Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: NHRA chief likes NASCAR’s blueprint

Friday, July 23, 1999 | 9:57 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand's motor sports notebook appears Friday. His golf notebook appears Wednesday. Reach him at bh@lasvegassun.com or 259-4089.

No other sport has experienced such phenomenal growth as did NASCAR's Winston Cup Series in this decade.

But National Hot Rod Association president Dallas Gardner said he believes his sport has the potential to match NASCAR's meteoric rise in popularity during the next decade.

With state-of-the-art facilities cropping up in Joliet, Ill., Bristol, Tenn., and, now, Las Vegas, Gardner said the NHRA is on the fast track to unprecedented growth.

"We have done a good job over the years of building our sport within the box," Gardner said. "But it's now time to take it out to the masses, what NASCAR has done, and facilities are absolutely key to that.

"With the world that we're in today, with what we compete against for sports and leisure dollars, you have to have facilities like what Bruton Smith is building right now."

Smith is chairman of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which built the new dragway in Bristol and is in the process of building a $10 million facility at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Gardner, along with NHRA executive vice president and general manager Tom Compton, have drawn up a three-year plan to bring their brand of drag racing into the sports mainstream.

The first phase of the plan, according to Gardner, was to hire a global public relations firm, a television broadcast firm and a national advertising agency. Phase two is the construction of facilities in new and bigger markets and the final phase is to land a lucrative television deal.

John Force, an eight-time NHRA Winston Funny Car champion who has been competing in the NHRA since 1979, has bought into Gardner's and Compton's vision.

"The NHRA has bought a whole new program," Force said. "What they're doing isn't B.S.; I've sat in four-hour seminars on where we're going. They know their marketing plan and I'm going to follow them.

"This thing (drag racing) is getting big. NASCAR leapfrogged everybody -- Formula One, Indy Car, everybody -- because those guys had a marketing strategy. All of a sudden, we've got one, too."

Gardner, who has presided over the NHRA since 1984, said there is a very real parallel between his series and NASCAR.

"NASCAR is a phenomenon ... but if you study some of the things that really catapulted NASCAR into hyperspace, a number of those elements are in place (in the NHRA)," he said. "The very first thing they had was an incredible product on the race track; NHRA is second to none, on the race track, an incredible product. In terms of the markets, the NHRA now has a better geographical distribution than NASCAR had five or ten years ago.

"Facilities also played an important role in (NASCAR's growth), and people like Bruton Smith who raised the bar ... those are the same things that happened over there in NASCAR. We have tremendous fan attendance, and we continue to grow. The only element that we have to put in place is television, and if you study television with NASCAR, it took them a while to get that element in place."

Currently, approximately 70 percent of the NHRA's 23 events are televised on either a live or same-day basis, according to Compton. But many of the taped shows are broadcast late at night on ESPN2.

That, Gardner said, needs to change. The addition of facilities such as the Route 66 Raceway outside of Chicago, the Bristol Dragway and the Las Vegas dragway will help the NHRA secure a better television package.

"With our affiliation with those three groups," Gardner said, referring to the NHRA's new marketing, television and advertising partners, "we will find a way to take television to the next level in this sport, then I think you'll see a lot of things happen in NHRA Drag Racing that happened in NASCAR."

* NASCAR: Longtime NASCAR team owner Harry Ranier, who won 24 Winston Cup races including three Daytona 500s, died Wednesday at his Davidson, N.C., home of a massive heart attack. Ranier was 62.

Ranier had fielded cars since 1978 with drivers Lennie Pond, Buddy Baker, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, Davey Allison and Tony Stewart. In 1998, Ranier sold his team to Robert Yates but had been working to assemble a Busch Series team for the 2000 season. ...

Busch Series driver Jeff Krogh was moved to a Colorado hospital this week to begin rehabilitation from injuries he sustained in a crash on July 3 in Milwaukee.

Krogh has remained in a coma with severe head injuries since the practice-lap accident, although he currently is listed as semi-comatose. ...

Stanton Barrett, who qualified a car for owner Junie Donlavey at the Las Vegas Winston Cup race earlier this year, will attempt to qualify Donlavey's Hills Brothers coffee-sponsored car in this weekend's Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway.

Barrett, who started 42nd and finished 30th in the Las Vegas 400 in March, also will try to make the field for the Brickyard 400 next month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

* CART: Las Vegas resident Jimmy Vasser is hoping to continue his success at Michigan Speedway in this weekend's U.S. 500.

Vasser, who finished second to Greg Moore in last year's race, owns the track qualifying record of 234.665 mph, set during qualifying for the 1996 Marlboro 500. Vasser also won the inaugural U.S. 500 from the pole that year, a victory which brought him a $1 million payday.

Since 1996, the year he won the PPG Cup, Vasser's record in 500-mile events has been impressive. In addition to his performance at Michigan, his victory last year at California Speedway brought him another $1 million payday, and he finished second in the 1997 race.

"I have some great memories from the U.S. 500," Vasser said. "It's a nice feeling to be the inaugural race winner there, where I'll always have a little piece of history -- but that doesn't help win races. I've had success with the 500-mile races, so this is an important one for us."

Vasser will debut a Superman-themed Reynard/Honda at Michigan this weekend.

* IRL: Henderson resident Sam Schmidt learned this week that Sprint PCS will not renew its sponsorship on his Treadway Racing G-Force Aurora next season.

The team, owned by Fred Treadway, is now searching for primary and associate sponsorships in an attempt to keep the program running in 2000. Schmidt said his agreement to drive for Treadway Racing next season is based on the team having proper financial backing.

A spokesman for Sprint PCS, which has sponsored Treadway's entry in the IRL the past three seasons, said the company was "discontinuing our separate motor sports sponsorship activities after this season and will join with the other Sprint divisions in a single, national motor sports sponsorship activity in 2000."

Schmidt, who replaced Arie Luyendyk behind the wheel this season after Luyendyk retired, has a second- and third-place finish in his past three races. ...

Steve Knapp, who fractured a vertebrae in a crash last weekend at Atlanta, will miss three months after undergoing successful surgery this week to repair the fracture. ...

While Atlanta Motor Speedway is considering ending its association with the IRL in light of poor attendance at last weekend's race, Texas Motor Speedway general manager Eddie Gossage is seeking a five-year sanctioning agreement with the series.

* BACKMARKERS: Las Vegas' Brendan Gaughan finished 16th at last weekend's NASCAR Winston West race at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Wash.

Gaughan remained 15th in the Winston West point standings and fourth in the Sears Point Raceway Rookie of the Year standings. ...

Mark Weber piloted the Las Vegas-based U-10 Miss York International hydroplane to a second-place finish in last weekend's Virginia Is For Lovers Cup final. Dave Villwock, in Miss Budweiser, notched his third win of the season.

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