Giuliani Hoping NASCAR Fans May Provide an Edge in the Race

"Every woman in the country is going to vote for Hillary," scoffed Brian Landis, 43, a tree surgeon from Deerfield Beach, shaking his head in disgust. "They're just going to vote for her. I like Giuliani. It's who I know. It's who I trust."

It was not just the NASCAR fans in Section 204 and elsewhere at the track who seem to favor the New Yorker, either.

Employees of the stock racing organization have contributed more than $50,000 to Giuliani's campaign. Stars Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears each have given him $2,300, the maximum allowed by law.

While NASCAR officials have said their fans' demographics are broader than often assumed, "NASCAR" is also shorthand among some political strategists for conservative-leaning white men, typically from the South.

For Giuliani, his appearances at the racetrack have offered obvious tactical advantages. The other races he attended were in Loudon, N.H., and Daytona Beach, Fla., in July, where he revealed to reporters that he had just finished reading "The Female Fan Guide to Motorsports."

New Hampshire and Florida are among the first states to hold primaries. And Florida, where Giuliani has been running well ahead of the Republican field in the polls, is considered crucial to his success.

He has spent a lot of time in the state and noted that he has made other visits supporting other Republican candidates.

"This is almost like being home," he said of his campaigning in Florida.

As the racers prepared to roar around the track in a celebration of the power of fossil fuels, one of the gaggle of reporters asked about how he feels about the price of oil running to nearly $100 a barrel.

He said he favors pursuing a wide range of alternative fuel sources. Biofuels. Hydroelectric. Nuclear power. Wind. Solar. More refineries. And, almost as an afterthought, "more conservation."

Genuine or not, Giuliani's embrace of NASCAR this year echoes another of his attempts to broaden his sports profile from that of a New Yorker to that of a national candidate.

Last month, he offered to reporters that he was pulling for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. It was an allegiance many Yankees fans found astonishing, because the Red Sox have long been the Yankees' archrivals.

Giuliani explained he was rooting for the American League team, as if it was the most natural allegiance in the world.

Even today, as he was evincing a NASCAR attraction, he professed a dual baseball allegiance -- apparently first to the American League and then to the Yankees.

A reporter asked the presidential candidate about reports that star third baseman Alex Rodriguez would be returning to the Yankees. What that has to do with his campaign was unclear, but Giuliani answered the question as fully as any other that was lobbed. It was, perhaps, an offhand acknowledgment that the pull of sports in America might even affect votes.

"I'm glad to see as an American League fan, as a Yankees fan, we're keeping him in the American League, we're keeping him on the Yankees," he said.