY!
 
Don't confuse "Cessna" or "Beechcraft" ads with "172" or "Musketeer".
NASCAR = shhhhload of money.
Rich people like to fly.
Cessna makes Citations, Beechcraft makes Beechjets. I think that's what they're trying to sell. :)
 
One of my cousins worked in NASCAR during its beginnings, he had more time in more types than me. I would think the best Beech and Cessna could field would be a small patch on the driver's left buttock.
 
TRocket said:
His son Chase is actually an avid pilot himself. And yes, there are quite a few drivers that are GA pilots, there used to be more before Carl and some others retired. There are several of us on the crew side as well that fly GA, a guy from another team and have flown his 172 to the track a few times and beat the team plane home once

!
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When I did some flying for Bill, Chase was child, guess 5-6 maybe. It was '98 when Jeff Gordon was winning just about every race that year, think around 14-15 that he won. We were flying a Brasilia for Bill and Dan Marino's #13 teamed based in Bill's Donaldsonville race shop, adjacent to his airport.
There was a guy that flew with us at ASA but left to fly a Brasilia for Richard Childress. First name was Johnny, lived up in N. Ga.
 
I now almost feel obligated to watch the damn races...:rolleyes:o_O If only someone could explain their new point/chase system to me :confused:

I may have not been clear with what surprised me. Yes, I know lots of NASCAR flies GA/Biz jets. No surprise here. Same goes for lots of other racing series and sectors. But that's not really who the TV advertising is for. You put your name on the guy's car when you want the NASCAR masses to see it on Fox. I don't know how many Citations the Fox viewers of NASCAR races buy, but I bet not many. I haven't seen any in Indy or any other racing(F1, motorcycles, etc...). Admittedly, I have not paid that much attention(especially to American racing series lately), but THAT was my surprise. I guess, since they are doing some sponsoring, might as well put the name on the product. :)
 
mscard88 said:
When I did some flying for Bill, Chase was child, guess 5-6 maybe. It was '98 when Jeff Gordon was winning just about every race that year, think around 14-15 that he won. We were flying a Brasilia for Bill and Dan Marino's #13 teamed based in Bill's Donaldsonville race shop, adjacent to his airport.
There was a guy that flew with us at ASA but left to fly a Brasilia for Richard Childress. First name was Johnny, lived up in N. Ga.
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That's back in the Glory Days there (Cue Bruce Springstein). My CFI actually did some flying for Ernie Irvan back in the 90's. I worked with a guy that worked for Bill down in Dawsonville back then, he always spoke very fondly of it.

genna said:
I now almost feel obligated to watch the damn races...:rolleyes:o_O If only someone could explain their new point/chase system to me :confused:
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I don't think they can explain it themselves, seems like it changes every week. Ha ha
 
I don't understand the caution flags at the end of segment. Keep the green out and keep racing. It just serves as convenient windows for TV to run commercials.
 
EppyGA said:
I don't understand the caution flags at the end of segment. Keep the green out and keep racing. It just serves as convenient windows for TV to run commercials.
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I agree. The stages make things a little more interesting but I don't see a need to go yellow immediately afterwards.
 
I bought the under carriage of my friends car at Lemans. Was hoping he would flip over. Imagine the camera time. He was also kind enough to give me his helmet, and didn't roll over. Oh well.
 
TRocket said:
I don't think they can explain it themselves, seems like it changes every week. Ha ha
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I basically quit watching a year or two after Dale Sr died. He always kept it interesting lol. I wish the fastest 43 should qualify, screw all this sponsor crap and guarantee starting. And this playoff crap! Regular season points cost Jeff Gordon a couple of championships under the playoff format. I still watch Indy cars, occasionally F1 but that's follow the leader most races. Oh and fights. And chicks in the stands pulling up their shirts showing off boobies. Hell they still do that in the camping area at Talledega. Yup, good ole days gone. :(
 
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I used to fly in to KAPC (Napa) a lot for work, and KAPC is the aviation hub for NASCAR at the Toyota Save Mart 400 at Sear's Point (I still call it Sear's Point.) It's a zoo that Friday when they all fly in, the ramp is evacuated and made ready for all the jets (Hendricks has the biggest.) One year I had to park way out in the back 40 and one of the airport staff guys recognized me and drove me from the remote hangar area all the way to my office (cool dude.)

