[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 ...

[sgarnett]

BTW, I heard a great comment from MW about the wreck.

He was pretty pissed off at the rescue crew. He was trying to get them to just flip the car back over with a tow truck to get him out - compared to the ride he'd already been on, it would be a walk in the park.

Instead, they were determined to get him out by cutting through the cage with Sawzalls while the car was still upside down. Why is this bad? The car was already toast - the cage is scrap after a wreck like that. HOWEVER, it was only the cage (and the driver's neck) that was holding the car up, and they wanted to remove the cage (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)