The impact of driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory in four years “is being felt from Michigan to Sonoma, Calif.,” according to Bob Pockrass of SPORTING NEWS. Infineon Raceway VP/Marketing & Communications John Cardinale said that ticket sales for this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350 in Sonoma “spiked 20 percent Monday over what the track did last year.” Michigan Int'l Speedway President Roger Curtis said that his ticket office saw a 22% increase "in ticket sales for its August race over last year." JR Motorsports VP/Licensing Joe Mattes said that sales on the NASCAR.com Superstore “were up 500 percent from a year ago.” There was no Earnhardt victory merchandise “immediately available but it could be on the market by the end of the week -- a process that is taking a bit longer because of the Batman ‘Dark Knight Rises’ paint scheme on his car and getting approvals from Warner Bros.” The plan is “to get that merchandise to the Cup race at Sonoma this weekend as well as at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., for the Nationwide Series race this weekend, where Earnhardt’s three JR Motorsports teams will compete.” Mattes said that products associated with the paint scheme and the victory “made up 54.5 percent of total sales at the NASCAR.com Superstore on Monday.” He added that all Earnhardt products, "which typically make up 25 percent of the online outlet’s total business, accounted for 78 percent on Monday.” SMI President & COO Marcus Smith said, “This has been a long time coming. It’s akin to the Red Sox winning The World Series” (SPORTINGNEWS.com, 6/20).
