Blogging Fusion Blog Directory is a premiere blog directory on the internet. There are (2,406 blogs) submitted and we are growing very rapidly. We help bloggers get more exposure. Whether you're looking to promote your own blog to increase revenue, backlinks, readership or improve your search engine visibility, this blog directory is for you. Submit your blog today and increase your traffic & exposure. Blogging Fusion Blog Directory is search engine friendly and updated often.
NASCAR and Camping World unveiled the logo for the Camping World Truck Series on Friday.
The new look was revealed as the latest step for the series' transition to Camping World as the new title sponsor beginning in 2009, after 14 years of sponsorship by Craftsman. NASCAR and Camping World announced a seven-year partnership agreement on Oct. 23.
"We are excited to debut this logo and give the fans a glimpse of what the series will look like for 2009," said Steve Phelps, NASCAR's chief marketing officer. "While the logo and the sponsor will be new, the highly competitive nature of this series will continue as it has every year since 1995."
"This sponsorship is coming on the cusp of many good years partnering with NASCAR and the auto manufacturers and we are very excited at the opportunity to be the new title sponsor," said Marcus Lemonis, Camping World chairman and CEO. "The new logo is just a start of great things to come in 2009."
The inaugural Camping World Truck Series season will kick off Feb. 13, 2009 at Daytona International Speedway. The series, which features 25 races at 23 tracks located across North America, is exclusively broadcast on SPEED and FOX.
I wish Camping World and the truck series mutual success over the next years. It is a great series, which is often more exciting than either the Nationwide or Sprint Cup. With the global economic crisis, it may be the only series the average person will be able to afford.
THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A TORNADO WATCH UNTIL 7:00PM EST
Urgent - Immediate Broadcast Requested Tornado Watch Number 934 Nws Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 1225 PM EST Sat Nov 15 2008
The Nws Storm Prediction Center Has Issued A Tornado Watch For Portions Of
District Of Columbia Delaware Much Of Maryland All But Northern New Jersey Parts Of Southeastern Pennsylvania Much Of Eastern Virginia Coastal Waters
Effective This Saturday Afternoon And Evening From 1225 PM Until 700 PM EST.
Tornadoes... Hail To 1 Inch In Diameter... Thunderstorm Wind Gusts To 70 Mph... And Dangerous Lightning Are Possible In These Areas.
The Tornado Watch Area Is Approximately Along And 80 Statute Miles East And West Of A Line From 25 Miles West Northwest Of Trenton New Jersey To 20 Miles East Southeast Of South Hill Virginia.
Q: How close are you to a decision on whether to eliminate testing all together for '09, considering the owners including Rick Hendrick talked about let's do telemetry at the tracks on Friday, and get rid of this $100,000 a day testing. Also, would that include an elimination of Daytona testing in January, and the test in the west at Las Vegas?
France: We're going to need to react to that quickly because the budgets are being set for each team. So we'll not waste any time on that. We'll do that pretty quickly. It will be comprehensive if we go as aggressive as some have suggested, including ourselves.
To be as aggressive as we can take cost out of the system. Here again, that's exactly what I mentioned in Phoenix that we were going to be more aggressive in this area, so it will be comprehensive and significant of how we've looked at it in the past.
Q: Along those same lines as you look at ways of taking cost out of the sport, are you considering either reducing the length of some races and reducing the length of the schedule itself, take something races out and if you're not considering either of those, why is that off the table?
France: We're not considering either one of those. The reduction of the number of events is not practical. We have contracts in place and historically important events. Where would you choose? They're all successful in one form or another, so that would not be possible.
Then, you know, shortening events, that would be in our view more symbolic than actually saving anybody some real money. It's not in the last 50 laps, it's, you know, getting to the event and all the things that make up that in the first place.
But there are lots of other places that we can be more aggressive. Testing, as we've just heard, is on everyone's, you know, short list. It's on ours as well. And there are many, many other things. The good news is no one could have anticipated the economy. But we anticipated that the cost containment aspect of our sport is always a significant issue.
