Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I feel like in NASCAR, there's not many personalities that take up social media. Most of the time, it's just the media person doing it for them, and you don't get that connection with the fans when you do that.
Toyota is doing a neat job coming in to the sport - no one ever thought that there would be a day when Toyota would participate in an American-made, American-born sport like Nascar but they're doing a fantastic job.
That's a hallmark of NASCAR... We have gotten to where we've gotten because we're able to have the best drivers in the world, the best team owners and then giving them a package that creates the most exciting racing.
I love stock-car racing and NASCAR. I kind of take offense to anybody who has any cross words about it. It's kind of like your brother. You can talk all the crap you want about him, but you won't let anyone else do it.
I'm a huge NASCAR fan, but I'm not a gearhead. I've never been into fixing cars. It's not because I don't like it. I would love to know more. It's just my dad never taught me that stuff because my dad wasn't a mechanic.
I think people - especially folks who haven't seen a lot of NASCAR - they get this idea that we're just going around in circles. And that's so far from the truth. You're running as hard as you can to get all you can every lap.
I've done drag races. I've done Long Beach Grand Prix stuff. I've done NASCAR stuff. Just about anything carwise under the sun, I've done. Whether it be driving schools or racing schools, I've had a passion for it for a long time.
You don't really get it from NASCAR that they want you to be the bad guy or the good guy. They'll kind of joke around with you and be like, 'Hey, that was really good this past weekend. You did a great job for us. Ratings were up.'
I just go where my heart tells me, where my gut tells me to go, where I'm enjoying my life the most, where I feel like I can have the most success. I've truly enjoyed my experience in NASCAR, to the point that I want to do it full time.
When I decided to see what Nascar was all about in 2005, it was an intellectual project, the same reason I went to the shooting range on West 20th Street and tried shooting a rifle at paper targets. I was addicted to both things instantly.
Things are pretty good for NASCAR with our TV agreements behind us and so forth. For us it's focusing on putting the best events and tightest racing that we can, making improvements on the track and investing in the amenities and fan experience.
There have always been a lot of critics of competitive eating. You can be a critic of anything. It's easy to be a critic. You can say negative things about golf, the amount of water wasted on golf courses. Or NASCAR. There are wastes in everything.
To be clear, I'm not opposed to apps; I just want them to be geared to my lifestyle. I don't need a virtual NASCAR racing app, but I'd certainly appreciate one that stopped my husband from plowing into the lawnmower every time he pulls into the garage.
Tattooed across NASCAR drivers' jumpsuits and over every square inch of their cars are the logos of the companies sponsoring the teams, underwriting the costs, paying their salaries. Everyone can see who the drivers represent and who is footing the bill.
From the Mississippi Mudflap to the Kentucky Waterfall, to the Tennessee Top Hat and the North Carolina Neckwarmer, nothing says freedom like a mullet blowing unfettered in the wind and I can't wait to restore it to its rightful place in the NASCAR garage.
Stretching back nearly three decades, Brian Williams and I have forged an enduring friendship. It all began in 1986 at WCAU-TV in Philadelphia and has resulted in a set of noteworthy experiences, amazing successes, and a bunch of trips to NASCAR speedways.
I'm working with a lot of entrepreneurs and people launching new businesses. It's fun. It's what I've always liked to do and loved doing it in my years at NASCAR when we were growing NASCAR, building different lines of business and intellectual properties.
It's something we're trying to change and NASCAR is as a whole trying to bring in a younger fan base, a different-looking fan base, we're trying to change the whole demographic of the sport. Me going out to do that is something I'll take responsibility for.
I was about to walk on stage at the Kansas Speedway - I was playing a NASCAR race - and I said to Scooter Carusoe, who was standing side stage, 'I want to write a song called 'Wanna Be That Song.' Then I put my earphones back in and walked right out on stage.
I want to continue to be a part of the sport, and not just as an owner in the Nascar Xfinity Series. I want to be a valuable asset to the growth of the sport and continue to help raise the bar and raise the awareness of the sport and promote the sport as much as I can.
I don't think that American drivers going to NASCAR are taking the easy way out because as I said, the racing is amazing; it's just that it's easier to adapt to what you grow up with. American drivers grow up with NASCAR, they know NASCAR, and that's where they want to go.
When a car's ahead of you, as long as you can see it, you get a tow, just like the draft in NASCAR. Even if it's a long ways down the track, it punches a hole in the air that has to help. When you're running alone, you can feel the difference, and it shows on the clock, too.
