Marketing Experts Exposed

This week I had the chance to play golf with Nascar driver, Dave Stremme. He’s a great guy who drives cars a lot better than golf balls. heh heh. We had a blast, including the 18th fairway when he decided to give us some short track driving lessons and started bumping our golf cart from behind. Nothing like racing golf carts with a professional. In the last turn, his cart took out our wheel (popped a tire) and we had to limp back to the golf cart pit row. (In his defense, he wasn’t driving the cart, then; that was my buddy, Mike Roy of GetEtched.)

Dave qualified 7th for this Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, home of the first Winner’s Wall, our latest marketing project. This weekend Dave’s driving a special combination Coor’s Light and St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Every lap he stays in the race, Coors gives more money to St. Jude’s.

We were down at the track yesterday to film a segment for the Speed channel. It aired this morning, and it showed the Winner’s Wall, a special project to raise $10 million for Speedway Children’s Charities. That’s Bruton Smith’s nonprofit that supports 400 different children’s organizations around the country, including CURE Childhood Cancer in Atlanta, a great organization where I just joined the board of directors.

If you’re watching the pre-race on ESPN this Sunday, look for a segment with Rusty Wallace about the Winner’s Wall. It’s a great project where fans can put their picture on a permanent piece of granite on big walls out side their favorite track. And it will raise a lot of money for kids.