If cameras followed guys like Landon Cassill on their off-season job searches, fans would watch. Photo courtesy of NASCAR
Want to make Landon Cassill marketable? How about Travis Kvapil?
Easy. Make them the key players in NASCAR’s most unique team situation of the off-season.
Just make sure to televise it!
With Red Bull pulling out of NASCAR ownership, the question was who, if anyone, would purchase assets of that company and try to forge on. Now it looks like some ex-TRG investors/Burger King franchisees are jumping into the fray, tagging Cassill and Kvapil/Brian Vickers/somebody to drive the two cars.
The last thing NASCAR needs is contraction, so this is awesome news. I just can’t help but think a huge marketing opportunity has been lost.
Long before the 2011 season ended we knew which drivers/teams were in peril. And Silly Season is now lasting longer and longer into the off-season thanks to the perils of the economy. For the two months that we don’t see action on the track, I want to see the action of guys trying to get jobs, and teams trying to survive.
NASCAR has seen success with reality shows like FX’s “NASCAR Drivers: 360.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. looking for love. Jeremy and Shana Mayfield when life was dreamy instead of dreadful. Good stuff.
But in this day and age, why don’t we follow drivers as they lobby for employment? Even without these guys getting behind the wheel it would have more drama than “Driver X,” the Discovery Channel show Jack Roush used to fill his Truck Series lineup.
“This has been a tough deal to keep quiet,” Cassill told MRN Radio. “They’ve had to make a lot of decisions before the story gets out and things begin to spin out of control?”
What I don’t get is…why keep it quiet? Let’s see. NASCAR gets a low-maintenance/high- return show to keep it relevant during its dormancy. Mid-level drivers become the most enticing stories of the off-season. New potential team owners get national exposure before they even get to Daytona, which helps in the sponsorship hunt.
It’s too late for this off-season, but the next one will feature similar stories. When the green flag flies, only one person can win. Air “NASCAR: Drive to Survive” after the 2012 campaign, and everybody does.
Follow Josh Stewart @JoshNASCARWWE