So that's, you know, right after safety is primarily where the Car of Tomorrow came from. We wanted to have an area that we could control more clearly and that the teams would have less to work with, therefore less engineering, less testing, less lots of things that make up what is a successful race team. So the good news is that that work we did many years ago to get us to that point will have some payoff when we need it the most.
Q: Just wanted to get what you thought about the ABC moving the final 34 minutes of the race on Sunday to ESPN2, and if there's anything that you can do about that in the future?
France: Well, we didn't like it. That was not what we had anticipated. But we have talked to them repeatedly in the last couple of days, and have, you know, there were lots of circumstances that they had to consider. I don't have to agree with each one of those, but they had their own issues that they had to manage around.
So we were the, you know -- unfortunately, we got the short end of that as a sport. But we're working with them and hope to eliminate that from happening in the future.
Q: I was curious. You know, the Chase was supposed to be an exciting, down to the last lap finish, and it looks like it probably won't end that way. Is that your take on it? Do you wish there was some more drama going into the last weekend of the season?
France: Yeah, I'd love for all 11 drivers to be within 25 points of each other, myself. I know but the reality of it is, that's sports. You're going to have World Series that are not as exciting as others, and Super Bowls, and that's just the nature of a dominant performance, quite frankly, by Jimmie Johnson. If he weren't so dominant, we might have a different discussion.
So you have to give him and his team to come back and win in Phoenix, when they were down on their luck, to stumble through the races and came right out and won. That's dominance. When that happens, they separate themselves pretty well from the rest of the field.
Q: Just wondering, overall, what, perhaps, NASCAR can offer the fans in the way of maybe ticket price reductions or just incentives to get them to fill seats in 2009 and beyond?
France: I tell you, the tracks have been really hard at work on that subject, because they're the ones who obviously do manage selling the tickets in our sport. They're certainly very familiar with their individual markets. Some are more effective than others. I know they're trying to add as much value for the race fan as they can and we're encouraging them to do that.
Quite frankly, we don't have to, because they're right on top of that. They're very sensitive to the cost and the challenges of race fans who live in this country anyway, with the economy, it wasn't lost on them with respect to high fuel prices mostly in the summer.
So it will be topic one in the offseason for all the tracks, I'm sure, to make sure that they're doing everything that they can to be sensitive to a race fan that's being tested every way they can with the economy.
Q: Every year since the Chase, we saw the points lead going into Homestead has grown bigger and bigger. I'm wondering if there is anything that can you do or would do, that NASCAR would consider to make the Homestead race, the season-ending race more relevant?
France: I think you have to look at it in the general sports genre. When someone is dominant like Jimmie has been, it's easier to want to revise some system that would somehow pull him back from being so dominant and make it a closer points battle. But that would be number one. Wouldn't even be right.
But secondly it misses the point. We have a system that, if everybody performs well, we have more people that have a shot at the championship down the stretch. That's undeniable. You have to make the Chase in the first place.
And history as you unfold, we're in our fifth year, as history will unfold, we'll have a period of years where someone will be as dominant as Jimmie and it will go down in the history books. Then there will be other years where that won't happen, and we'll have a number of years of historically tight championship battles. That will be terrific, too.
So all we want is the right playoff format, and then if somebody's dominant, they're dominant. If they're not, well that will be terrific.
Q: Next year about a third of the field doesn't have sponsors. Caterpillar is moving from Bill Davis Racing, a team that didn't make the Chase, to RCR a team that did. Chex is moving from Petty Enterprises, which didn't make the Chase, to RCR, which did. UPS is moving from Michael Waltrip, which didn't make the Chase, to Roush Fenway, which did. Army is moving from DEI to Tony Stewart's team, which is expected to contend. Have you gotten any concerns or feedback from car owners that the Chase format is making it extremely difficult for people not in The Chase to get sponsors? And are you worried that that will skew the battle of sponsorship dollars?
France: No. Each illustration they use would, in my view, have happened anyway, Chase or no Chase. You know, teams that are running consistently better are doing consistently better at the sponsorship game. That's just how it works.
And for the various teams to do better, the economy certainly plays in a role that is out of their control. What is in their control is to perform better. They're trying to do that. By talking to each and every one of them who are having sponsorship difficulties, they acknowledge it's two-front. It is definitely the economy. There are not as many companies who are putting big marketing bets down today as there were 12 months ago.
