National Association For Stock Car Auto Racing Research Articles

From Gearshifts to Gigabytes: An Analysis of How NASCAR Used iRacing to Engage Fans During the COVID-19 Shutdown

The sport industry is at an inflection point where all major professional sport leagues in North America are struggling to attract the same avid fans, once a staple within the industry. Furthermore, not only are the number of avid fans decreasing, the average age of avid sport fans is increasing. In other words, the current state of the sport industry indicates that fans are decreasing in number while simultaneously aging out of traditional professional sports. The current study aimed to investigate the ability of a traditional sport, NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) in this case, to utilize an esport, iRacing, to attract new and more diverse fans. Through a partnership with Zoomph, Twitter content was analyzed and revealed the shift from traditional racing to iRacing by NASCAR. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it assisted them in attracting new, more diverse fans whose sentiment on Twitter was positive. Overall, the current study demonstrated that traditional sport properties may be well served by tapping into the esport space in an authentic way to enhance their core product(s).

Nascar and tourism : Analyses based on a scoping review of the literature

Many countries, provinces and cities around the world use major sporting events as a catalyst for tourism development. The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), through its championships and racing events, has for many years, chosen to integrate itself into capitalist and neoliberal tourism and economic models. As a motorsport industry with strong historical, economic and media roots in American culture and certain values, NASCAR generates a myriad of tourism impacts on the territories hosting these races. This study, therefore, aims, through a scoping review of the scientific literature, to take stock of the scientific knowledge produced on NASCAR and its tourism impacts. This approach allowed the analysis of 28 scientific articles in depth and to draw several analytical conclusions. First of all, an observation was noted regarding a very strong involvement of sponsors and the media in this industry, which undeniably contributes to the creation of forms of sporting imagery around the teams and drivers). These sporting imaginaries undoubtedly colour the partisan cultures and even the fan communities that are created and evolve around and within this sporting ecosystem. The study of the tourist spin-offs of NASCAR has been studied in the scientific literature but appears to be rather limited or circumscribed, and must, therefore, be widely developed empirically.

WITHDRAWN: Investigating sport league sponsor retention: Results from a semi-parametric hazard model

ABSTRACT Belying the maturity of the sponsorship-linked marketing literature is the fact that quantitative research on sponsor retention is scant, specifically which organizations retain their sponsors at higher rates and investigations of factors that lead one sponsor to renew while others exit. This study fills this gap by analyzing a dataset inclusive of nearly 500 “official product” sponsorships across six North American sport leagues utilizing a proportional hazards model. Results indicate that partnering with tech firms, clutter, and sponsoring at a lower level reduces the probability that sponsors are retained, while congruent and B2B sponsors are more likely to be retained. In addition, results indicate the superiority of the National Football League (NFL) and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) in their ability to retain sponsors. From a managerial standpoint, these findings improve our understanding of sponsor retention, and assist both sponsors and sponsees in developing longer-term relationships.

Central actors in the live sport event context: a sport spectator value perception model

PurposeThis study is a micro-level perspective of value co-creation in spectator sport. By examining sport through the value co-creation lens, the dual role of the customer as both a contributor to and a beneficiary of value is acknowledged and the importance of stakeholder interactions is emphasized. This study analyzes the extent to which two theoretically and managerially important factors—attendance frequency (i.e. first-time attendee vs repeat attendee) and resident type (i.e. local resident vs domestic traveler)—impact value creation in the recurring live sporting event setting.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from spectators who attended a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) sanctioned racing event. Multigroup structural equation modeling was performed to examine the proposed pathways, and multigroup t-tests were used to compare the model across both groups for each moderating variable. Corresponding path coefficients were then compared using Chin's (2004) recommended equations and procedures.FindingsThe study found organization-related value propositions to be the more common antecedents of value, while customer appearance had a strong negative association with hedonic value, and attendance frequency and resident type influenced certain value perceptions. Sport organizations should consider the expectations and motivations of various customer groups and provide offerings designed to meet the specific needs of different fan segments based on the spectator's experience with the sport product and the distance traveled to attend the sport event.Originality/valueThis paper advances the authors’ understanding of value creation in sport by showing how customer perceptions of value associated with the sport organization and other customers can be moderated by certain behavioral and geographic factors.

