Going Hollywood

The pet slogan in NASCAR is “Grow the sport.”

With 59% of Winston Cup fans between the ages of 18 and 44, where do you grow it?

How about the under 18s, the fans of tomorrow? And how do you reach them?

Why, Britney Spears, of course.

NASCAR has aligned itself with the pop singer for a movie about the excitement and drama of stock car racing, on and off the racing surface. Spears will not play a driver -- she will be the daughter of a team owner -- but she will co-star with the Winston Cup regulars.

That project, scheduled to begin production this summer, is one of the many ideas formulated and developed by the Los Angeles office of NASCAR.

Located on the 30th floor of Century Park East, the office is the first for a major sports organization to be located in Los Angeles.

Paul Brooks, vice president for broadcasting and digital entertainment, heads a staff of 16 who direct all of the sport’s broadcasting, entertainment programming and new media ventures from there.

“Everything we do here is to help grow the sport, to bring added value to all of our teams, sponsors and tracks,” said Brooks, a former paramedic who has been with NASCAR for 10 years and opened the L.A. office in 2000.

“The Britney film will be an authentic look at our sport, not a hokey one that most auto racing pictures portray. Britney has a huge following and her fans will come whether they know about NASCAR or not. After seeing the film, they’ll know, and we hope they’ll like what they see.”

From his perch on the 30th floor, Brooks can see his major partner, Fox and its family of networks. NASCAR is in the third year of a six-year television partnership with Fox, NBC and TNT.

“Being close to them has been invaluable,” Brooks said. “Speed Channel is the eighth-fastest growing cable network overall, in 60 million homes, and NASCAR is its heart and soul.”

As evidence of NASCAR’s overpowering popularity, Fox’s telecast of the Virginia 500 two weeks ago at Martinsville Speedway drew more U.S. households (5,631,000) than the combined nine races this season for the Indy Racing League, CART and Formula One (4,664,000 for nine races, three each).

The Britney Spears movie is only one of many new ideas developed by Brooks and Jeffrey Pollack, managing director for broadcasting and new media.

Night racing is another project. Seven Winston Cup events are at night this year, six on Saturdays and the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday, May 25, after the Indianapolis 500.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to grow our audience and bring in new fans,” Brooks said. “We think night races are a great way to do that.”

California Speedway, which is lobbying for a second Cup race to go with Sunday’s Auto Club 500, is considering a night race, although at the moment the track’s use permit with San Bernardino County does not allow it.

“When NASCAR announced ‘Realignment 2004’ and mentioned that more night races would be considered, we started to take steps to consider lights at California Speedway,” track President Bill Miller said. “We have gone through the due diligence of what it would take to light this facility, and we are in the process of revising our conditional use permit that would allow the speedway to host racing events into the evening.”

There is much more going on in the L.A. office than just TV programming, Pollack said.

“Network television is the killer application for NASCAR, but NASCAR.com, NASCAR TV, NASCAR IN CAR, and NASCAR Radio all extend and support the experience,” he said.

* NASCAR.com is the sport’s official site on the Internet. It logged more than 1.25 billion page views last year, a 25% increase from 2001. Among its features are a fantasy league and online chats.

* NASCAR TV offers a block of programming that is anchored by “Totally NASCAR,” which airs Monday through Friday on Speed Channel. Fox, Fox Sports Net, FX and Speed Channel air the first half of the Winston Cup season. NBC and TNT take over July 5 with the Pepsi 400 from Daytona International Speedway. Twenty-eight Cup races appear on network TV, with 11 others on cable.

Last February’s Daytona 500 on Fox drew a 9.8 national rating, which calculates to 29.4 million viewers. According to figures released by the Nielsen Media Research, the Busch series is the second most viewed motor sports series in the country.

* NASCAR IN CAR is a subscription TV package that offers fans flag-to-flag in-car camera coverage for Winston Cup races. Developed by Digital Entertainment, it offers viewing from seven sequential digital channels, with each channel offering the in-car perspective of a different driver.

In addition to the Spears movie, NASCAR also is working with IMAX Corporation on a film based on the Winston Cup racing family. Some of the footage will be shot this weekend at California Speedway.

“We hope it will expand the public’s knowledge and understanding of the complex world of high-speed racing from the standpoint of the drivers, teams, tracks and sponsors,” Brooks said. Distribution is scheduled for spring 2004.

“Television is full of reality shows these days, but every race we run is reality.”