As Cup drivers crash Busch party, questions linger about NASCAR's junior series
Associated Press
Posted: 2 days ago
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) - The best of the Busch Series gathered Thursday to celebrate a successful season for NASCAR's junior varsity series.
The Busch Series drivers were extremely hard to find.
Sunday, 7 p.m. ET on SPEED
Eight Nextel Cup stars crashed this party, including Kevin Harvick, who humiliated the competition this season by winning the Busch title by a whopping 824 points over fellow "Buschwhacker" Carl Edwards.
The two Cup stars will be joined on stage at Friday night's Busch banquet by Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, J.J. Yeley, Kyle Busch, Reed Sorenson and Greg Biffle, who skipped five races and still made the top 10 in the final standings.
"It's terrible for the series," said Dale Earnhardt Jr., a two-time Busch Series champion who ran five Busch events this season. "At this rate, maybe in five or 10 years, the entire series is full of Cup regulars and it ends up becoming a novelty race where people come see us goof off a little bit before the big deal on Sunday."
That's the pace the series is on, and it's clearly not what NASCAR had in mind when it created the support series 25 years ago. As Cup drivers continue to make the Busch Series their personal playground, questions are being raised about its legitimacy as a training ground for NASCAR's future stars.
David Gilliland would argue that the series is working just fine.
For Gilliland, it certainly did. He used an upset victory at Kentucky Speedway in June to launch his career from a no-name driver with an underfunded team, to an aspiring young talent who had top-level car owners tripping over each other in a bidding war to sign him.
Gilliland finally chose Robert Yates Racing, which gave him the keys to a coveted Cup ride just two months after his Kentucky win.
"I wanted to go Cup racing, that was always my goal," Gilliland said. "To get there, I was going to have to race these (Cup) guys. You can learn now or learn later, and I got a jump on it in the Busch Series. Ultimately, the Busch Series got me where I wanted to go."
But the Gilliland's are few and far between these days, as he and Paul Menard were the only two non-Cup regulars to win a Busch event this season.
Of the 35 races, Cup drivers won 33 times.
Menard, who finished sixth in the final standings, is going Cup racing next season. So is Johnny Sauter, the only other non-Cup driver to crack the top 10 in points with an eighth-place finish.
But those three success stories are balanced out by Danny O'Quinn Jr., the rookie of the year who is now looking for work.
Although he drives for powerhouse Roush Racing, the team hasn't been able to find O'Quinn a sponsor for 2007. Without one, he can't drive.
Roush does, however, have funding for Edwards, who plans to run the full Busch schedule next year. He also has sponsor dollars for Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray, who pick and choose races throughout the season.
Harvick can sympathize with O'Quinn.
As the owner of a two-car operation, he knows how difficult it is to put together the $4.5 million to $6 million he estimates is needed to run a competitive Busch team.
Companies have no problem handing over that kind of cash on a car Harvick or Bowyer or Edwards will drive all year. But for a driver they've never heard of, who might need two seasons to develop and probably won't run up front? The purse strings tighten up quite a bit.
"It's hard to find a sponsor for an individual, stand-alone Busch team because the sponsor wants to be competitive right off the bat," Harvick said. "It's a catch-22 because if they don't succeed right away, they are out. It's hard to keep training someone year after year if they don't get it because the sponsor wants to be on TV and wants to be rewarded for the money they are spending."
But instead of blaming the series, Harvick points to the driver talent pool as a large part of the current problem. Today's driver must appeal to sponsor, convince the company to invest in him, then keep the board happy for 35 weeks.
"If there were more good young drivers who were capable of driving the cars, you'd see them in the Busch Series," he said. "But there just hasn't been a Carl Edwards come along lately, or a Denny Hamlin, guys who can be competitive when you put them in a competitive car."
But as long as the series has household Cup names for a sponsor to choose from, the opportunities for the rising young driver will always be slim.
The easy solution would be for NASCAR to limit the number of races Cup drivers can compete in each season. This past year, seven drivers ran both the full Cup and Busch schedules, and Edwards and Yeley have already committed to doing it again in 2007.
Capping the number of starts in a season would certainly open up more seats, but NASCAR chairman Brian France said that's a slippery slope for the governing body to enter.
"We like to have a free market where everybody can compete," France said. "You could make an argument that we have a lot more crossover than we ever have, and maybe we have to look at that. But the ideal way to do it is to get more talented young drivers in the series."
