In NASCAR’s Championship 4, the four drivers competing for the Sprint Cup championship on Sunday, all three manufacturers are represented—Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota—as well as four different engine builders: Hendrick Motorsports (Kevin Harvick), Earnhardt Childress Racing Engines (Ryan Newman), Roush-Yates Engines (Joey Logano) and Toyota Racing Development (Denny Hamlin).
In the Homestead-Miami Speedway media center on Saturday, executives representing each of the car makers shared their perspectives on the value of one of their drivers winning the title on Sunday.
Ford’s success this season, with 14 victories in 35 Cup races, already has spurred interest in the brand, according to Jamie Allison, director of Ford Racing.
“We have generated 570,000 leads yet this year, up 60 percent from a year ago,” Allison said. “We track sales, match to leads generated from on track activation, and our sales are up 90 percent versus a year ago. These are gigantic swings in engagement, gigantic swings in fan affinity, and it translates all the way down from awareness down to conservation to shopping to intention to buy. So success on the track translates into fan consideration and purchase intention.
“At the end of the day, we are here because of our fans, our fans of Ford, and what we race on the track increasing with relevance to what’s being shown in the showroom as well as what’s in people’s driveway—there’s that direct correlation. Whoever said ‘Win on Sunday, sell on Monday,’ it’s absolutely true, because we’re seeing it in the evidence of the data that we have.”
Jim Campbell, Chevrolet vice president of performance vehicles and motorsports, says the manufacturer starts each season with the same objectives.
“For Chevrolet that’s one of our goals every year is to help our teams win a driver’s championship and collectively giving our teams the best opportunity to win enough races for us to win the manufacturer’s championship,” Campbell said.
“We have two opportunities out of the four (on Sunday), and if you look over the past number of years, eight of the last nine driver’s champions have been Chevrolet drivers. We do see a lift in opinion, and when you get a lift of opinion on a brand, great things happen. Customers put you on their shopping list more quickly. It’s a fact. So that’s big.”
On Sunday, Hamlin could become the first driver to deliver a championship to Toyota in NASCAR’s premier series.
“For Toyota, it would simply be historic and unprecedented,” said David Wilson, president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development USA. “We’re still the new guys, so to speak, in the series. This is our… celebrating our 10th anniversary in NASCAR in their national series. We’ve won championships, multiple championships in the Camping World Truck Series, in the Nationwide Series.
“Cup, the Sprint Cup Series, that box hasn’t been checked yet, so for Toyota it would be huge. It would be significant, I think, for the sport. It would be huge for TRD. Certainly Toyota, our engagement model is a little bit different than my colleagues’, and I have 250 people that work their butts off, and they have for years and years, so it would be very emotional.”
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