I said 'It must be interesting working here on NASCAR weekend.' His response was 'Hell no! On Sunday, they are all in a hurry to get out, and only one of them is in a good mood!'

A couple years later, I didn't fly in that Friday but I did take my staff to lunch at the airport restaurant (Jonesey's) and as we leaving, so was Jeff Gordon in a rental Tahoe. He nearly sideswiped one of our company vehicles as he took the left turn to where he needed to go at the last minute.
 
Yup. Always a race to get out first. Dale Sr had a copter that picked him up at the track and took him right to his plane, and he was gone. Unless he won, then they have to hang around for a bit. I've been at races where Bill's car crashed and we immediately headed for the airport. Crews and drivers don't hang around the race if they crash.
 
EppyGA said:
I don't understand the caution flags at the end of segment. Keep the green out and keep racing. It just serves as convenient windows for TV to run commercials.
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I drove a few NACAR Sportsmans races back in the day, wasn't good enough to make money. Worked for a small team in NASCAR for one season and I don't understand the stages..... so there is 3 or 4 winners of the race?

Then again, talk about commercials, As a kid I used to watch the Wide World of Sports all day long just to see the one 10 minute segment of the race that was shown on TV...

mscard88 said:
I basically quit watching a year or two after Dale Sr died. He always kept it interesting lol. I wish the fastest 43 should qualify, screw all this sponsor crap and guarantee starting. And this playoff crap! Regular season points cost Jeff Gordon a couple of championships under the playoff format. I still watch Indy cars, occasionally F1 but that's follow the leader most races. Oh and fights. And chicks in the stands pulling up their shirts showing off boobies. Yup, good ole days gone. :(
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I agree, let that weekends fastest 43 or what ever safe numbers is for the track..... Let them race. Don't go fast enough, go home and try harder next week. There are no guarantees in baseball (or is it crying?), should be the same in racing.

But I do remember the older days when the winner of the race might be 4 or 5 laps ahead of second place, which might be 15 laps ahead of 3rd place....

Fights.....might have been involved in a few myself.
 
Years ago took wife to a short track w/ regular folks racing. After one heat I noticed a Sheriff Deputy running towards the pits. Wife asked what was going on. Told her this ain't NASCAR and someone's po'd that another racer f-up his race car. Fight's on! Comes outa his pocket repairing that race car, no sponsors at this level.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I used to fly in to KAPC (Napa) a lot for work, and KAPC is the aviation hub for NASCAR at the Toyota Save Mart 400 at Sear's Point (I still call it Sear's Point.).
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I still call it Sears point too, a lot of people still do. And not quite everyone flies into Napa, some of us unfortunately fly into OAK, which is always a fun ride from Sonoma....

mscard88 said:
Yup. Always a race to get out first. Dale Sr had a copter that picked him up at the track and took him right to his plane, and he was gone. Unless he won, then they have to hang around for a bit. I've been at races where Bill's car crashed and we immediately headed for the airport. Crews and drivers don't hang around the race if they crash.
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The best race all weekend is in the rental cars headed back to the aiport.

mscard88 said:
Years ago took wife to a short track w/ regular folks racing. After one heat I noticed a Sheriff Deputy running towards the pits. Wife asked what was going on. Told her this ain't NASCAR and someone's po'd that another racer f-up his race car. Fight's on! Comes outa his pocket repairing that race car, no sponsors at this level.
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That's one of the many things I miss about dirt track racing back in the day, the State Police breaking up fights in the pits....once saw a guy get wrecked in a dirt late models, rolled 3 times and before anybody knew what happened, the guy had knocked out the guy that wrecked him AND the guys dad before he had a chance to swing the steel pipe he had in his hand...no joke.
 
Today's field is only 40 cars of which 36 are guaranteed spots, leaving only 4 spots for other teams. Last weekend at Pocono they only had 38 cars in the field. When NASCAR started at the Brickyard, my wife and I went the first seven years. We had to enter a lottery the first year to get tickets and then had to pay for the next year the week after the race to keep our seats. This year you could have walked up to the ticket window on race day and bought prime seats. I'll bet there were fewer then 30,000 people there.

