[mitchntx]

After watching a some of the coverage of the Daytona 500 this weekend and hearing a lot of discussion about the costs associated with feilding a competitive team and hearing the gnashing of teeth surrounding the dwindling sponsorships and hearing the concerns about enough cars to field a full grid and seeing Waltrip's wild tumble and seeing that tumble re-played on network after network after network ....

I began to wonder ....

Because it's all about the number of minutes a specific sponsor get's it's name on TV, when will a driver, who is an "also ran", purposely wreck his car, just get gleen a few extra minutes of sponsor coverage?

Is it cost effective to spend a $100,000 race car in order to keep a $10 million sponsor?

NAPA received tons of exposure from networks to local TV stations replaying his wreck. I would hate to see that happen on purpose, but ... it has to be there in someone's mind ...

[Chris 96 WS6]

There is a marketing firm that spends all week each week reviewing every second of footage from the NASCAR races in all three series, they compile a list of sponsors and total airtime exposure whether through seeing the car on screen, driver mentions of the name, broadcast crew mentions, etc. They provide a matrix that shows the sponsors what kind of coverage they get for their dollars.

The flaw in Mitch's theory is that the wreck happened on lap 72. Yeh it took better part of a 1/2 hour to get the car righted, get Waltrip out of it, etc. But after that the car got hauled off and there was no NAPA presence on the track the rest of the race.

I think you'd find a lot of the sponsors of the 4-10th place cars were not too happy that the broadcasters spent 99% of the last 50 laps focused on the leaders.