Explaining Stakeholder Identification with Moderate Prestige Collectives: A Study of NASCAR Fans

Through two studies of fans who identified with the collective known as NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing hereafter referred to as Nascar), we examine why stakeholders identify with collectives that are perceived as only moderately prestigious (given that high prestige has been shown, empirically, to be the primary predictor of collective identification because it enhances identifiers’ self-esteem). Our findings indicate that identifiers did not perceive Nascar to be high in prestige (compared to other similar collectives) and that their identification was predicted, primarily, by “Perceived Opportunity for Authentic Self-Expression” with Nascar. In addition, across both studies, we found that “patriotism”—a personal value that was difficult for fans to affirm elsewhere—was the most important value that fans perceived they could “self-express” when interacting with Nascar. These findings suggest that individuals may identify with moderate prestige collectives because they provide rare opportunities to express values that are part of their authentic selves, and thus, satisfy these individuals’ “needs for authenticity.”

Motorsports and American Culture: From Demolition Derbies to NASCAR ed. by Mark D. Howell and John D. Miller

Reviewed by: Motorsports and American Culture: From Demolition Derbies to NASCAR ed. by Mark D. Howell and John D. Miller Daniel J. Simone Motorsports and American Culture: From Demolition Derbies to NASCAR. Edited by Mark D. Howell and John D. Miller. ( Lanham, Md., and other cities: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014. Pp. xxi, 219. $94.00, ISBN 978-1-4422-3096-5.) Mark D. Howell broke ground with From Moonshine to Madison Avenue: A Cultural History of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series (Bowling Green, Ohio, 1997), a full-length scholarly study of stock car racing. Since then, academics [End Page 225] have produced a handful of auto racing books, and Motorsports and American Culture: From Demolition Derbies to NASCAR is one of the best. The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) remains America's most popular auto racing sanctioning body, yet stock car racing makes up but a portion of the American auto racing narrative. Editors Mark D. Howell and John D. Miller rightfully include other types of motorsports in this interdisciplinary collection of twelve essays and define motorsports in the broadest of contexts. For instance, the intentional destruction of vehicles for sport and entertainment can be considered a motorsport. Two articles reflect this notion—showcasing the diversity of this collection. In "Speed and Destruction at the Fair," Emily Godbey details the staged destruction of cars and buses at agricultural fairs during the early 1900s, and Susan Falls looks at deliberate crashing as a form of motorsport in "Creative Destruction: The Demolition Derby." In "Automobile Racing and the American Hot Rod," David N. Lucsko traces the evolution of hot-rodding throughout the twentieth century. Mostly unregulated, hot rods were quite common on public roads through the 1950s. Their status changed with automobile emissions laws passed during the 1960s and 1970s. Enthusiasts were forced to decide where they wished to show off and test their creations, and Lucsko indicates that "the need to keep one's on-road project legal has since served as a fairly effective legal barrier between the track and the street" (p. 35). John Edwin Mason describes the sights and sounds of a small Virginia drag strip in "'Anything But a Novelty': Women, Girls, and Friday Night Drag Racing." According to Mason, "no motorsport (and few sports of any kind) has been more open to women and members of racial and ethnic minorities than drag racing" (p. 125). He is correct; drag racing has produced a roster of national champions that includes Shirley Muldowney and Angelle Sampey. Lisa Napoli provides an excellent essay on Barney Oldfield, America's first speed king. While Oldfield had countless on-track achievements, Napoli stresses the extreme significance of his actions off the track: "It's likely he was the very first sports star to put his public persona to use as a pitchman" (p. 177). Oldfield also "became an ardent promoter of automobile safety later in life" and, Napoli observes, "helped with the development of the seat belt" (pp. 178, 179). NASCAR's popularity has long since moved beyond the American Southeast, and two essays in the collection investigate NASCAR's expansion to wider audiences. In "The NASCAR Paradox," James Wright explains how corporate sponsorship and television coverage helped NASCAR nationalize and gradually shed its southern identity. NASCAR is also attracting more foreign competitors and fans. Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder addresses NASCAR's globalization in "'Running with the Big Dogs': The Rhetoric of Fan Identity in a Postmodern NASCAR." He traces the sport's growing international audience and focuses on how American fans and the media reacted to Toyota entering NASCAR competitions and the emergence of Colombian driver Juan Montoya, a former Indianapolis 500 champion and a Formula One driver who embarked on a full-time NASCAR career from 2007 to 2013. [End Page 226] A pair of articles touch on early stock car racing. Martha Kreszock, Suzanne Wise, and Margaret Freeman examine Louise Smith, who raced in numerous NASCAR-sanctioned events in the late 1940s and early 1950s and often earned respectable finishes. In this excellently researched article, they look at Smith's entire career—both on and off the racetrack—and show how "Smith brought her own brand of...

Modeling the Effects of Sponsorship-Linked Marketing: When Does Memory Matter?

