GUEST COMMENTARY - BOB VANDERGRIFF DELIVERS
I am writing about a topic that has been a discussion piece for a long
time but due to some recent developments and numerous questions about
what my opinion is on the subject I have been prodded into sharing
them. In doing so I want to remind everyone that this is my opinion, it
always irks me when people are asked for their opinion and when giving
it get barbequed for it. You don’t have to agree with it that’s why
they call it an opinion and not fact. The recent “rivalry” that has developed between Tony Schumacher and Hot Rod Fuller, in my opinion, is a great and needed addition to our sport.
In Denver, Hot Rod had a shirt made that while I thought was hilarious evidently infuriated quite a few people. I am not sure how or why someone or a group of people would find this so offensive, in fact Hot Rod pretty much made fun of himself on the front of the shirt and made no actual derogatory reference to Team Schumacher, he left it there for everyone to connect the dots.
It’s All About Creating a heartbeat …
I am writing about a topic that has been a discussion piece for a long time but due to some recent developments and numerous questions about what my opinion is on the subject I have been prodded into sharing them. In doing so I want to remind everyone that this is my opinion, it always irks me when people are asked for their opinion and when giving it get barbequed for it. You don’t have to agree with it that’s why they call it an opinion and not fact.
The recent “rivalry” that has developed between Tony Schumacher and Hot Rod Fuller, in my opinion, is a great and needed addition to our sport.
In Denver, Hot Rod had a shirt made that while I thought was hilarious evidently infuriated quite a few people. I am not sure how or why someone or a group of people would find this so offensive, in fact Hot Rod pretty much made fun of himself on the front of the shirt and made no actual derogatory reference to Team Schumacher, he left it there for everyone to connect the dots.
In going back to why I think this is great for our sport, it is in my opinion and I have shared this with many over the years, we as a sport need to create a reason why the fans want to watch the fifth pair of top fuel as much as they want to watch the first round. It goes back to my theory of creating a heartbeat. I will give you an example. If any of you remember the Roger Clemens versus Mike Piazza ordeal where Roger threw part of Piazza’s broken bat at him and a skirmish broke out it provides an example of what I am talking about, while people tuned into the game because they were either Yankees or Mets fans it provided another source of interest, you were definitely interested in the game but in addition you could not wait for the next time Piazza batted against Clemens because you didn’t know what was going to happen between them, was Clemens going to throw a 95 fastball at Piazza’s ear in his next at bat or was Piazza going to rip one over the fence and tell Clemens to “take that”?. Not only did it make you watch that game but it made you interested in the next series the two teams played and any games after that. It is now why I want to watch anytime Hot Rod and Shoe race, it might get interesting! I am not saying we as drivers should be throwing bats at each other but I am saying to have a true rivalry there needs to be a little bad blood.
I urge you the fans to do this: If you are a Hot Rod Fuller fan boo the crap out of Tony Schumacher, and if you are a Tony Schumacher fan let Hot Rod know about it, and if you don’t care for either one of them you can cheer for me; also if you don’t agree with me on this subject you can boo me instead.
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Think about some of the great rivalries in sports, tell a Dallas Cowboy fan you love the Washington Redskins or a Yankee fan your favorite team is the Red Sox and see what kind of a response you get.
I want to share a conversation I recently had. At our Englishtown race, I had in my opinion one of the most respected sports marketing people in motorsports out as my guest and our discussion came upon this very subject and he said something to me that made a lot of sense. His comment was drag racing needs to build the identities of the drivers a lot more, while this is not a new comment the argument he made did make a lot of sense to me. He said as an example that he was a New York Giant fan not an NFL fan and he was a New York Met fan not a Major League baseball fan, think of all the people you see walking around with Giant or Cowboys for that matter hat on, or Mets or Yankee hats on, do you ever see a NFL or MLB hat on somebody’s head?
