June 2, 2005   eSLASHculture 4.15

-The following is an excerpt from the June3, 2205 edition of USA TODAY, Purple Section.

Gay NASCAR

    It is Tuesday night and Jim Deale and his roommate Frankie Sansone are getting ready for a night on the town.  The upscale house that they rent in the heart of the Castro district of San Francisco is buzzing with activity.  Bill is twenty-seven and an account executive at Unity Bank.  Frankie is the assistant coordinator for advertising at local weekly The S.F. Times.  Young, affluent, and openly Gay, surprisingly Frankie and Jim are the new face of NASCAR racing.  Pulling on a big number 16 jersey with the Roush Racing Team logo on it  and slipping into a pair of matching skin tight red leather pants, Jim is fervent about his NASCAR favorite.  "Greg Biffle is my main man.  He's won the Craftsman Truck Series, a Busch series title, and he's gonna take the Nextel Cup this year, too.  And, by the way, he is hot, hot, hot!   With that lean, tight, little body of his and that whole backwoods rough boy charm, I just can't resist him!"  Roommate Frankie is quick to disagree.  "Sure, Biffle is the hot, young stud right now, but he's just the boy toy flavor of the month.  There's only one King, and that's Mr. Jeff Gordon," Frankie explains enthusiastically as he powders his bare torso and slithers into a full body, red rubber jumpsuit that is an exact copy of the suits Gordon's crew wear in the pits.  "Clearly, Gordo's the man.  He's won the NASCAR four times and Daytona twice, and if you hadn't noticed, he is a completely gorgeous little man!  Did you see his six pack and pecs when he took off his shirt in that Faith Hill video?  Oh my goodness!" As they both pull on carefully creased and weathered matching NASCAR ball caps, Jim and Frankie head out onto Castro Street in the heart of San Francisco's Gay district towards the cluster of dance clubs that have turned Tuesday night into Gay NASCAR Night on the strip.  Tonight the Castro will be overrun by hundreds of Gay men dressed as NASCAR drivers and pit crew members partying and dancing  the night away.  How did this came to be is an intriguing story of bold marketing and savvy cross-promotion.

The Sport of Redneck Kings

    In  2003, NASCAR was the sports success story of the new century.  All across America the highly coveted demographic of males aged 17 to 37 had turned to NASCAR racing as their preferred televised sport.  Viewership of races quadrupled over a two year period as the so-called "sport of redneck kings" got a marketing facelift and a wave of promotion that lead it to top baseball as the number one summer sport for advertising dollars.  However, by 2004 ratings had begun to plateau.  Wary of suffering the same fate as the National Hockey League that saw a similar rapid boom and just as rapid a decline, Lief-Presterhouse, NASCAR's official advertising agency, struck out in a bold new direction.  Traditionally, female viewers abhor auto racing.  In the summer of 2004, Lief-Presterhouse unveiled a high impact ad campaign sponsored by Coca-Cola and NASCAR with spots promoting the diminutive backwoods race car drivers to women as sexy superstars.  The "These Guys Are Hot!" campaign featured exciting racing footage interspersed with behind-the-scenes shots  of Kyle Busch warming up in skin tight shorts and a muscle shirt, Dickie Boot stripped to the waist and toweling off after a trial run, and new young superstar drivers Jimmie Shortarm and Rusty Stinkwart Junior hitting the showers together after a qualifying heat.  The ads were shown on television as well as in movie theater.  Sadly, the target audience of females aged 25 to 43 remained completly uninterseted in NASCAR, but account manager Nigel Barclay saw an interesting wrinkle in the as campaign surveys.  "Of course, you still couldn't pay women to watch NASCAR," notes Barclay.  "It's just cars driving around in circles all day.  But the 'These Guys Are Hot!' spots struck a nerve across a wide swath of America's Gay population, and soon a second front of NASCAR viewership was born." 

Little Cracker Tom Cruises

    It was no mystery why Gay men once exposed to NASCAR responded so strongly.  "I saw the 'These Guys Are Hot!' as when Frankie and I were at a multiplex to see 'Win a Date With Tad Hamilton'," says Jim Deale.  "And those NASCAR men were just so damned sexy.  The thing about them is that they are all quite small and they look like little cracker Tom Cruises.  I guess they have to be small to fit in the cars.  They have these trim, tight, little bodies and great big heads so that they look just like bobblehead dolls.  Pour them into those form-fitting jumpsuits, rub a hand full of Vitalis into their poorly cut hair, and I am in love with those raw boned party boys!  Call me a cab to Tallawanga or Rockinghorse or where ever they race, and I will be there." 

