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Title: Siegel the right pick, but success will take NASCAR's support (affirmative action?)
Source:
Charlotte Observer
URL Source: http://www.thatsracin.com/topstories/story/21730.html
Published: Jan 16, 2009
Author: David Poole
Post Date: 2009-01-16 00:28:43 by X-15
Keywords: None
Views: 60
Comments: 4
NASCAR hit a ringing double on Wednesday, making a deal that puts Max Siegel in charge of managing the Drive for Diversity program. In hiring Siegel, stock-car racing’s leadership took a big step toward bringing a level of credibility to its diversity initiative. {snip} Siegel left Dale Earnhardt Inc., where he was president of global operations, to go back to Baker & Daniels, an Indianapolis legal firm where he’d worked from 1992 through 1994. That firm, with Siegel leading the effort, will take over management of the Drive for Diversity program. {snip} I’ve said it before and I still believe that NASCAR needs to put a lot money behind the whole function of driver development, and diversity is a big piece of that process. Developing drivers of all colors and genders is an investment in this sport’s future, and especially in these tough times NASCAR needs to put its money where its future is. NASCAR officials will tell you that they don’t think it’s proper for the sanctioning body to pick out drivers to support financially over others. But that’s the whole reason the Drive for Diversity program was set up to be run by an outside agency like Access Marketing and now Baker & Daniels in the first place. NASCAR supports the program and then the program picks the drivers and administers the financial support. {snip} I think 5 percent of every deal NASCAR has or makes with an “official” sponsor should be earmarked for driver development. If it costs a company $2 million a year to be the “official” tofu of NASCAR, then $100,000 of that should go toward driver development. That sounds like a pittance, but the 5 percent rule should apply to every deal NASCAR makes—including the title sponsorship deal with Sprint and the television contract. Sprint’s deal is supposedly right at $70 million a year. That’s $3.5 million for development. The television contract averages about $500 million a year. That’s $25 million. (All of that shouldn’t come out of NASCAR’s share of the TV money—the 2 percent should come off first before the drivers and owners (through race purses) and the tracks get their share. Everybody should be contributing to this.) According to a list on NASCAR.com, there are about 50 “official” sponsorship deals in place. At $100,000 a pop (and that’s just a wild guess), that’s another $5 million for development. So we’re at $33.5 million. Even if that’s 10 percent off, we’re still looking at $30 million a year that could be used to help develop young drivers. {snip}
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#1. To: X-15 (#0)
I've watched NASCAR succumb to all sorts of gimickery over the last 10 years to the point where I am just about fed up. This is total nonsense! This is just another phase of the destructive goings on since it became all about "money". Gone are the days of driving a basic stock car. Now we have the car of tomorrow where they are all the same except for a few minor differences and a pasted on decal telling you it is a chevy, ford, dodge, or a toyota. Then we have the last ten races where only those drivers that qualify get to compete for the driver championship. You could be a driver outside the top 12 and win all ten of the remaining races and can't be the champion. Total bullshit! Now they are proposing to give us generic drivers. The championship calibur drivers are very rare. Not everyone can be trained to be a championship driver. Some can be trained to drive at a certain level and that is it. I see we got the race being exported to foreign countries at the expense of the fans who made NASCAR the Great American racing venue. Now they got generic cars, a generic racing format, willing to run races anywhere, and now they want to ruin it even further by making generic drivers (affirmative Action). We've seen what Affirmative Action has done in the workplace and in our Ccolleges and universities. I say no thank you NASCAR. You are shooting yourselves in the foot. Pretty soon the fans ought to start red flagging the races and find another interest on Sunday afternoons. This March probably will be the last NASCAR race I attend when I go to Bristol, Tennessee, my 13th consecutive race there. I've attended over 55 races over the years and I've watched NASCAR's greed and destruction. My need for any more racing will be fulfilled by returning to the dirt tracks where there is still great racing "the way it outta be".
Well they got that part right.
Please, no waving Confederate flags or Confederate flags on your clothing or even Confederate flag pins, this is a family event.... (I double-dog dare you!!!) ;-)
Unfortunetely, that IS the attitude of the assholes that are running NASCAR now. At one time they sponsored races named The Rebel 300 and the Southern 500. You would have thought that their latest out of court settlement would have taught them a lesson but they have become too hard core P.C. I don't care. Indycars are back and put on a much better show. NASCAR can piss off. If they think a black Jew will put things right they are more out of touch than even I thought.
Developing drivers of all colors and genders is an investment in this sport’s future, and especially in these tough times NASCAR needs to put its money where its future is.
#2. To: X-15 (#0)
Max Siegel in charge of managing the Drive for Diversity program
#3. To: LACUMO (#1)
This March probably will be the last NASCAR race I attend when I go to Bristol, Tennessee,
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#4. To: X-15 (#3)
Please, no waving Confederate flags or Confederate flags on your clothing or even Confederate flag pins, this is a family event....
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