Frankly, NASCAR doesn't want to keep the Cup drivers out of the field every Saturday. The stars sell tickets and raise interest levels. That in turn creates better TV ratings, which leads to bigger purses and payouts for everyone - including the low-level teams struggling to compete.
When it's all said and done, the Busch Series is quite healthy and has the Buschwhackers to thank for it.
It ranks second only to Nextel Cup in terms of popularity in the United States, and its television ratings are comparable to both the NBA and Major League Baseball.
The series has grown from seven states in 1982 to 21 states this past season, and Busch cars will run in both Mexico and Canada next year.
"When everything is said and done, the fans want to see the mix of the drivers, the promoters want to see the mix of the drivers and the drivers themselves say they are learning from racing against the Buschwhackers every week," said series director Joe Balash.
"It's been beneficial for everyone to have that mix on the race track, and the Busch Series is healthier than it's ever been."
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Posted 12/18/2006 7:28 PM ET
By Jenna Fryer,The Associated Press
CHARLOTTE — Anheuser-Busch will end its title sponsorship of NASCAR's No. 2 series after the 2007 season.
The parent company for Busch beer cited A-B's desire to reassess all of its NASCAR marketing as its reason for pulling out of the Busch Series. The company just celebrated its 25th season as title sponsor.
The decision, confirmed by series officials Monday, comes as ESPN prepares to become the sole broadcaster of the No. 2 racing series in the United States. That increased coverage — the Busch Series has previously aired on as many as four networks in one season — should increase the sponsorship rights to about three times the estimated $10 million a year that A-B has been paying.
"We think the Busch Series is a property that has been undermarketed and undervalued from a broadcast standpoint," said Steve Phelps, NASCAR's marketing chief executive. "With our new TV agreement and the resources ESPN is going to put against it, this series is not going to be an afterthought."
Phelps said NASCAR would start serious negotiations in January for a new title sponsor, but had no timetable for securing a replacement for Busch.
"We're doing our due diligence with ESPN to determine how we will jointly call on companies," Phelps said. "We're going to continue to evaluate what this series represents, but right now, it represents great racing.
"If you look at it as its own property instead of the little brother (to the Nextel Cup Series) it's stronger than any motorsports series except Nextel Cup. That's how it needs to be marketed."
Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser brand will continue its sponsorship as "the official beer of NASCAR," as well as its role as the primary sponsor of driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Budweiser also will continue to sponsor the weekly pole award and the annual Budweiser Shootout, the exhibition race held each February that marks the start of the season.
"On most weekends, we get a very focused message to the consumer, but we're starting to dilute ourselves with Bud and Busch," Tony Ponturo, A-B's vice president of global media and sports marketing told The Sports Business Journal.
"In this day and age of competition, the last thing you want is to dilute your own effort."
According to a Joyce Julius study, no other sponsor in NASCAR received as much exposure as A-B did in 2006.
Busch took over its role as title sponsor for a series that was first known as Late Model Sportsman and later the Grand National Series.
But the series is at somewhat of a crossroads these days because of an infiltration of Nextel Cup drivers who have used it as a playground of sorts and made it difficult to remain a true training ground for young talent.
Kevin Harvick, a Nextel Cup star, won the Busch title this past season by an enormous margin and Cup regulars won all but two of the 35 events. Full-time Cup drivers also earned eight of the top 10 spots in the final standings.
But their inclusion has helped the series grow, and ESPN plans to treat it similarly to Nextel Cup broadcasts when the network takes over next month.
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Talk about surprised I had no idea. I wonder how hard it will be for NASCAR to find another series sponsor? Is it really worth 30 million ? The Busch teams ( I mean the real Busch teams not the interlopers ) are struggling to pick up partial sponsorships now, I,ve been hoping that ESPNs full coverage of the series would help, now I,m even more concerned
By KEN WILLIS
MY TWO CENTS
For an entire generation of race fans, it has never been known as anything but the Busch Series.
The old-timers still might call it the Grand National Series. The old-timers' dads never got around to calling it anything other than the Sportsman class.
They'll all be in the same boat a year from now, when a new title sponsor takes over NASCAR's version of Triple-A baseball.
According to the industry trades (newspaper talk), Anheuser-Busch spends about $10 million a year for naming rights to the series, but NASCAR's asking price will triple or quadruple when the beer maker's contract runs out after '07.
This wasn't nearly as big as the Winston/Nextel swap-a-roo a few years ago, but it was still big enough for the Boys in Marketing -- led by Anheuser-Busch's Tony Ponturo and NASCAR's Andrew Giangola -- to launch a preemptive feel-good assault.
