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Track President Dennis Bickmeier and Richmond International Raceway have taken a page from Major League Baseball with its regular-season-ending Fan Appreciation Weekend.
Photo by: HARRELSON PHOTOGRAPHY INC. (3)
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Sandwiched between Darlington’s popular throwback weekend and the start of NASCAR’s Chase playoffs, Richmond International Raceway is debuting a campaign this weekend titled Fan Appreciation Weekend.
The effort is designed to differentiate the track while also making a more concerted effort as an industry to thank the sport’s fans as another
Sprint Cup Series regular season ends.
“When I worked for the Angels [in MLB], when we had Fan Appreciation Day on the last home game of the year, we just unloaded the closets and gave away all kinds of things,” said Dennis Bickmeier, who has been president of RIR since 2011. “That’s what this platform is: It is about kind of putting a nice bow around the first 26 races of the season, and then making it a good handoff to get the Chase started.”
The program, which has garnered support from the sanctioning body, teams and NBC Sports, will see a wide variety of giveaways and other experiential elements such as a red carpet rolled out at the track’s main gate for fans as they enter the venue, which is part of an activation area sponsored by longtime NASCAR partner Mars.
Other elements of the program include cars featuring “Thanks Fans” decals and social media hashtag campaigns, and NBC picking a fan to drive around the track in the network’s “two-seater” with on-air commentator Jeff Burton. Other giveaways include a fan becoming part of a team’s pit crew for the race, a meet-and-greet/hauler tour with Xfinity Series drivers, and autographed memorabilia.
Along with Mars, Sprint will have a significant presence around the inaugural year of the program. Sprint occasionally holds thank-you events for its customers, and with its forthcoming exit as Cup Series title sponsor, the Kansas City-based carrier decided to work a thank-you event around RIR’s new program. Sprint’s stores nationwide will be participating, and the events will have a similar sort of feel, with giveaways on things like Chase tickets or simply free food and beverages plus discounts on phone accessories.
“When we heard about Richmond’s fan appreciation, we said, ‘You know what, we need to do one of these Sprint thank-you events on the same date,’” said Kimberly Meesters, Sprint’s general manager of NASCAR Sprint Cup sponsorship. “So it’s twofold: It’s to help get the event off the ground, and to help take something Sprint already does and make it bigger.”
Bickmeier is hopeful the fan appreciation campaign can help give the track some buzz for Saturday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at a time when many fans begin looking past the regular season.