    "There's no denying that the boys of NASCAR are out of control hot," adds Frankie.  "Watching those sexy little guys strutting around all macho high fiving each other and slapping each other on the ass is the most homoerotic thing I've ever seen." 

    Nielson ratings impressively indicate that NASCAR events are viewed in one out of every three Gay households nationwide.  With that kind of viewership, advertisers have homed in on this relatively small but quite affluent segment of the NASCAR audience.  It is no coincidence that mixed in with all the ads for Budweiser an Chevy trucks one can see commercials for Ikea Home Furnishings, Nivea Skin Care products and Cher's new greatest hits album are starting to pop up.  As ads fuel sales, traditional Gay products manufacturers are starting to turn to NASCAR for greater exposure.  Mandate, the producer of colognes, lotions, personal lubricants, and small appliances for the Gay market have dedicated over 80% of their advertising budget to NASCAR events this year.  In September of this year, Mandate will bring NASCAR racing to San Francisco for the first time as the Mandate/Pet Shop Boys 500 will be held at Harvey Milk International Speedway. 

A Mandate for American Men

    "Mandate is the perfect example of NASCAR marketing synergy," explains Nigel Barclay.  "You've got a niche Gay brand that is literally coming out of the closet and out into the national market place.  The interesting thing is that the boom in Mandate is not being fueled just by Gay men.  There has been a clear cross-pollination in  the NASCAR audience as traditional straight working class NASCAR-watching men have begun to embrace different products they have learned about through Gay targeted ads during the races."

    Greg Benson, a straight electricians assistant form Marietta, Georgia, explains:  "I just love NASCAR, always have.  I watch it every weekend, and I never miss a minute.  Well, I was in the Walgreens, and they were out of my Right Guard brand deodorant so I tried that Mandate Non-Stop 24/7 brand deodorant they advertise during NASCAR, and it worked great.  Their mousses and styling gels are damn good, too.  I especially like their special lubricating hand lotion though I couldn't figure out what that little rubber plug that comes with it is for.  Anyway, my skin feels softer.  Come to think of it, I bought that "Cher's Greatest Hits" CD after I saw on the NASCAR, too."  Although he Gay community is well aware of the cachet of NASCAR as a pop culture touchstone, Straight America is still blissfully unaware of the Gay infiltration into racing culture."  However, this may change soon, too.  Countless little signs indicate a cultural shift is occurring.  Venerable disco band The Village People recently replace their Cowboy dancer with a NASCAR Driver dancer kitted out in full skin tight racing uniform and regalia.  National drug manufacturer Pharmatec is preparing to roll out a multi-million dollar advertising blitzkrieg to introduce its new third generation erectile dysfunction drug.  Sensitive to the need to separate their new drug from the ever more crowded field of sex drugs, Pharmatec has worked closely with focus groups to target the new pill to "regular guys" as well as to "NASCAR Gays."  The new drug is named Bolt Upright and will be introduced in the final month of the Nextel cup series with the slogan "Bolt Upright: the official erectile dysfunction drug of NASCAR.  The party pit stop that gets your motor back in gear!" 

The Future Looks Lesbian

    Though the cross-marketing of NASCAR and Gay Americans has been a boon to both groups, Barclay warns that like all trends this current wave of interest could also subside.  "Sure, NASCAR is hot today, but the Gay demographic is notoriously fickle.  Who knows what these guys will be into this time next year.  Hell, they could all be dressing up like The Rock or Goldberg and following Championship Wrestling or Pro Bowling.  We at Lief-Presterhouse are always looking for a way to diversify and broaden racing's appeal across different markets.  Currently we are putting out tentative feelers towards the Lesbian market.  The survey data is still in the preliminary stages, but we think there is great potential to penetrate the traditionally more loyal Lesbian audience.  Once you  have the Lesbians backing your brand, you've got it made.  Hell, there are still women out there buying new Indigo Girls records every year.  How crazy is that?  In the immediate future, we have Melissa Etheridge booked to sing the national anthem at the Fire Island 500 in July.  On the horizon, it looks like Jody Foster has made a tentative commitment to direct and star in 'Rubbin' and Bumpin':  The Kat Gilstein Story.'  It is the inspirational tale of the first woman driver to die in a NASCAR race.  It is kind of like a cross between 'Gladiator' and 'The Hours,' and it's going to be huge.  Now if we could just get a couple of hot little lipstick Lesbian bobbleheads behind the wheel for some of the big races this season, we could make a killing."