Riding Shotgun With Richard Petty
While other sports are slamming Internet writing and trying to draw the lines between print, TV, and Internet writers, NASCAR is jumping out in front of the curve. When NASCAR announced a few weeks ago that they were going to give (some) bloggers access to their media, it was a pleasant change for a sport to be looking at the electronic media as a potential ally, rather than as a potential enemy. It’s nice to see a sport embrace new technology and to realize that it’s better to be proactive rather than reactive.
What’s that mean to me, you ask?
It means that it was cool as heck for a pesky little Internet writer to sit in on the NASCAR teleconference with Richard Petty. Not going to go off on a love-fest here, but I believe that Petty is as important to NASCAR as Babe Ruth was to baseball or Michael Jordan was to the NBA. He’s not just the winningest driver in NASCAR history, he’s also probably its greatest ambassador. People who know nothing about NASCAR know who Petty is and can recognize him on sight.
And I guarantee that none of them had the brass to ask him if NASCAR is a sport.
So here’s the transcript of the teleconference for your enjoyment:
Sorry guys, but to read the rest of this post, including the transcript of the teleconference, you need to visit FastMachines.com. I’m sure they would appreciate it.