MEXICO CITY -- In an attempt to capture more Hispanic fans, NASCAR arrived south of the border this week for Sunday's Busch Series race, the first NASCAR points race ever held outside the United States.
"We want everyone to say, 'This is our sport,' " said J.D. Gibbs, the son of Washington Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs who has two cars competing in the race, which carries a $2.3 million purse and is expected to draw 150,000 fans over two days in North America's largest city.
Rev. Benito Velasco blesses visitors at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez, site of the Motorola 200 in Mexico City.
(Eduardo Verdugo -- AP)
|
| _____ Daytona 500 _____
• Jeff Gordon clinches his third Daytona 500 title, edging Kurt Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Sunday.
• Final Results
• Hendrick Motorsports overcomes tragic plane crash to remain favored team in Daytona.
• Michael Waltrip edges teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the early qualifying race and Tony Stewart wins the nightcap.
• The Daytona 500 has served as the personal playground lately for Team Earnhardt.
_____ Multimedia _____
• Audio: washingtonpost.com's Mike Snyder reports after Jeff Gordon's tight victory Sunday.
• Photos
• Joe Gibbs talks about the parallels between football and NASCAR and the challenges and rewards of both.
• Audio: Gibbs talks about his future in auto racing and pro football. (Jan. 26)
_____ On Our Site _____
• Interactive guide to NASCAR's 36-race Nextel Cup series, including photos, schedules, profiles, statistics and more.
• Previous winners
_____ Live Online _____
• The Post's Liz Clarke was talking racing' Friday. Read the transcript.
_____ Flashback _____
• Six years after his father won NASCAR's grandest race, Dale Earnhardt Jr. roars to victory in the '04 Daytona 500.
• Gallery
_____ Nextel Cup Basics _____
• Results
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics
• Nextel Cup page
| | |
|
While those fans will get a rare slice of down-home Americana at Autodromo Rodriguez Hernandez, NASCAR officials said their primary audience will be viewers watching back home on Fox Sports. NASCAR already draws more viewers than any other sport except football, but officials are eager to keep that momentum going by expanding the sport beyond its traditional fan base to the 40 million U.S. Hispanics.
Sunday's race will be unmistakably NASCAR, with the high-power sedans that have been its trademark since the days of the sport's founding fathers -- post-World War II bootleggers who pushed their engines and driving skills to the limit outrunning the police on the dirt backroads of North Carolina. But this will be NASCAR "a la Mexicana." Thousands of Spanish-speaking fans will be munching tacos and tamarind candy instead of hot dogs and burgers, and the music blaring from the loudspeakers will tend more toward Juanes than Lynryd Skynyrd.
The Busch Series is the second-tier NASCAR race after the Nextel Cup. But since that circuit is off for the weekend, several top drivers, including Rusty Wallace and Jamie McMurray, are scheduled to race Sunday. In addition, 10 Mexican drivers will compete, including Mexican open-wheel racing superstar Adrian Fernandez and Mexico City native Michel Jourdain Jr.
"It's an important step in making NASCAR more relevant to Hispanics; this gives us a stamp of approval," said George Pyne, NASCAR's chief operating officer.
NASCAR officials said they are making greater efforts toward diversity, both in their drivers and their fans, and are doing more research to find out how many of their 75 million fans are minorities and how to better appeal to them.
In an interview here, Jourdain, the first Hispanic to drive in the Busch Series, said he believed this 200-mile race, which has been heavily publicized in Spanish-language television, radio and print, would help boost NASCAR's popularity among Mexicans in the United States, who pay attention to what is happening in their homeland.
"In the last five or six years the sport has been changing," Jourdain said. "It's completely different than just all southern guys. And this race is going to emphasize that."
A news conference on Thursday emphasized the Mexican flavor of this race, introducing to a throng of Latin America media the unusually large number of Mexican drivers. Afterwards, NASCAR officials and drivers went to the road course where a Roman Catholic priest blessed the track -- an important act in a country where about 90 percent of the population is Catholic.
The Rev. Benito Velasco said a prayer and sprinkled holy water on the drivers and reporters -- as well as on the bare midriffs and cleavage of grinning "edecanes," young Mexican women paid to prance around wearing (very little) clothing emblazoned with the logos of Corona beer and other corporate sponsors.
"The presence of God is important at all times," Velasco told the eclectic crowd.
Among the wild cards are the potential effects of the city's altitude -- 7,400 feet above sea level -- and the fact that many of the drivers are unfamiliar with the 2.5 mile-track built for open-wheel racing. Newspaper sports sections have carried full-page graphics explaining the ins-and-outs of the U.S. sport to new fans.
"NASCAR 3D," a movie made in the United States about the history of the sport, has been dubbed in Spanish and is drawing crowds at IMAX theaters. Sunday's race and Saturday's qualifying races were nearly sold out, with ticket prices ranging from $17 to $170. President Vicente Fox's son, Vicente Jr., is scheduled to attend, and a presidential spokesman said Fox might join him.
