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GM Authority

The Daytona 500 Is Today And It Still Features Cars You Can’t Buy In Dealerships

For those who may not have yet heard, Sunday February 26th will bring us Nascar’s Daytona 500. Unfortunately, the cars are nothing like what consumers could buy in dealerships across the country, making the race pretty much irrelevant for those car fans who know their cars.

But that’s not to say that Nascar isn’t at all popular. Heck, the popularity of motorsports is mostly due to its ties to big industry. Let’s put it this way: you don’t dream of playing with a certain brand of hockey puck after going to a hockey game; but many still yearn for driving a certain brand or model of car after going to a race. But lately, when someone won a Nascar race, few remembered the brand of car they were driving, making the “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” strategy irrelevant. That’s why Nascar’s latest quest has been to bring brand loyalty back to the series. Sort of.

You see, back in the late 90s, Nascar set about to standardize all competing cars in an effort to create an equal playing field. The series sanctioned a common body style and tight powertrain restrictions that — for all intents and purposes — resulted in equivalent aerodynamics and performance. The thinking was to make the vehicles as consistent as possible in an effort to crown the best driver. In effect, the sport became more about the drivers than the cars themselves. The price was brand identity.

For today’s race at Daytona, drivers will pilot vehicles featuring electronic fuel injection — the technology that’s found in production vehicles today. And for 2013, Nascar announced a complete redesign of its cars… or so they’ll have you believe.

The cars still won’t have anything “stock” in them; a Nascar Impala has and will have nothing in common with what consumers can buy in dealerships. Heck, why make your Nascar resemble an Impala instead of a Camaro, or Corvette? Even a Malibu would be better… Whatever the case, the Nascars will continue to be built using custom-made tube frames and hand-made V8 engines mated to four-speed transmissions and overlaid with some steel body panels painted to resemble a Ford or a Chevy (but only in the front and rear).

That’s quite the change from the 50s and 60s, when Chevys and Fords were taken off the same production line as the cars headed to dealers and tuned for increased safety before hitting the track. To a Millenial like myself, all of this is very ironic, since “stock cars” used to be vehicles that anyone could buy from a dealer and Nascar used to be a race that benefited the street car thanks to track-to-street carryover. Not anymore.

So tomorrow’s race will re-kindle a long-standing American rivalry — Ford versus Chevy, something that hasn’t occurred in Nascar in years. In fact, a Chevrolet-badged car has dominated Nascar’s Sprint Cup title for seven straight years and has also won the manufacturer’s title for nine straight years. For the record, no Toyota-badged car (or driver) has won a Nascar premier series and a Dodge-branded car hasn’t won since Richard Petty in 1975.

But do you even care… and will you even remember that a Chevy (or a Dodge, Ford, or Toyota) won the race? I’ll bet you can already tell our answer, but we’d still love to know what you think in the comments below.

GM Authority Executive Editor with a passion for business strategy and fast cars.

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Comments

  1. NASCAR done gone all Hollywood .

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  2. NASCAR? Race today? Daytona? Out here in LA, from inside the TMZ (Thirty Mile Zone), the ONLY thing that exists is the Academy Awards. Fleets of black cars are hovering around ultra luxury hotels and all around the streets. Streets are closed down for massive pre- during- and post-Oscar parties. NASCAR? Not so much.

    I’d have to reach pretty far back into the past, to a time when I was just a young boy infatuated with Camaros, Mustangs and air-cooled VW Beetles, that Daytona had any relevance or nexus with something you could watch race on Sunday and buy in a showroom on Monday. Long gone are those days.

    (It’s also just a bit ironic that as I write this, the local TV news is doing a live shot a couple blocks away from me that has a “cheap” ARCO station with $4.69.9/gallon regular gas. I was 16 when I could fill the tank of my 1st gen Honda Civic for $5.)

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  3. NASCAR is irrelevant. I have no respect for anybody who races in it or watches it. I firmly believe in “Compete On Sunday, Sell On Monday” (a bit different from the old adage, but more relevant, I think). The only way to guarantee this is to homologate the cars. For the uninitiated, that means that the manufacturer can compete in the race as long as they build a certain number of nearly exact copies to be sold to the public. That’s how cars like the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and the Subaru Impreza WRX came into being. Other cars that came into being as a result of homologation rules in the past are the Boss Mustangs of old, among others. NASCAR is not racing really…it’s advertisement at 200mph.

