NASCAR NASCAR hopes 'Cars' steers kids to racing

The latest Disney/Pixar movie is expected to reach younger fans.
THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- Next week's premiere of "Cars," the latest release from Disney/Pixar studios, is expected to draw a record 30,000 people to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., where they'll take their seats in the Turn 2 grandstands and watch on four custom-built outdoor movie screens, each six stories high and 10 stories wide. And NASCAR executives are doing celebratory burnouts in advance, confident that a surge of young stock-car racing fans will follow in the wake of the June 9 release.
NASCAR may be America's fastest growing sport, claiming a fan base of 75 million and a TV audience second only to the National Football League's, but NASCAR executives are aiming far higher. In 2000 they became the first major sport to open a Los Angeles corporate office, charged with becoming the most aggressive athletic player in cultivating the entertainment industry.
Six years later, that initiative has spawned a lucrative, if unlikely, partnership between Tinseltown and stock-car racing: Hollywood is tapping NASCAR to sell its latest movies, TV projects and music; NASCAR, meantime, is hitching onto Hollywood vehicles to extend the boundaries of its impassioned fan base, known as "NASCAR Nation."
With Hollywood's help, NASCAR officials are integrating NASCAR drivers and story lines into every form of entertainment imaginable: From cartoons for the pre-kindergarten set to soap operas; from reality TV to made-for-TV dramas; from MTV videos to live race-day concerts; and now, major studio releases.
High expectations
"Cars," the story of a brash stock-car racer named Lightning McQueen who learns that life is about more than trophies, could be the highest-grossing Pixar movie yet, Hollywood insiders predict, topping "The Incredibles," "Finding Nemo" and "Toy Story."
NASCAR expects another big splash with the Aug. 4 release of "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," a farce featuring Will Ferrell as a top NASCAR driver. Female audiences are in the sport's marketing crosshairs, too, targeted by a series of NASCAR-branded Harlequin Romances that debuted in February.
From Hollywood's perspective, the alliance is a no-brainer, says Howard Burns, editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter. "If you're tying in with NASCAR, you're tying in with a hard-core, dedicated audience," Burns said. "If you're looking to get the word out and market your movie, it's all there. For Hollywood to get involved makes perfect sense."
XSaturday's NASCAR race was not completed for today's edition.