Hi everyone! This is Ben Marshall, team manager for Kalitta Motorsports. This past weekend Hillary Will, Rachel Brunner, Jim Oberhofer and I went to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 roundy-round race. We weren’t really there to watch the race. We went to see what NASCAR was all about, or at least as it pertains to sponsor relations and marketing and all things away from the track. We like to have open minds and try to think outside of the box here at Kalitta Motorsports, so we normally go to two or three different sporting events a year to see how these other organizations market to their fans. Hopefully we can get some ideas for our sponsors and team and even for the NHRA.

We started out by going to the track on Thursday and walking around and looking at how all of the sponsors activate their sponsorships at the race track. We saw so many interactive displays that you would have thought you were at Disneyland with all of the stuff to do for kids and adults. This was all on the outside of the track and it took us nearly all day to go through them. Later we had dinner with Tony Merritt from Mac Tools and John Suggs from Suggs Marketing. They got me and Jim “O” HOT passes (all access passes for the pits) for the NASCAR race, so thanks Tony and John.

Friday, there was nothing going on at the track so we had a couple of meetings in the morning and then went to lunch with Greg Anderson and some of the guys on the Summit team. After lunch, we went back to the KB Racing Pro Stock shop and got a tour of the shop. We also went to the drag strip right next door to their shop and watched Jason Line make a couple of runs. That place is definitely impressive. It’s no wonder they have won so many Pro Stock championships.

Saturday, we headed to the circle track and sat in traffic for an hour or so and then finally made it to the track. We had to make a quick run by credentials so Hillary and Rachel could get some HOT passes left for them from the great folks at Clevite. We also got a parking pass that let us park in the infield. We walked into the pits, and it was like Fort Knox! You had to show your credential and driver’s license to get into the pits. We must have been asked for our credential at least 20 times, certainly not what we’re used to. We knew a couple of the guys that worked on some of the teams so they gave us the nickel tour through the garage and the trailers. Then, we met up with Ben Hudgins from Pro Cal. He invited us over to Pro Cal’s motor home to get out of the sun for a while. After we left the motor home, we went back to the garage and walked and talked a little more.

We had to leave soon after that to go to a party that Coke put on at Speed Streets in downtown Charlotte. We met up with Greg, Jason, and Ron Capps and their wives. It was pretty cool. There were maybe only 200 people at this party, and we met the Senator of Arizona, John McCain as well as many other VIP guests. We were invited to the party by Mike Adams and Ben Reiling from Coke, so thanks guys.

Sunday, Jim “O” and I left for the airport about noon and never did see anybody race on the big round track. Hillary and Rachel were invited by Mike Adams to do some media interviews at the track the next day. I’m sure you can read Hillary’s blog, and she will fill you in on all of the details about that. It was a pretty awesome experience to get a glimpse of how the whole NASCAR machine works. It was pretty cool to see how many people came up to Hillary to get an autograph and knew who she was. Something that was very encouraging was what a number of people said about how much bigger NHRA is getting and how they like the accessibility to the drivers by fans over NASCAR.

Now, it is off to do what we do best…go in a straight line in Topeka!

Take care everyone! Todd will be back Thursday to let you know about a really cool "side-project" of one of the Mac Tools dragster crew guys.