© 2017 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.,
Privacy Policy | Your California Privacy Rights | Interest-Based Ads | Terms of UseAdmit it, you like watching a good face punching. We all do. Monster Energy thinks we like it as much as we like NASCAR.
Monster is the new entitlement sponsor of NASCAR’s premier racing series, now known as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and it’s bringing its own brand of entertainment to the races beginning this year. That includes the possibility of freestyle motocross, gymkhana, off-road demos, and yes, even mixed martial arts fights in the pre-race show.
“We built our brand on doing things people think are cool,” says Mitch Covington, Monster Energy’s vice president of sports marketing. “That won’t change here.” Americans, evidently, think caged combat is as cool as a three-car-wide, 200-mph territorial dispute. And because Monster brings with it MMA athletes such as Conor McGregor and Dominick Cruz—respected face pummelers, both—there’s likely to be action of all sorts at NASCAR events this year. It’s a match that could only be made in, well, America. God bless us.
Mitch Covington
A rear-naked choke or arm bar are far cries from prior title sponsors’ sideshows, which once included longtime sponsor R.J. Reynolds handing out cigarettes (relax, they checked IDs). NASCAR can use the boost. With both event attendance and TV ratings down in recent years, NASCAR, on some level, is searching for a new identity. “For us this is about giving NASCAR customers a lifestyle experience, not selling a product,” says Covington. Monster plans to capitalize on the sponsorship with display rigs at events that transform into fan-friendly entertainment facilities for hosting attendees, Monster’s sponsored athletes, and, of course, the Monster girls.
NASCAR, for its part, admits that a change won’t hurt. “This is a bit of a throwback to NASCAR’s maverick outlaw roots. It’s not vanilla,” says Steve Phelps, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief global sales and marketing officer. “Monster has been given permission to be edgy and disruptive.”
Though Phelps insists that the Monster partnership will help NASCAR serve all its fans, appealing to a younger audience can’t be a bad thing. “There’s a perception out there that we’re just old and white,” says Phelps. He points out that the spectator base is more diverse than many think, but that it’s not enough. “We attract more millennials and Hispanics by a factor of five or six than Major League Soccer,” he says. The search for a new sponsor spanned 18 months and involved more than 200 worldwide companies before NASCAR settled on Monster. According to Phelps: “There are brands that would have paid us more, but they lacked the right fit.”
Neither Monster Energy nor NASCAR will reveal the terms of their new deal except to say that it is a multiyear commitment. William Chipps, a senior content editor at IEG Sponsorship Report, a Chicago-based analytics firm that tracks corporate sponsorships, estimates the deal to be worth $20 million annually plus an activation commitment (spent on pre-race shows, athletes, etc.). Monster will retain its twofold sponsorship of the Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion driven by Kurt Busch, contributing both to the team and the driver. Estimates put that sponsorship at $15 million to $20 million annually, making the cost to support a single car and driver through the season comparable to the cost of branding the entire series.
Nearly two years ago, we griped about the Rolls-Royce Wraith Inspired by Music, which seemed to us to be a lamentable co-opting of rock ’n’ roll’s hardscrabble roots. It seems that enough well-heeled vintage-guitar collectors disagreed with us, because now the British luxury arm of BMW is soldiering forth with a series of nine Wraiths designed by U.K. music legends. Six of the nine have been announced, and four have already been built.
Two of them are Roger Daltrey’s, and the proceeds from their sale will benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust. The first of the cars celebrates the Who, the Commander of the British Empire’s 53-year-old rock band. The dashboard clock features the band’s classic mod-target roundel logo, as does the leather “waterfall” between the two rear seats. And while lyrics from “Join Together” and “I Can See for Miles” find their way into the car’s design, we think the best touch is the embroidery of Keith Moon’s “Pictures of Lily” drum set, which was blown up at the end of a famous appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967. Tom and Dick Smothers had requested that the band replicate their infamous instrument-destroying shtick on the show, so Moon, a man solidly of the excess-is-just-enough school, requested a pyro cannon be placed into one of his kick drums. The paltry cannon’s bang/poof during rehearsals wasn’t enough for the skinsman, so he requested more explosives—then added more of his own. The chaotic result, at the end of a performance of “My Generation,” singed Pete Townshend’s hair and damaged his hearing.
The second of Daltrey’s automobiles pays tribute to Tommy, the band’s landmark concept album from 1969. Most notably, the car features an airbrushed rendition of the record’s cover on the hood, a flight of fancy that would do Greg of Akron proud. Inside, each headrest is embroidered with a motif relating to the album art, while the rear-seat waterfall features a pinball machine in reference to Tommy’s classic track, “Pinball Wizard.” By 1969, the Who were no longer spitting out maximum R&B and had moved on to a sort of grandeur that would set the stage for the next decade of arena rock. And nothing evokes “arena rock” like album art airbrushed on your muscular coupe’s hood.
