Time Warner's DC Comics and AZ-based NASCAR licensee
Action Performance "are aiming for" $25-30M in licensed
product sales "via an ambitious program" called "Superman
Racing" that combines rights for the Superman character with
those of Winston Cup driver Jeff Gordon and eight others
from four racing circuits, including Winston Cup's Dale
Earnhardt and CART's Jimmy Vasser, according to Terry Lefton
of BRANDWEEK. Between May and early November, the drivers
will feature Superman on their cars, uniforms and helmets,
"authenticating a sales push behind" Action's die-cast
vehicles in "specialty channels and Hasbro in mass channels
that should account for more than two-thirds of overall
dollar volume." Gordon is set to be the first to drive a
"Superman-adorned car" on May 22 in NC (BRANDWEEK, 4/19).
CART PROMOTES HEALTHY HEARTS: LIPITOR, a treatment for
high cholesterol co-marketed by Parke-Davis and Pfizer, has
become an official CART sponsor (CART). In Long Beach,
Marisa Osorio Colon wrote that "many new sponsors
associated" with CART "aren't synonymous with motor sports."
SmithKline Beecham's Nicorette Gum, Vision Air and Target
are among companies that have "climbed aboard" (Long Beach
PRESS-TELEGRAM, 4/19). In Toronto, Rick Matsumoto writes
that when a group of eight CART team owners sold off over
1.7 million shares of CART last week (See THE DAILY, 4/15),
there was "considerable concern" that the racing series "was
in trouble. But the scare was short-lived when the stock
actually rose 1.5 points to just over $30 a share, before
falling to just under $29 when the market closed on Friday."
Bobby Rahal, who sold 80,000 of his 800,000 shares, said
that the "impressive thing about the shares was 'the amount
of people not selling'" (TORONTO STAR, 4/20).
