Dec 10, 2001

Drag Racing Winds up with Prom Queen

By JR Nerad

You could liken it to being dropped by Heidi Klum only to be picked up by Anna Kournikova. That's one way to look at the National Hot Road Association's switch from Winston cigarettes to Powerade sports drink as the title sponsor of its top racing series.

As the result of the much-heralded "Tobacco Settlement," R.J. Reynolds was forced to choose a single American racing series for continued sponsorship, and it chose to move forward with NASCAR, while dumping its sponsorship of the NHRA's pro circuit. The decision made business sense because NASCAR outpoints NHRA in television ratings numbers, but it left the 50-year-old NHRA in a more precarious position than it had been in in two decades. NHRA's TV numbers are strong, but high-quality sponsors willing to fork over millions of dollars to sponsor a racing series aren't raining from the sky in these troubled times, which left NHRA scrambling.

The result of the scramble, at least at first glance, seems like a home run for the drag racing organization. After all, Powerade is a Coca-Cola brand, and one would be hard-pressed to think of a worldwide backer more solid than The Coca-Cola Company. Further, Powerade is in much the same position as NHRA. It has a good, solid base. But it is not the market leader, so it is in an aggressive, building mode. NHRA would like to think that it, too, can build on its current success, and one of its efforts on the score is a new import drag racing series designed to capitalize on the popularity of modified imports like Honda Civics and Acura Integras. That series, though, is not part of the Powerade deal.

Instead, Powerade will sponsor NHRA's most highly visible drag racing series, which is officially titled the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series. The five-year, multi-tiered agreement not only makes Powerade the title sponsor of NHRA's 23-race national event series, it also names Powerade the official sports drink of NHRA, while Coca-Cola Classic will be the official soft drink of NHRA, and Dasani will be the official bottled water of NHRA.

"When we started the search to find a series partner at the professional level, we were looking for a new sponsor that could bring very real marketing power to the sport," said NHRA President Tom Compton. "There is no doubt in anyone's mind that with the promotional and marketing weight of the Powerade brand we have cut a perfect light. [drag-racing talk for "getting off to a great start.]"

In making the announcement, NHRA and Powerade unveiled a significant purse increase in the year-end points fund. The NHRA Powerade Drag Racing World Champion in Top Fuel and Funny Car will each receive $400,000; the Pro Stock World Champion will receive $200,000; and the Pro Stock Bike World Champion will receive $50,000. In all, including year-end and top 10 bonus programs, payouts for the four Professional classes in places one through 10 will increase to more than $3 million.

With tobacco being demonized lately, and perhaps rightly so, the switch to an icon-level sponsor like The Coca-Cola Company can only be good for the future health of the NHRA. As the organization enters its second 50 years, it looks like it has hit a big green light on its Christmas tree.