I’m not a big NASCAR fan but I do watch the highlights on TV and read about the race results.
Lately I’ve noticed that the victor pulls into the winners circle are and large bottles of PowerAde are placed on the roof of his car. As soon as the driver climbs out he sweeps the bottles, quite uncerimoniously, onto the ground.
Why do they all do this? Isn’t powerade angry? They must be paying big dollars for the exposure.
It’s simple: the drivers that do this are sponsored by Gatorade. It’s a common problem in NASCAR, where a race or NASCAR sponsor conflicts with a driver sponsor. Cingular or Alltel sponsoring a car in the Nextel cup, for instance.
Why can the drivers ditch the Powerade? I think it’s because Powerade is sponsoring the winner’s circle, and that’s all they’re sponsoring. I doubt their sponsorship includes having the bottle on the car itself – I don’t think NASCAR can mandate that kind of thing.
Powerade is a Coke product, Gatorade is a Pepsi product. If Jeff Gordon, a Pepsi sponsored driver, wins and someone puts Powerade bottles on the roof he’s going to knock them off.
Side note, some of the sponsorship requirements are pretty strict. Dale Earnhardt Jr is sponsored by Budweiser and part of his contract is that he cannot be seen drinking any alcoholic beverage that is not an AB product. So champagne toasts are usually Budweiser.