And then most of them would say, hey, I've got to get my performance up to make myself more attractive. So it's really those two things that are in play. And the Chase elevates all of that, quite frankly. Doesn't pull one down or one up.
Q: You mentioned earlier about ABC moving the race over to ESPN2. You said you had talks and were working on things in the future. What can be done in the future to prevent such an occurrence, or when might it just have to be acceptable? And is one option the possibility of earlier starting times to be careful from that run up to primetime?
France: I think what's important is ABC and ESPN and NASCAR, you know, our interests are aligned. That doesn't mean we always, you know see eye to eye on every issue, but they want to do what is in the best interest of the NASCAR race fan which they serve week in and week out in lots of ways.
So they did not like the idea of having to pull out of, you know, off of ABC and offer it the way they did on Sunday. That said, it is imperative that we work closely together with them for scheduling, and to have other considerations that certain, in this case, a red flag which took the event another 30 minutes or more out of the window that they had planned, and that's a very unusual thing at Arizona this time of the year. So that probably wasn't anticipated.
But the most important thing is while we're not pleased with what happened on Sunday, our interests are very much in line, and they do not want to do anything but the best coverage for our race fans, and that we have a lot of confidence we'll figure out.
Q: Do we have any sense of where you guys will finish at the end of the year in terms of revenue, up or down on a percentage basis? How can we quantify what the impact of this economic downturn has meant for you guys?
France: Well, there are pressures on certain revenue streams that are pretty obvious to us -- sponsorship being one. Certainly in markets of attendance has definitely suffered. I equate that somewhat to high fuel prices as well. It's not just a tough economy, but it's a combination of those things.
A lot of things we won't know until the future because they were booked in, you know, multiple year contracts and so on. But, look, what's important is that our fans are under an enormous amount of pressure, forgetting NASCAR for a moment. But just a general running of their lives and making it all work.
So we're a part of that. We're a small, hopefully wonderful part of someone's entertainment and fun-time on the weekend. What we're going to be working on is making sure that we're sensitive to these tough times and doing everything we can for our teams as well. Holding the costs down, getting costs out so they can operate their businesses more efficiently, like most other businesses are trying to do in almost every industry.
Then the tracks, as I said earlier, are going to work very hard to deliver as much value and be mindful of what the fan is going through just to make the commitment to come to one of our events, to buy our merchandise and be the greatest fans in sports. That's not going to go casually around starting with me and all the way down in our industry. We're going to be very, very aggressive thanking our fans for what they do every week.
Q: Sometimes we, all of us, tend to live in our NASCAR world and everybody who covers this sport and follow this sport. So there is a lot of conversation about the economy. Can you put it into perspective? We know All Americans are hurting, but what about other sports and conversations you've had? Because we are so much related to gas and automobiles and sponsors, how do you -- would you put the issues that NASCAR has in relation to the NBA, the NFL, and other national sports?
France: I think there is far more in common than there is not. Number one, we share -- a lot of partners are our partners or their partners: Your broadcast partners, licensees, advertisers, you name it. We all count on the national economy to help drive our sports.
If you're in some of the other leagues have a big dependency on those sponsors buying suites and block tickets and so on, we don't have quite that significant of an impact.
But the point is that when the economy is this difficult, I think all of the sports will feel it, maybe not equally, you know, in every category, but I think on the aggregate when you pull all together, we're all very similar in the impact.
Q: I have a question regarding the Grand Am Series which NASCAR recently acquired. Do you foresee the schedule and the venues where Grand Am races pretty much staying the same in the future? Or do you see an effort to try to integrate those races with the NASCAR weekend? In other words having more Grand Am races at the same track, and is that the same weekend as a Sprint Cup race? Also, has NASCAR in any way encouraged Sprint Cup teams to consider fielding a Grand Am team?
France: Well, I would say yes on all of that. There's limits on the integration of our events because the grand America, of course, is road racing, and they rely more on historically important road race facilities. So, sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.