ABSTRACTThe current study examined the mediating and moderating roles of sponsorship-linked marketing on the relationships among cognitive, affective, and behavioral sponsor evaluations. A panel of National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) fans (N = 249) participated in an online survey, and the survey included multi-item scales including sponsor-brand recognition, consumer perceptions of property-based articulation, sponsorship-themed advertising, sponsorship-themed promotion, sponsor attitude, and purchase intention. Visit to sponsors' exhibits experience was incorporated as a moderator. This study provides empirical support for the full mediating role of sponsorship-linked marketing efforts in leveraging high levels of sponsor brand recognition into more desirable brand outcomes.

NASCAR: Leading a Marketing Transformation in a Time of Crisis

It is February 2011 and Brian France, CEO of NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), is facing a crisis. In the last five years, attendance at weekend NASCAR races has fallen 22 percent and television viewership has declined 30 percent. Key marketing sponsors have recently left the sport. At the same time, the U.S. economy was only beginning to recover from an economic recession that had an adverse impact on the sport of auto racing as a whole. Some leaders within NASCAR counseled Brian that these trends in attendance, viewership, and sponsorship stemmed from the recession and that NASCAR should continue with business as usual. But Brian sensed that the industry needed fundamental change and that he, as CEO of NASCAR, was the one that must lead this change.With Brian at the helm, NASCAR embarked on an unprecedented amount of qualitative and quantitative research to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the entire industry. At the center of this research was the NASCAR consumer. Highly engaged, enthusiastic consumers were at the heart of an industry business model that had been successful for decades. But in 2011, marketing within all of NASCAR needed to transform, as it was clear that consumers were disengaging with the sport.As the consumer research results unfold, Brian and leaders within NASCAR must make tough choices and set priorities. The case focuses on four key areas in which decisions need to be made by NASCAR leadership: digital marketing and social media, targeting the next-generation NASCAR consumer, enhancing the star power of NASCAR drivers, and enhancing the consumer experience at NASCAR events. Focus group videos offer students a customer-centric deep-dive into these challenges.At its heart, this is a case about great leadership and transforming marketing throughout an entire industry. A wrap-up video from CEO Brian France summarizes how NASCAR executives tackled the difficult questions posed in the case. Understand how deep consumer engagement is at the heart of a successful marketing ecosystem Analyze focus group videos to understand the needs of today's consumer Prioritize the market segments that should be cultivated as the next-generation consumer Understand how differing incentives within an industry are at the heart of many marketing problems Analyze a complex set of problems and set and manage priorities Understand the importance of leadership in a time of crisis

A revolution in preventing fatal craniovertebral junction injuries: lessons learned from the Head and Neck Support device in professional auto racing

Fatal craniovertebral junction (CVJ) injuries were the most common cause of death in high-speed motor sports prior to 2001. Following the death of a mutual friend and race car driver, Patrick Jacquemart (1946-1981), biomechanical engineer Dr. Robert Hubbard, along with race car driver and brother-in-law Jim Downing, developed the concept for the Head and Neck Support (HANS) device to prevent flexion-distraction injuries during high-velocity impact. Biomechanical testing showed that neck shear and loading forces experienced during collisions were 3 times the required amount for a catastrophic injury. Crash sled testing with and without the HANS device elucidated reductions in neck tension, neck compression, head acceleration, and chest acceleration experienced by dummies during high-energy crashes. Simultaneously, motor sports accidents such as Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s fatal crash in 2001 galvanized public opinion in favor of serious safety reform. Analysis of Earnhardt's accident demonstrated that his car's velocity parallel to the barrier was more than 150 miles per hour (mph), with deceleration upon impact of roughly 43 mph in a total of 0.08 seconds. After careful review, several major racing series such as the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and Championship Auto Racing Team (CART) made major changes to ensure the safety of drivers at the turn of the 21st century. Since the rule requiring the HANS device in professional auto racing series was put in place, there has not been a single reported case of a fatal CVJ injury.

Social media network behavior: A study of user passion and affect

Social media technologies are described as an ensemble IS artefact composed of technical, informational and relational subsystems that interact distinctly according to the context of use. With an emphasis on these dimensions, we build a conceptual framework to examine the influence of user affect and passion for an activity on social media networks, specifically Facebook and Twitter. The research model is based on Affective Events Theory and tested using the responses of 328 attendees of a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) event. The results indicate that excitement may not be sufficient to motivate content creation and sharing activities in social media. However, in the context of a meaningful event, excitement interacts with user passion to facilitate social media use. One strategic insight is the knowledge that user (or customer) passion is a condition favorable for social media engagement, representing a lucrative opportunity for organizations to meaningfully engage with consumers.