Ray Davies of the Kinks, famed for writing great pop songs and feuding with his brother Dave, has contributed a Wraith to the mix as well. The Davies car isn’t quite as radical as the Tommy machine, although we do hope its eventual buyer adds a bumper sticker noting the owner’s membership in the Village Green Preservation Society. Aside from Davies’s signature on the headrests and a Kinks logo on the waterfall, Davies put his touch on the car’s included pair of umbrellas. Each brolly is engraved with the line, “When it’s raining on a sunny afternoon in the summertime,” paraphrasing the 1966 single “Sunny Afternoon.”
Giles Martin, son of Sir George Martin, the man responsible for the Beatles’ studio wizardry, teamed up with Rolls to honor his late father, who passed away in 2016. Martin’s collaboration with the Beatles pushed recorded audio in directions never before attempted and set the stage for the huge recorded productions of the 1970s. The Martin Wraith features the titles of his 30 number-one singles embroidered in the waterfall, while his signature is stitched into the headrests. The proceeds from the sale of this car will benefit the Fly Navy Heritage Trust, which restores and flies classic Royal Navy aircraft.
Dame Shirley Bassey, whom you may remember from her three James Bond theme songs—one of which, “Goldfinger,” was recorded with Sir George Martin—celebrates her 37 studio albums and her grand total of 79 weeks in the British top-10 charts. The headrest embroidery recalls her 2007 album, Get The Party Started, while the diamond embroidered in the waterfall commemorates her performance of the theme from 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. The doorsills and the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament are finished in gold in a nod to one Auric Goldfinger, who famously traveled in a gold-bodied Phantom III.
Rolls has announced two more automobiles in the series: one, a collaboration with Status Quo frontman Francis Rossi, will feature Fender Telecasters embroidered in the headrests. We’ll be sorely disappointed if the car doesn’t also come with a full denim interior. Longtime Rolling Stones and former Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood has been given the chance to celebrate his solo career. His upcoming Wraith will serve as a tribute to his 2010 solo album, I Feel Like Playing.
Somehow, we find all this silliness appropriate. Martin was a studio nerd without equal. Daltrey has been a rocker of the masses far longer than he was a manic Mod. Wood has played with both Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger, both proponents of the rock-’n’-roll good life. These are successful, creative people who’ve spent a lifetime in the arts and reaped major financial rewards for it. At 67, Rossi is the youngest of those honored here, while Bassey, at 80, is the oldest. It’s opulence by senior citizens for senior citizens. We’ll not remind you that perhaps the best-known line Daltrey ever spat out was, “I hope I die before I get old.” After all, that was 52 years ago.
© 2017 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.,
Privacy Policy | Your California Privacy Rights | Interest-Based Ads | Terms of Use
© 2017 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.,
Privacy Policy | Your California Privacy Rights | Interest-Based Ads | Terms of UseThis year’s Easter Jeep Safari will be the last for the current-generation Jeep Wrangler, as an all-new model is set to make its debut at the end of the year. So the Wrangler-based Switchback and Safari concepts will serve as the swan songs for the decade-old SUV before it rides off to the big mud pit in the sky.
The purist’s choice among Jeep’s 2017 Easter Safari concepts, the Switchback includes a stepped “safari” top, painted white, that is reminiscent of the lid fitted to the original Land Rover Discovery. Complementing the roof are a set of unique half doors that feature holes in their sides, begging the question: Why have doors at all?
To maximize the Switchback’s off-road potential, Jeep also lifted the SUV by four inches, placed a Dana 44 axle at each end, and added a set of 17-inch wheels wrapped in 37-inch BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 tires. Additionally, Jeep tossed in a set of remote-reservoir Fox shocks, a winch, and a roof rack. All of the Switchback’s exterior lights are of the LED variety, while floorboards coated in spray-in bed liner protect the Switchback’s insides from the elements.
Unlike the Switchback, the Safari is a Wrangler Unlimited designed to appeal to modern techies. A dashboard-mounted iPad, a roof-mounted drone, rotating rear seats, and chic clear-vinyl doors are just a few of the strange concessions to modernity adopted by the Safari. Still, the concept is a Wrangler at heart, so it is fitted with a two-inch lift kit, 18-inch wheels with 35-inch BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 tires, Dana 44 axles with differential lockers, full-length skid plates, and an onboard air compressor. Overall length is trimmed, as well—a concession, Jeep said, to help the funky concept off-road.
Both concepts are powered by the Wrangler Unlimited’s stock 285-hp 3.6-liter V-6 engine, fitted with a cold-air intake, while a five-speed automatic transmission handles the shifting duties. Our adventure would probably include shifting for ourselves.