Our challenge is this sport needs to be more diverse throughout its makeup of stakeholders, participants, and fans. We're doing a number of things from a multicultural standpoint on and off the track to achieve that. Over time, that's going to be a big opportunity for NASCAR.
In every decision that we've ever made that's important, the more input, the more people we've heard from, the better the result. And so that will never change in the business model of NASCAR, because the ideas come from all over the place, and that's the strength that we have.
Prior to 'The Shield,' basic cable was just a wasteland of reruns and NASCAR. When we came along, I think there was a collective, 'Hey, if they can do that, why can't we?' from the basic-cable networks of the world. We ended up being the cornerstone for a network, and a great one.
My hope is, and I know there are a couple of big manufacturers, and there always are - this is not breaking news - there's always somebody who has an interest in at least understanding the NASCAR opportunity, and so my sense of it is over time that we will have a fourth manufacturer.
'Drive for Diversity' puts people behind the wheel that would never have had the opportunity. Nascar sponsors individual teams who have a person of color, somebody who would not have the opportunity otherwise. And then they're noticed by bigger teams - it's like minor-league baseball.
There are days when I look at my news feed, and it seems like a social fabric of fun - a video of the first steps of my friends' baby! My nephew's prom date! On other days, it feels like a NASCAR vehicle, plastered with news stories, promoted posts, lame Live videos, and random content.
In the last three years of racing I've met as many women fans as men fans, and in NASCAR it's the same thing. My wife loves cars, but the difference is she doesn't have 20 years of understanding the background of them. She basically drives them and uses her gut feelings as to which is best.
NASCAR stepped up their safety concepts, and I think the drivers feel NASCAR is doing everything that can be done. So we are a little behind NASCAR in that respect. Someone in NASCAR realized there were certain things that could be done to make it safer. The same thing has to happen in football.
Boy, do I dislike two things: One is having to deal with penalties or infractions even though we have to. We have to keep the playing field even, and we have to do what we have to do. The second part that I would prefer to not have to talk about is the business side of NASCAR. That's important, too.
Formula One was just cool. I loved racing, all types of racing, but from a young age, Formula One was the noise and everything, and that's what I was drawn to. I already knew when I was younger, the coolest guys are in F1... not that NASCAR drivers aren't cool, but that was always what I had in my head!
Horseracing already has the highest mortality rate of any sport in the world per capita to the people who do it. If you crash in Nascar you still have a roll bar, and a cage, and a lot of protection. It's built to crash, but if you fall off a racehorse we all know what can happen, so it's tremendously dangerous.
I've never had any issues with racism or racist people at the track for as long as I've been racing in NASCAR. All of that stuff that has happened to my face took place when I was coming up. And a lot of what I get now on social media is 13- and 14-year-old kids just trying to act tough. Well, I'll call them out.
And Dale Jr., Dale's son, and Dale and I all raced to the checkered - were racing toward the checkered, which would have been the greatest race in NASCAR history, I'm convinced of it, had we have made it that last quarter of a mile. But instead it became the worst race in NASCAR history when Dale crashed and died on turn four.
I love racing cars, and we have to have great competitors to make the diverse fan base have people to root for, and some people like calm, shy Ryan Blaney that knows a lot about the sport, or Chase Elliott, who's been around racing and has those deep ties to NASCAR and the southern roots of our sport. Those guys are all important.
Football is only once a week. NASCAR is once a week. Those sports are insanely popular. Horse racing is oversaturated. Unless tracks cut back to three days a week of full fields, a lot of people will really hurt down the road. Horse racing, to survive, has to go to that. Let's face it: Churchill Downs only does well on Derby Week.
A lot of the car companies are understandably looking at the terrific job that Toyota has done by partnering with NASCAR and the success and all the things that come along with that. They've been an incredible success story for a car manufacturer looking to come into a sport that's very difficult to come in, compete and win every weekend.
In L.A., I was meeting people who were all actors. My mind started to open up to what acting was. I didn't realize that Brad Pitt was a real person. I didn't think he was a robot or a machine, but I thought you were just born into acting - that it's a family tree, kind of like NASCAR. No one can just say, 'Hey, I'm going to be a NASCAR driver.'
For me, I believe that Dale Jr. has had a big part in kind of stunting the growth of NASCAR because he's got these legions of fans and this huge outreach of being able to reach different places that none of us have the possibility to reach, but he's won nine races in 10 years at Hendrick Motorsports and hasn't been able to reach outside of that.
