MM: What do you think of the Chase format to decide a Cup champ?
RP: I think from a PR standpoint it’s great. From the excitement it creates in the garage area, in the press, even with the majority of the fans. Now they’ve got something to talk about, something to look forward to.
Now, getting back to franchising [see Part 1 of our interview] – this is how other sports do it --we’re just not franchised – they have playoffs. We’re doing a bunch of franchise-type actions – but we’re just not franchised.
MM: Ultimately, by not being franchised, you don’t have an intrinsic value for all your participation and inventory.
RP: That’s where I come from. Again, we’ve been here since NASCAR started. A Joe Gibbs or somebody that’s just come in – they’ve got more than we’ve got. Our longevity don’t mean anything. So with a franchise, it pays you for all that between 1949 and now, even though you’re paying for the franchise, it gives you something for all the years you been in it.
MM: How about the influx of racers coming from the open wheel ranks to stock car racing? Montoya, for instance.
RP: I think it’s a plus for NASCAR from the standpoint that you have people from all over the world looking at us now. And from the standpoint that the majority of racers in the world always looked at Indy – we finally overcome Indy. Now, all over the world, we’re not going to overcomeFormula 1. Very few people in the U.S. know what Formula 1 is – as far as racing is concerned.
I think it’s the first time we’ve got world recognition as a legitimate player in the sports world.
MM: What about the local U.S. short track scene. Where is the next Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart coming from?
RP: Jimmie Johnson came along. Kurt Busch came along. Those racers are out there. They have always been there. The deal is that we’ve had a closed society – from the standpoint of all the owners, and all the garages/shops, and the drivers came from the South. We were a Southern sport.
Being a Southern sport, we didn’t have people in California looking at us that much; it wasn’t that big a deal, we were a Southern sport.
But we started expanding – going to New Hampshire, California, Texas, Kansas City – we start expanding our racing. Then we get the TV deal and that helps to expand us. Then we get people like General Mills; they put Richard Petty on the box of cereal they sell in Washington state and Oregon and Arizona. We’ve pre-sold ourselves to a lot of the country.
Over a period of time we became a national sport – but it took a lot of different entities – TV, personalities, sponsors, NASCAR: all these working independently.