Mobility as Antiracism Work: The “Hard Driving” of NASCAR's Wendell Scott

This article explores spatial mobility as a form of African American resistance and self-determination. We argue for examining the everyday activism and “countermobility work” of ordinary people of color as they move in ways that subvert, negotiate, and survive white supremacy. These ideas are developed through a historical case study not typically identified with the black civil rights struggle, specifically the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and the “hard driving” of Wendell Scott. The first and only African American driver to win at NASCAR's top level, Scott raced throughout the segregated South and faced considerable discrimination in what was otherwise an all-white sport. We offer a critical (re)reading of Scott's racing career as antiracism mobility work and focus on the bodily, social, and technological practices he employed to maintain and even enhance his mobility around tracks and to and from races. Scott did not represent his efforts in terms of civil rights activism, but it is important to contextualize black resistance outside the confines of formal protest to include the struggle for survivability and material reproduction. The work of racing and driving was part of Scott's geographically situated political practice and important to the struggle to access and move about the sport of stock car track racing and hence the larger U.S. landscape of citizenship. Our discussion has implications for analyzing historic practices of resistance but also has currency for understanding how countermobility practices remain central to resisting continuing racial discrimination.

Heterogeneous Ability and Risk Taking in a Rank-Order Tournament

Since 2011, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) has forced drivers to pick one of three national series for which they would be eligible to compete for a season championship. Prior to this “Pick-A-Series” rule, many drivers in the premier Sprint Cup Series competed regularly in the Nationwide Series, which is a developmental division for less experienced drivers. I examined whether the removal of moonlighting Sprint Cup drivers from championship contention encouraged less aggressive driving among those who competed exclusively in the Nationwide Series. There was weak evidence that the Pick-A-Series rule reduced accident proneness among Nationwide drivers relative to Sprint Cup drivers.

Vitamin D2 Supplementation Amplifies Eccentric Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage in NASCAR Pit Crew Athletes

This study determined if 6-weeks vitamin D2 supplementation (vitD2, 3800 IU/day) had an influence on muscle function, eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD), and delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) in National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) NASCAR pit crew athletes. Subjects were randomized to vitD2 (n = 13) and placebo (n = 15), and ingested supplements (double-blind) for six weeks. Blood samples were collected and muscle function tests conducted pre- and post-study (leg-back and hand grip dynamometer strength tests, body weight bench press to exhaustion, vertical jump, 30-s Wingate test). Post-study, subjects engaged in 90 min eccentric-based exercise, with blood samples and DOMS ratings obtained immediately after and 1- and 2-days post-exercise. Six weeks vitD2 increased serum 25(OH)D2 456% and decreased 25(OH)D3 21% versus placebo (p < 0.001, p = 0.036, respectively), with no influence on muscle function test scores. The post-study eccentric exercise bout induced EIMD and DOMS, with higher muscle damage biomarkers measured in vitD2 compared to placebo (myoglobin 252%, 122% increase, respectively, p = 0.001; creatine phosphokinase 24 h post-exercise, 169%, 32%, p < 0.001), with no differences for DOMS. In summary, 6-weeks vitD2 (3800 IU/day) significantly increased 25(OH)D2 and decreased 25(OH)D3, had no effect on muscle function tests, and amplified muscle damage markers in NASCAR pit crew athletes following eccentric exercise.

Environmental affects: NASCAR, place and white American cultural citizenship

What are the cultural logics linking anti-environmentalism with social conservatism and pro-corporate politics? An investigation of NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) reveals the ways in which this sport embodies a relatively common American structure of feeling and corporeal relation to nature. Industrialization and neoliberal globalization have attenuated place-based identities, ecological affordances and subsistence strategies. As an expression of white American cultural citizenship, NASCAR manages this economic and ecological insecurity through a rearticulation of patriarchal familial commodity consumption and mobility. The evacuation of residual meanings and practices tied to specific ecologies makes the heteronormative nuclear family the privileged site for the type of consumption that signifies national belonging. An expectation of mobility underlines this detached consumption and also constitutes an appropriation of national territory. NASCAR thus represents a genre of American cultural citizenship that is implicated in the cultural politics of environmental protection and other public goods.

The effects of sponsorship activation on the sales of a major soft drink brand

Establishing a link between sponsorship efforts and product sales has been a pressing concern in the sponsorship industry, though achieving this has until now proven to be elusive. This paper examines the relationship between sponsorship activation efforts and soft drink sales. Drawing on an online survey of National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) fans, the study measures the effects of sponsorship-linked public relations, advertising, and sales promotions on the weekly consumption levels of a major soft drink brand. The results of this study successfully confirm soft drink consumption based on sponsorship activation efforts. The authors conclude that it is possible to link sponsorship programmes directly to product sales; that measurement efforts should include measures of sponsorship-linked marketing communications; and that sponsorship-linked marketing communications work synergistically to predict product sales.