And, for your holiday enjoyment, it was just big enough for us to dust off our favorite play-at-home game: "What he said/What he meant."
WHAT TONY SAID: ". . .We felt it was important to alert NASCAR that we were not going to renew after '07, as a courtesy of our long-term relationship."
WHAT TONY MEANT: Forty million dollars? FORTY? You kiddin' me? Normally, we like to sleep on it before making a decision, but as soon as we realized they said 40 and not 14, we hopped the nearest Clydesdale and romped into the sunset.
WHAT TONY SAID: "We wanted to give them time to consider and look for a new sponsor."
WHAT TONY MEANT: Maybe some of their new booze-brewing buddies can foot the bill. I'm sure they have Mr. Smirnoff on speed dial.
For his part, Andrew Giangola had a unique sales pitch, because not only is NASCAR beating the bushes (sorry), but they're partnering with born-again broadcasting partner ESPN in the search.
WHAT ANDREW SAID: "No one could come up with another example of league and broadcast partner selling a sponsorship."
WHAT ANDREW MEANT: You know, I thought we were the ones who could sell ice to an Eskimo, but come on, those boys at ESPN can sell ads for poker and the WNBA. OK, poker.
WHAT ANDREW SAID: "It's a significant opportunity for a company to gain $100 million in brand exposure."
WHAT ANDREW MEANT: Must be true -- it says so on the press releases.
WHAT ANDREW SAID: "Clearly, we hope to have somebody in place before 2008."
WHAT ANDREW MEANT: I really don't want to see the word "former" in front of my title.
WHAT ANDREW SAID: "It's a unique situation, because the company is literally branded to the sport."
WHAT ANDREW MEANT: Make it $50 million, and I'll literally brand your logo on my left cheek. Yes, that one.
WHAT ANDREW SAID: "The Holy Grail seems to be about bringing in the casual sports fan. When you look at ESPN, it's a gathering place for a lot of casual sports fans."
WHAT ANDREW MEANT: My Aunt Marlene just loves that Tony Kornheiser.
HAHAHAHA Too funny Flash, thanks for sharing that one!
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CURRENT SPONSORSHIP CARRIES THROUGH 2007
Wal-Mart Series? It could happen in '08
NASCAR shops for sponsor after learning Busch won't renew deal
JIM UTTER
jutter@charlotteobserver
The NASCAR Busch Series will be looking for a new title sponsor after next season.
NASCAR officials confirmed Monday that Anheuser-Busch, parent company for the Busch beer brand, has decided not to renew its sponsorship of NASCAR's No. 2 series after it expires at the end of 2007.
The Busch Series just completed its 25th season, with driver Kevin Harvick earning his second series championship.
“We are starting the process of finding a new title sponsor and executives at Anheuser-Busch have decided to pursue another direction in their marketing of the Busch brand,” said Andrew Giangola, NASCAR’s director of business communications.
Several companies have already made inquiries about taking Busch’s place, including Wal-Mart, Samsung and Subway, the Observer has learned. Subway is considered the least likely of the three, sources said, although it does already sponsor a Nextel Cup Series team and two races, at Martinsville, Va., and Phoenix.
Other companies could enter the picture as NASCAR’s search expands, officials said.
Giangola said Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser brand will continue its sponsorship as “the official beer of NASCAR,” it’s sponsorship of driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and NASCAR’s pole awards. It will also continue to sponsor the annual Budweiser Shootout at Daytona, a non-points all-star race held each February featuring pole winners from the previous season and past winners of the event.
“On most weekends, we get a very focused message to the consumer, but we’re starting to dilute ourselves with Bud and Busch,” Tony Ponturo, A-B’s vice president of global media and sports marketing told The Sports Business Journal.
“In this day and age of competition, the last thing you want is to dilute your own effort.”
In NASCAR’s new TV deal which takes effect next season, ESPN will take over broadcast of the entire Busch schedule. In recent years, the races have been aired on as many as four different networks during the season.
As it will become the sole broadcaster of the series, Giangola said ESPN will play an important role in finding and selecting the new series sponsor.
“Clearly, we believe the series is a powerful and growing sports property and ESPN is going to take the lead in elevating the series to a new level,” he said.
Added George McNeilly, ESPN’s senior director of communications, “This has been a collaborative effort with NASCAR from the beginning. Our sales and marketing teams working so closely together in this effort demonstrate the overall commitment to the series.”
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Anheuser-Busch to end NASCAR sponsorship
Too funny Flash, thanks for sharing that one! 
Wal-Mart Series? It could happen in '08
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