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NASCAR Memorabilia - Gentlemen, Open Your Wallets!
by Al Levine

It seemed a bit fishy a couple of years ago when a company began selling lures featuring stock-car drivers. A spoon and a spinner had a driver’s head shot, a tiny picture of his car and his signature on a big hook. Now, what kind of fish would bite on something like that?

The answer has just been reeled in: a 6.5-pound trophy bass, 19 inches long with a shiny polymer body painted like the cars of the top drivers.

For $59.95, fans can choose from bass painted like Dale Earnhardt’s No. 3 Chevrolet, Terry Labonte’s No. 5 Chevy, Jeremy Mayfield’s No. 12 Ford, Bobby Labonte’s No. 18 Pontiac, Tony Stewart’s No. 20 Pontiac, Ricky Rudd’s No. 28 Ford or Dale Jarrett’s No. 88 Ford.

And they don’t even have to spend one minute at the lake.

The optional wall mount is $19.95, but fans need to hurry. The Earnhardt fish is a limited edition.

Has NASCAR crossed the line with its marketing efforts? Probably not. The philosophy is simple: If the product is large enough, NASCAR will slap a logo and a number on it.

To understand the inspiration for a fish with the body of a stock car, just refer to NASCAR’s long-trumpeted stats on fans’ brand loyalty. According to a 1997 Performance Research Study, 72 percent of NASCAR fans buy products because they are sponsored on the cars of their favorite drivers. Forty-nine percent of the fans earn more than $40,000 and apparently are willing to spend a lot of that on stuff like phony fish, if it carries the right number.

Retail sales of NASCAR-licensed merchandise approached a staggering $1 billion last year.

Brian Royce, who manages the NASCAR Thunder souvenir store at Gwinnett Place Mall in Atlanta, sees it every day. “Racing fans,” he said, “will buy anything.”

And they will scoop up anything. Case in point: Fans walk through pit road an hour after most races, stooping to find lugnuts as if they were discarded lottery tickets. That’s after they have panhandled for a worn racing tire or a piece of scrap metal.

Who else but a stock-car racing fan would trade $4 for a penny? That’s the price of a new collectible named the Lucky Penny. A car number is lasered out of a regular Lincoln penny, bagged and stapled to a card containing a photo and bio information of selected drivers.

They buy model cars to put in wall cases and cars that actually do things besides just sit there. Like the computer mouse shaped and painted like the No. 24. There are cars that are telephones, cars that are walkie-talkies.

There’s even a $40 car perfect for a desk, complete with accessories. The exhaust pipe is a pen; the front bumper doubles as a T-square ruler, the back bumper a pair of scissors, the roof top a tape dispenser. Pull the engine out if you need a stapler.

You might find this item on the desk of a CEO, although the box says “Ages 4 and up.” It likely will be next to the crystal car paperweight, which sells for $75 to $95.

Only now it is possible to catch bugs in style on the way to a race with a custom-molded bug shield ($129.99) and headlight guards ($89.99) adorned with the signature and number of your favorite Ford driver.

There is NASCAR for nearly every room in the house. An inflatable chair ($29.99) for the living room is designed with two wheels as armrests. Lamps, rugs, throws. For the bath, how about a toothbrush holder or a soap dispenser in checkered flag?

You can do an entire bedroom with a racing motif, from sheets to pillowcases to blankets to wallpaper border.

“You can wake up with Jeff Gordon every morning,” Royce said. He didn’t say you can go to bed with Jeff Gordon every night; this is a family sport, remember.

You can fill cupboards with NASCAR mugs and dishes and every closet with NASCAR clothing, from hats to socks and everything — boxers bearing the logo of your favorite car ($16) — in between.

Those who think that racing fans might be just a tick backward now have some real evi-dence: A wristwatch that is new on the market counts down the hours and minutes between Winston Cup races.

It is similar to the discontinued $150 watch that was supposed to keep a race fan up-to-date on the Cup schedule. It would give a readout of upcoming races, including time and TV network. It was programmed so that every week, just before the start of a race, a chime would play the Star Spangled Banner.

The watch manufacturer could not get a replacement chip for this year’s schedule.
For the thrill of almost being there, there’s the talking key chain ($8): Press a button on the little car and the headlights go on and a voice within says, “Gentlemen, start your engines.”

If you really want to look like Earnhardt, you can buy his favorite brand of sunglasses for $175 and intimidate your friends playing Dale Earnhardt Monopoly ($35). The game pieces include a pit-crew gas man. You “Collect $200 salary” as you pass Go. Boardwalk and Park Place have been replaced by historic cars Earnhardt has driven to championships.
And you can toast your victory by raising a container of official NASCAR bottled water. The price? A buck-fifty.

© 2000 Cox News Service