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    1. I agree with Richard too. There hasn’t been a homologated NASCAR for decades. I’d like to see these guys drive the Camaro ZL1 or a Corvette ZR1 against the Mustang Shelby GT500 and maybe a Charger SRT8 392 or the upcoming Viper. If Toyota, Honda and Nissan want in on the gig, Toyota should come up with a new Supra, Honda needs anything relevant and Nissan can use the Z. I might even watch that!

      The world rally cars like the WRX and EVO are much more popular outside the US, but for the most part, you can find similar (not the same, obviously) cars at a dealer if you want them. I really do think that the world rally cars get sold by the racing analogs.

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  4. Good point Richard, that’s what Nascar did at one point in time, I think it used to be 2000 production models were required in order to race a specific car. It was the 80s Monte Carlos that were the first cars that had to have the wheelbase stretched for competition, so that would have been the start of the Non-stock. I think the Lumina was the 1st fwd car that they ran in Nascar. But it wasn’t until 03 that they really swayed away from production model sheet metal and more into the imitation vehicles they have now.

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  5. You guys are soooo funny! 200,000 people in the stands and 30 million TV viewers. And you think hey don’t know the brand names on the cars? You have obviousely never been to a NASCAR race to see the brand loyalty of the fans. The cars may have nothing in common with anything in the showrooms, but Toyotas marketing team are no dummies so the fact they are spending millions of their marketing dollars on their effort tells me you are wrong.

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    1. I’m pretty sure everyone is aware of the popularity of NASCAR and the brand loyalties; however, I think it would still be nice to have something in the showroom that isn’t too far off from what is raced at these events. I mean really, a Toyota Camry racer? Sure, pure fiction, but wouldn’t you like to see Toyota come out with another Supra that has some real racing chops that could be purchased in a showroom? I know I would.

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    2. I think you’re mistaking brand loyalty for driver loyalty.

      Having lived in FL, I’ve attended more races than I could recount, including the D500. Everyone knows that it’s not a Chevy, Ford, Dodge, or Toyota being run — but rather a custom built machine that has nothing in common with what folks drive on the streets.

      As you said yourself, the numbers are nothing to sneeze at. So if you make real cars run the races (think Corvette Racing, etc.) and combine brand/vehicle loyalty with driver loyalty, the marketing efforts will be much more effective than they are today. The only problem is that this will weed out the likes of Toyota right away, since they currently don’t have a race-ready production car… but as Todd pointed out, this will be one more reason to make one.

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    3. Are you talking about the same Toyota that had the biggest budget in Formula 1 yet never won a single race? Are you talking about the same Toyota that was a front runner in WRC (that has direct links to road-going cars) and out of the blue dropped the programme to concentrate on NASCAR (which had no link to road-going cars)? Are you talking about the same Toyota that in the 1980s had cars like the Supra, Celica GT4, Corolla GT-S, MR2 Turbo, Starlet GT (not sold in the US) and a host of other cutting edge performance models? They market their machines alright…but aren’t doing so to the likes of me or to most around here. Toyota has NOTHING that interests me…nothing.

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  6. So all those “Ford Racing”, “Chevy Racing”, etcshirts and hats I’ve seen the at the races I’ ve attended mean nothing? i suppose Toyota is simply trying to create Denny Hamlin fans with the millions they spend on the sport? And as a Chevy enthusiast while I always respected Mark Martin, when he drove a Ford I hoped he lost every race he ran, but when he switched to Chevys I rooted for him. Now in a Toyota, I won’t be cheering for him to win his first Daytona 500.

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    1. The entire event would be much more effective if what competed on Sunday was available to buy on Monday.

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    2. See?! You’re living proof! You only see the brand names.

      Hats and t-shirts are meaninless; they’re just another plance to put a logo.

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  7. And I suppose most people on the GM authority blog are not brand rooters??

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    1. Of course not. Nobody is rooting for a brand; a brand is just a sales channel.

      What we’re doing is monitoring GM and commenting on their stenghts and weaknesses.

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      1. As well as their opportunities and threats. SWOT FTW 🙂

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        1. I should add, that in addition to the above, that if everyone on GMA were “brand rooters”, we’d all want Pontiac back and would downplay ANY criticism of claims of Pontiac’s inferority.

          Pontiac is simply above such nonsense, and you must not tarnish its good name.

          😉

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          1. Absolutely and not. Pontiac is awesome. And deserves to return. Keep fighting the good battle. Now, who wants some stickers to place above their windshield?

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            1. Windshield banners are so 2011.

              I’ve got a Pontiac face tat.

              Which, of course, is in no way shape or form, brand rooting.

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    2. I am a brand rooter, but I’m a Ford guy. That doesn’t mean I dismiss GM or am not interested in what they are making. GMA is a great place for that info.

      Reply

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