...there would be kittens for everybody!
I've asked a few guys I know who race in various series (not NASCAR) what, if anything, would be their limit on sponsorships... I always found it hilarious that the oldest guy in NASCAR drove the Viagra car. Would a big tough race car driver drive a sparkly pink Barbie car? The Tampax car? The Valtrex car? Do they really give a sh!t what's written on the hood when they're making money hand-over-fist?
Actors deal with this too. A national commercial can pull in $40-$50,000. I'll pretend I have herpes all day long on television for a $50K paycheck and 3 days work. At the auto show I'm fortunate to represent a brand for which I have a great deal of respect and admiration, but that just happened to be the luck of the draw and my brand could change at any time. I still need a paycheck.
Anyway, with the drivers, the general consensus was the same as with actors: a sponsorship is a sponsorship. They are few and far between, and when you get one you're so damn lucky to have it that you don't care if you're driving the KY Liquibeads Hello Kitty Pocket Vibe cup car, because you're driving a cup car.
But I, for one, would love to see the Talladega Tampax 500.
If I ran NASCAR it wouldn't. Or... I'd take it back to it's hillbilly, moonshine runnin' days and the cars would race on those leaf-strewn dirt backroads surrounding Hazard County and there'd be lots of jumps over dirty "ponds" and Natural Lite and corn dogs would sell for .25 cents at the concession stands and Mike Rowe would do a Dirty Jobs episode working with the "track" crew and all of America would thank me for making rally racing popular in this here great nation (even if they don't fully realize that's what I've done).
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