By Jefferson George
Nov 17, 2007
Consider it a consolation prize.
If Bruton Smith were to close Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord and build a track elsewhere in the Charlotte region, most motorsports businesses near the speedway or in Mooresville likely wouldn’t follow him.
Based on Smith’s geographic criteria, a new speedway could be as far away from Concord and Mooresville as southern York County in South Carolina. That means some race teams and other businesses now only a mile or two from the region’s major NASCAR venue could end up more than 30 miles away.
Yet that distance, while less convenient, probably isn’t enough to make most companies move, especially teams that have spent millions of dollars on facilities in Cabarrus, Iredell and northern Mecklenburg counties, business owners and others said.
Read the full story
Source: Motorsports business owners say they’ll stay, even if track relocates
A marketing guru once told me that many companies sell their weakest attributes. By playing up what the market perceives as their limitations, the company seeks to reverse “misconceptions” which prevent greater popularity. The strategy is what Hitler called “The Big Lie:” a falsehood of such size and splendour that no one can believe that someone had “the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” This explains why Ford Canada used the slogan “Quality is Job 1” while building the Tempo and the Escort. It also elucidates automakers’ greenwashing.
Usually, Ferrari owners manage to destroy their cars on a race track or on the highway, but not this one. According to eye-witnesses, the owner of the sexy Ferrari Testarossa was seen speeding on a central road in Colmenarejo, a town located north of Spain’s capital, Madrid. The Testarossa driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and ended up smashing into a brick wall.
My wife's South African. She knows a thing or two about bigotry. I'm not speaking about her up-close-and-personal experiences under The Republic's heinous system of apartheid. I'm talking about Sam's post-immigration experiences. As a white South African, she knows what it's like to have someone judge you before you open your mouth. For years, strangers would confront her about the evils of apartheid, as if Sam had a direct hand in its implementation. This, even though she left South Africa before she reached voting age. And, more to the point, the fact that Sam was born into a culture she did not create. Anyway, when we moved to America, Sam worried about how our friends and neighbors would treat her. She remembered America's economic sanctions against her country, and heard the harsh and unified rhetoric aimed at the ruling regime. And yet… there's never been a problem. Not one. She's been treated with nothing but kindness. Now you could say Sam's welcome is the result of a combination of political ADD and ignorance. Or you could say it's because Americans are, by and large, a tolerant and open-minded people. So when I hear that Detroit's woes are due to "import bigotry," I just have to laugh. When Japanese cars were still considered crap, Lexus was given a chance to prove itself. Why wouldn't Detroit be afforded the same opportunity? All they have to do is… build cars people want and sell them honestly. As Sam says, you gotta walk the talk before you can expect anyone to listen. 