It goes towards building an emotional tie to an entity. If you are a Cowboy fan on Sunday the other teams that are playing are almost irrelevant, as long as the Cowboys win you are happy, while you might watch the other games because you are a fan the outcome doesn’t matter as much. I think NASCAR has done a great job in creating specific driver loyalty, if you are a fan of one specific driver over there you live and die by the outcome of his results and it drives you nuts if one of his rivals wins. He made it a point to mention Kyle Busch and how smart he was, while he is winning races he is embracing his bad guy image, you can love him or hate him but he’s got everyone talking about him. I understand this first hand, many years ago after a run in Columbus in which the track conditions were dreadful I was interviewed right after my car blew up because of the conditions and I made some pretty derogatory comments about the track and its conditions. The fans let me have it both ways, some supported me and others gave me grief but either way I had a line of them at the back of my trailer all weekend. I will always remember the booing I received during driver introductions there on Sunday, it was great. I should have painted my car black for the next race and built on it. Both of these references are examples in what I refer to as a “heartbeat”. I will give you another example of this and why I applaud NASCAR. A few months ago while I was at the NASCAR race in Charlotte as I walked through the parking lot I saw a guy who was obviously a Tony Stewart fan, he was wearing a Tony Stewart tee shirt and proudly sported a # 20 hat, as we walked towards the gate I saw a hat laying in the walkway. As we approached it the Tony Stewart fan picked it up, I looked at it, as he did this and it was a brand new hat, it still had the tag on it, obviously it had fallen out of someone’s bag, it was a #48 Lowes Jimmy Johnson hat, just as I was thinking how lucky this guy was to find a brand new free hat, I saw him as we approached the entrance throw it straight in the trash can!!!
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I think the only person who has created the same emotional tug in our sport is John Force. They guy gets cheered riding his scooter up and down the return road! In my opinion he is a genius, whether intentional or not he has created such a following because of his personality and while a large part is because he has been so successful on the track just as much is because you just don’t know what he is going to do or say and he is such a normal guy that the fans relate to that and make that connection. His daughter Ashley has been great with developing that as well, while being a female in our sport is no longer an oddity, we have many of them and many that do really well. I have noticed that probably 99% of all the little girls I see at the track are now wearing Ashley Force shirts. Once again a connection has been made and in doing so building that heartbeat.
In returning to the whole Schumacher- Fuller drama that took place in Denver while I have no ill will towards either of the drivers I wore one of Hot Rods shirts up to the starting line on Sunday in support of the attempt to create a rivalry and to try and create more buzz for our category. In fact I had a lot of comments. I one hundred percent support Hot Rod on this, in fact I hate the Army car too!! Can’t stand it, it makes me sick to look at it, and here’s why. That car has been beating my brains out and everyone else brains out for a long time, and because of that my definition of hate is a compliment. It is, in fact, about as a high of one as I can give. Alan Johnson in my opinion is the best crew chief in our sport and Tony Schumacher is a hell of a driver, the dude just doesn’t make a mistake, think of all the big runs that team has had to make in the last couple of years and all it took was one flinch by Tony and those championships would have been out the window. That team sets the bar and motivates me to try and build mine in their reflection. I hope that if I am ever in that position I perform as well as he did and that my team responds the same way that team did. Who knows maybe someday people will hate us the same way I hate that team. In that case I will know we have succeeded.
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In closing, I would like to suggest that instead of all the meaningless nonsense I have heard, I urge you the fans to do this: If you are a Hot Rod Fuller fan boo the crap out of Tony Schumacher, and if you are a Tony Schumacher fan let Hot Rod know about it, and if you don’t care for either one of them you can cheer for me; also if you don’t agree with me on this subject you can boo me instead. Either way we will start to create that heartbeat for our sport that I think is essential to help our sport continue to grow and reach that so called next level.
We have a lot of great opportunities in front of us as our sport continues to grow but in my opinion all of us drivers need to remember one thing, the fans will dictate the direction our sport goes, we need to treat you well as you buy the tickets but we also need to give you a reason to keep coming back and if a little bantering creates interest, banter away!!
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