Radio Free Junior
As high-tech and expensive NASCAR has become in the past decade, its publicity efforts are stuck squarely in 1994 or so. NASCAR teams churn out a lot of press releases -- here is a good place to get every last stinkin' one of them -- and every driver and team has a Web site. (The Petty Racing site is surprisingly good looking. But like a lot of them, it lacks, well, stuff. Like the Martinsville race report, for instance.)
Dale Jr.'s PR guys get it, though. I'll explain why after the jump ...
Two of his PR guys, Mike Davis and Jade Gurss, have blogs. Both have been doing this for a while (I stumbled on them last season). Best I can tell, they're the only racing bloggers being paid by a race team.
The Fingerprint team (that's the company name) has gone one better this year: podcasts. Have you ever read the "Best Radio Chatter" section of the 8 team's post race report? (His site is here; you'll have to dig around). The podcats are Junior's in-car radio transmissions from the race. I wish other teams were doing the same thing. There's some funny stuff being said during the races, and it's a shame to keep it all in house.
A good idea well done. Nice job, y'all.
Comments (3)
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I really enjoy those. I've gotten a bit more appreciation for Junior thanks to Jade & Mike's insights into working with him and being friends with him.
Posted on April 6, 2006 2:29 PM
As long as news organizations, or those believing they are same, treat every piece of PR garbage flushed down the sewer like Pavlov's dogs greeting a ringing bell, immediately printing each word in its full mind-numbing excess and trumpeting its mere existence as living proof this is Holy Writ for all race fans, there will be no great change in the system. Why should there be? It's going to take the big boys saying "no more" and sticking to it for PR firms to start realizing they're not the story and actually doing their job. You know... popularizing the drivers they represent through genuine media access?
Posted on April 8, 2006 11:07 AM
I'm not sure I get your point, Dude - are you saying what Junior's crew is new and novel and, well, it rocks, or is it just more of the same but repackaged?
Posted on April 10, 2006 9:59 AM