Affinity and Beyond: Leveraging NASCAR's Integrated Supply Network to Drive Fan Equity

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) serves as the context for a case study in which the concept of fan equity—the net present value of current and future fan revenue—is considered integral to its supply network. We posit that fan equity is driven by relationship equity created through relationship-building activities generated by the NASCAR governing body, sponsors, tracks, teams, drivers, the media, and fans themselves. This study suggests that the driving force of relationship equity is the cooperation of these entities, each of which recognizes the value of supply network relationships and leverages the investment in relationship-building and cooperative-marketing efforts to create, nurture, and grow fan equity.

How Does Status Affect Performance? Status as an Asset vs. Status as a Liability in the PGA and NASCAR

Two competing predictions about the effect of status on performance appear in the organizational theory and sociological literatures. On one hand, various researchers have asserted that status improves performance. This line of work emphasizes tangible and intangible resources that accrue to occupants of high-status positions and therefore pictures status as an asset. On the other hand, a second stream of research argues that status instead diminishes performance. This alternative line of work emphasizes complacency and distraction as deleterious processes that plague occupants of high-status positions and thus portrays status as a liability. Which of these two perspectives best characterizes the actual performance of individuals in a competitive setting? And are they in any way reconcilable? In this paper, we summarize these two perspectives and test them in two empirical settings: the Professional Golf Association (PGA) and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Using panel data on the PGA Tour, we model golfers' strokes from par in each competition as a function of their status in the sport. Using similar data on NASCAR's Winston Cup Series, we model drivers' speed in the qualifying round as a function of their status in the sport. We find curvilinear effects of status in both contexts. Performance improves with status until a very high level of status is reached, after which performance wanes. This result not only concurs with the view that status brings tangible and intangible resources but also provides empirical support for the contention that status fosters dispositions and behaviors that ultimately erode performance.

When Going in Circles is Going Backward: Outcome Uncertainty in NASCAR

Using data from the 2007, 2008, and 2009 National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) seasons, this article shows that the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis pertains to both race attendance and television audience, with the former only responding to season-level uncertainty and the latter responding to both race-level and season-level uncertainties. Counter to conventional wisdom, the price of gasoline and unemployment were unrelated to the reported level of attendance. Furthermore, NASCAR broadcasts lose audience when competing against other high-interest sporting events and declines in both television ratings and audience size during the NASCAR season were not unique to 2009. Overall, the empirical evidence suggests that declining competitive balance might have been the common factor that reduced both television audiences and race attendance during this period.

Neoliberalism’s Last Lap? NASCAR Nation and the Cultural Politics of Sport

This article examines the ways in which cultural and political intermediaries have endeavored to systematically reorganize the spectacles of North American stock car racing to reinscribe and re-present the hegemonic order of free-market capitalism. To this end, the authors draw from a complex synthesis of economic, social, and cultural theory to interrogate the political and corporate dimensions of “NASCAR Nation.” More specifically, they offer a critical investigation of the dialectic relationship between the expanding regimes of capital accumulation brought forth by neoliberal economic policy, its political imperatives and operatives, and the cultural politics that actively shape consumer experiences within the sport. They likewise interpret how corporate capitalism acts as a prevailing fixture within these spectacular spaces and fan-spectator praxis. In sum, they argue that the commercial precepts of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) present a twisted contradiction, whereby NASCAR fans laud the same neoliberal market forces that both mesmerize their consumer sensibilities and simultaneously decimate their own postindustrial labor conditions.

Materials at 200 mph: Making NASCAR Faster and Safer

AbstractSpeed is the ultimate goal of racing, and materials are an increasingly important area of research for making race cars faster. The splitter, which produces front downforce, is made from Tegris, a polypropylene composite offering comparable stiffness and improved impact properties at significantly lower cost than alternative materials. Engine blocks must be cast iron, but careful control of microstructure using precision manufacturing methods produces a lighter engine block that generates more horsepower.Speed and excitement must be balanced with safety, and materials are key players here, as well. Energy-dissipating foams in the car and the barriers surrounding the tracks allow drivers to walk away uninjured from accidents. Fire-resistant polymers protect drivers from high-temperature fuel fires, and technology transfer from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) in the form of a low-temperature carbon monoxide catalyst filters the drivers' air.Sports are an outstanding way of showing the public how materials science and engineering are relevant to their lives and interests. Materials science and engineering is just that much more exciting when it's traveling at two hundred miles an hour.