I am not a Nascar fan.

I have nothing against the sport or the people, I just can’t seem to get excited about it. That being said I did happen to catch a few minutes of the big race this weekend and saw something that was puzzling.

It was the #27 car.

We all know about the cars and how they are moving billboards for major brands looking to cement permanent relationships with the Nascar faithful….and I like that. There is nothing wrong with brash commercialism but I was still troubled by the sponsor of the #27 car.

Who was is you ask?

This kinda puzzled/bothered me because as a Charity (one that I collected many pennies for during my many Halloween outings as a child) I found it odd that they would spend the approx. $20 Million Dollars it takes to be a title sponsor when that money could go to better places.

Even if they got a Charity discount (does that exist in Nascar Sponsorship deals?) they would still be in the hook for a big chunk of the fee.

Now I understand this is advertising and the goal is to get many eyeballs on the name and the url but I wonder if this will end up being effective for them. I know I was turned off by it and even if I am blogging about it and giving them exposure it may not be the type of exposure they were hoping for.

*and if anyone knows if this was a freebie or something please feel free to chime in and call me stupid but I read every press release and couldn’t find any mention of that. The PR does mention that they hope the race will move people to donate in record numbers.

-saul