We would love to see, because it's a different style of racing and it is a different, frankly, a different demographic as well, we'd like to see team owners like Chip Ganassi who has been in the great America for several years now. When it makes sense for them to field competitive teams, that heightens and elevates that series. It gives another opportunity to team owners who are looking to analyze their business investment in motorsports to a different audience.
So there are lots of different reasons we'd want to see a cross-participation. In an extent we can put events together which we have done in the past, we will. But that would be somewhat limited, as I said, based on what historically important road racing facilities are available.
Q: In your estimation, how healthy is the sport right now? You have teams that built this thing. Pettys are struggling terribly, trying to merge. You know, Wood brothers are on their last leg, trying to figure out a way to keep racing. And it's hard to go out and get $26 million bucks. You have teams trying to get multiple sponsorships to stay on the racetrack. In your estimation, how healthy is it? In this economy, is it the worst the sport has seen monetarily since the early '70s?
France: Let me say that obviously, it's very difficult. It's on our whole industry. And there are always some unfunded teams. Now, that's not anything new. One of my goals and one of our goals is to have a system where you don't need $26 million to put a competitive team forward. So that is one of the things NASCAR has a lot of influence on and we're working all the time to figure that out.
But there is no question that with advertising and marketing budgets coming under lots of pressure, that we are, as I've said for many months now, we will not be immune to those kinds of reviews.
I would tell you, the good news is that we're talking about 90 percent of the industry is sponsors, or more, speaking of the Sprint Cup Series. And we have brought on some new companies that will be ready in place for 2009. And sponsorship values are at an all-time high as to what they deliver for companies.
Now that doesn't give you a pass if the general economy contracts a lot, but it certainly helps as they look at things they can't afford to do in the future. Usually, we're one of the last things that they don't want to continue, because they know that it works so well.
Most of the companies, even in tough economic times do want to sell their products and services. So we will come out of this, and we will do our part with the rest of the sports and entertainment to weather the storm. And we've been here before with energy crisis and 9/11, and many other recessions and so on. And it's never fun. It's never easy on our team. It's never easy on us, but we'll get through it.
Q: Considering how much NASCAR is effected by outside economics, has this downturn served the limits of NASCAR's growth? Once this downturn is over, would the sport go back to the old days, old business model, everything doing great? Or does it have to get leaner and meaner and do things have to change with the business model?
France: No, it needs to get leaner and meaner all the time, in terms of what it cost for race teams to field a competitive team. And that is an ongoing effort of ours. We're going to be more aggressive on it.
In fact, there are lots of areas that NASCAR could cut. And I'm speaking now of the sanctioning bodies that we won't. Because when this economic turn turns around, our -- we're going to be very aggressive continuing to go after a bigger fan base. Get more people interested in NASCAR. That's why we're not going to discontinue a lot of the things that are long-term benefit to the sport. Everyone can win when we get more on solid ground.
What we've talked about the economy is two things for us; It's obviously the sponsorship which we've talked a lot about today, and the pressure on our fans to attend the events. Those are the two critical areas. So we have -- so we've got to take caution out of the system -- cost out of the system and all that.
But we can't do things that don't look at attracting new fans in the future. We're based around trying to make this sport bigger and not smaller.
I know what you are going to say, "Carl Edwards is only 91 points away from taking Jimmie Johnson's Championship hopes away." I realize that, and I should be a little more excited about it, however I'm not. I'm bored of it all and that's not good.
I did watch something that was NOT boring at all...a great hockey fight! If you didn't see it, below is the video of it. Gloves off, helmets off and they go at it! Sarich beats the crap out of Ward.
Blog Directory ID: 90
Blog URL: http://ernhrtfanalwys3.blogspot.com
Google Pagerank: 5
Blog Description: A female NASCAR fan who's not afraid to speak her mind and does so thru blogging.
Blog Category: Nascar Blogs
Blog Owner: Antonette
Blog Added: March 05, 2007 02:49:27 AM
Audience Rating: Not Yet Rated
Blog Platform Not Selected
Blog Country: No location given.
My Yahoo! 
Report Blog Listing - 
Refer Blog Listing - 
Print Listing
Total Visits: 31
Blog Rating: 3.15
Rate Blog: 
