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NASCAR's Mexican holiday not attracting big names

Submitted by SHNS on Fri, 04/18/2008 - 14:36

At one time, when NASCAR men talked about South of the Border they probably were talking about the tourist stop Interstate 95 at the North Carolina-South Carolina border.Those talking about south of the border this week are talking about Mexico City, where drivers on the Nationwide tour will race Sunday in the Mexico 200 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, a historic road course.Adrian Fernandez, one of Mexico's biggest sports stars for his Indy-car and road-racing exploits, will be back in a Rick Hendrick Chevy and trying to live up to his legend. Scott Pruett, one of the best road racers in the U.S., will try to avenge last year's controversial bump-and-run loss to Juan Pablo Montoya, a teammate with Chip Ganassi Racing.One of the key marketing aspects of NASCAR's venture into Mexico is Lowe's plan to start opening stores there next year. Lowe's is sponsoring the Hendrick-Fernandez venture.Another is Carlos Slim's sponsorship of the race. Slim, by some accounts, is the richest man in the world because of his command of the Mexican and South American telephone market. He has been pushing NASCAR for a full-fledged Sprint Cup race but hasn't been able to sway the powers that be as of yet.However, NASCAR's Mexico City venture could be fizzling. The number of top drivers making the trip appears to be dwindling, and the two best NASCAR road racers -- Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart -- continue to snub the race.Fernandez agrees that there are questions."I'm not 100 percent sure," he said. "It feels like it's more of a peak when it gets to Mexico because there's a lot of good drivers from Mexico that compete. It gets well promoted. It's a good event. It's a good race. The fans have an opportunity to see a lot of the drivers that they don't see through the year."Through the year, I still have my doubts. I don't think it (NASCAR racing in general) is being followed as much as everybody would like it to, or NASCAR would like it to. And I think the key is that we really haven't had a Mexican driver that represents NASCAR on a consistent basis that they can follow through the year. The real race fans, they follow it through the year. But for a lot of them, you need definitely the identity of somebody that they can follow."NASCAR officials once banked on Fernandez being that driver, holding high hopes that he could make the transition to stock cars, but he has fizzled in three previous runs at Hermanos Rodrmguez. He never quite showed the fire in the belly needed to make the transition, and after dabbling for a while, he went back sports car racing.Fernandez might have been more enthusiastic about his future in racing, with his opportunities with Hendrick and Chevrolet and the unification of the Indy-car series, if not for his age now: "I'm in a different stage. I'm 45 now. I want to enjoy more my family. I'm working under different circumstances. But NASCAR right now gives you a better future, more growth with sponsorships and everything. So it's definitely the place to be right now."Sunday's race will have six Hispanic drivers, but they are not well known.And it's uncertain what Fernandez might offer."It's such a different car and such a different experience," he said. "I'm expecting to -- hopefully -- put all the ingredients together so we can be in a position to win the race at the end of it."We've been pretty competitive in the last few years. But always we've been somehow hampered from winning by small things. One of the things I have found is that these races go forever. You have to be patient and be there at the end...."David Green will qualify the Hendrick Chevy for Fernandez, who also will be racing in the American LeMans series race at Long Beach, Calif.NASCAR executives are, in a sense, caught between a rock and a hard place. They want to promote the Mexico City race as an opportunity for Hispanic drivers -- not just superstars like Fernandez and Montoya -- but to attract a good American TV audience, they need the top NASCAR stars.Pruett understands."As NASCAR works at broadening its horizons," he said, "one of the focuses is South America -- having drivers like Adrian, very talented guys, come in, that are Mexican-born is huge to even get more exposure."What was a sport that I think was very limited in Mexico now is becoming stronger and stronger each year."(Contact Mike Mulhern at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)