COLUMN: What the Media Tour is worth
NASCAR, a bit more relaxed
The annual Sprint Media Tour is a pleasant, if tiring, pastime. That’s because the hay’s in the barn. A farmer puts it there in hopes of getting his cattle through the winter. In NASCAR, the hay’s not hay, but it is, uh, “product.” It’s being stockpiled so that the race car(s) can make it through the season.
Cars have been built. Test sessions have been conducted. There’s not too much more anyone can do until Daytona International Speedway opens its gates again. No one’s feeling the heat. No one’s stuck with slow cars that were supposed to be fast. In one sense they’re painstakingly prepared. Later they may find they were blissfully ignorant.
No one’s mad at anyone. Everyone’s aching for a fresh start. We haven’t seen the first Busch brother explode. Tony Stewart has been all smiles. Chad Knaus has been out of the country.
Charlotte Motor Speedway’s much-revered promotional tour is grueling. Every day requires a 6:30 wake-up call and a late-night retirement. Some nights are later than others, but extracurricular activities are always optional. Some stops are all business. Some are mostly silliness. Some are newsworthy; some are snooze-worthy; some are booze-worthy.
Where else can one hear a humorous exchange between one man named Mike Dillon and another named Wolfgang Monsehr? Where else does Mark Martin laugh at song lyrics? Where else does Bruton Smith offer his view of electric cars? Where else do entire paragraphs mean nothing? OK, you got me on the last one.
Not much earth shaking occurred. Drivers, owners, crew chiefs, spokespeople, reporters, columnists, photographers, cameramen (and, quite often, women), commentators, televisers and broadcasters got to know one another a bit better. Not only is it not a bad thing; it’s a very good thing.
The Tour has educational value, too. A conversation on the side taught me more about EFI (electronic fuel injection) than a fistful of handouts, not to mention Wikipedia.
Besides, sportswriters enjoy holding court, telling war stories and impersonating comedians, and there are just precious few opportunities for that anymore.
Monte Dutton; 704-869-1841; twitter.com/montedutton