It used to be a week long event. You could come in on Wednesday and watch practice at the speedway then drive out to IRP and catch the sprint cars. Thursday was more practice and 1st round qualifying and then back out the IRP for the Truck race. Friday was second round qualifying, practice and for several years they had one of the IROC races, then back to IRP for the Busch series race that night. Saturday was the Brickyard 400. We would arrive early and park in the infield. We could be out of the track, have dinner at St. Elmos and be back in the hotel room to watch local broadcast of the race in the evening.

Four years ago NASCAR weekend hit at the end of Air Venture. We took the mighty Warrior and flew to Quincy, IL and spent the night with my best man and his wife. The next morning we flew to West Bend, WI and went to Air Venture and then flew down to Indy on Friday and the IMSA or whatever they were calling it then, Busch guys on Saturday, general admission tickets no reserved seats, and the Brickyard 400 on Sunday and flew back home on Monday. I bought seats under the shade behind the flag stand a week before the race.

It certainly has been downhill. I think you can even by tickets for Bristol now.
 
EppyGA said:
Today's field is only 40 cars of which 36 are guaranteed spots, leaving only 4 spots for other teams. Last weekend at Pocono they only had 38 cars in the field. When NASCAR started at the Brickyard, my wife and I went the first seven years. We had to enter a lottery the first year to get tickets and then had to pay for the next year the week after the race to keep our seats. This year you could have walked up to the ticket window on race day and bought prime seats. I'll bet there were fewer then 30,000 people there.

It used to be a week long event. You could come in on Wednesday and watch practice at the speedway then drive out to IRP and catch the sprint cars. Thursday was more practice and 1st round qualifying and then back out the IRP for the Truck race. Friday was second round qualifying, practice and for several years they had one of the IROC races, then back to IRP for the Busch series race that night. Saturday was the Brickyard 400. We would arrive early and park in the infield. We could be out of the track, have dinner at St. Elmos and be back in the hotel room to watch local broadcast of the race in the evening.

Four years ago NASCAR weekend hit at the end of Air Venture. We took the mighty Warrior and flew to Quincy, IL and spent the night with my best man and his wife. The next morning we flew to West Bend, WI and went to Air Venture and then flew down to Indy on Friday and the IMSA or whatever they were calling it then, Busch guys on Saturday, general admission tickets no reserved seats, and the Brickyard 400 on Sunday and flew back home on Monday. I bought seats under the shade behind the flag stand a week before the race.

It certainly has been downhill. I think you can even by tickets for Bristol now.
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You are spot on with all of that. Attendance is terrible these days, and you can actually scalp tickets a Bristol easily for quite a bit less than face value. And man do I miss IRP, ten times better than running the big track if you ask me. Send me a PM next time you find yourself at a Cup race.
 
IROC! Miss that series. Remember the time Eddie Cheever did something to Earnhardt, ran him off or spun him. Earnhardt recovers and hauls ass to catch up to the pack. BAM! Right into the rear of Cheever's car. Got Cheever's attention. Yup miss those days.
 
mscard88 said:
Years ago took wife to a short track w/ regular folks racing. After one heat I noticed a Sheriff Deputy running towards the pits. Wife asked what was going on. Told her this ain't NASCAR and someone's po'd that another racer f-up his race car. Fight's on! Comes outa his pocket repairing that race car, no sponsors at this level.
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I did that type of racing for years. We were sponsored by a fellow named Hip Pocket.....
 
mscard88 said:
IROC! Miss that series. Remember the time Eddie Cheever did something to Earnhardt, ran him off or spun him. Earnhardt recovers and hauls ass to catch up to the pack. BAM! Right into the rear of Cheever's car. Got Cheever's attention. Yup miss those days.
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IROC was a blast. Of course, when Chevy made the normal cars and labeled them IROC, it became "Italian Redneck Out Cruising". LOL.
 
I'm not surprised that attendance is down at both NASCAR and Indy Car races. They have both lost a good bit of their luster in my opinion. I still watch an average amount of NASCAR on tv but very little Indy Car as they don't seem to be on as much. I definitely don't make a point of watching either one but just catch it if it's on. The personalities and rivalries aren't what they once were. Very few if any larger than life types. Maybe I'm just getting old and it takes more to impress me now than before.
 
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