Robby Gordon: trying to recharge his NASCAR career (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
By Mike Mulhern
mikemulhern.net
He may have gotten a little carried away with a highway publicity stunt Thursday in Charlotte, N.C. -- http://www.planetrobby.com/ -- but then Gordon has built a lot of street-legal-though-seemingly-not machines that have caught the eye of cops.
Gordon's racing career has been somewhat rocky lately; as an independent owner-driver he is a decided underdog against NASCAR's mega-team owners, both in technology and sponsorship dollars.
And Gordon said he won't be running the full 36-race tour next season. "We will be running the fun events....in the big markets," he said. "You can count on me for the first five for 2011 (Daytona, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Bristol and Los Angeles).
"But I'll be honest with you – the 36-race schedule doesn't work for Robby Gordon. It's over."
Exactly what that may mean, though, isn't clear....except that the dollars-and-cents of this sport may not make a lot of sense.
And Gordon adds he still hasn't lined up a manufacturer for 2011 either. He's currently with Toyota.
But Gordon insists he likes that role...and he insists he can still win on the Sprint Cup tour, even though his last victory was way back in 2003, at Watkins Glen, while driving for Richard Childress.
"We almost won at Sonoma this summer, remember," Gordon was saying, while announcing his new sponsor, and flanked by a pair of buxom blondes waving cans of the high-voltage cans, which he said glow in the dark....for those 'clubbing.'
"We're going to win races again. I'm very frustrated about the performance of our program lately.
"We were good at Martinsville; our short track program is pretty good. Our 'speedway' program is pretty good; we led the race here in the spring.
"Now some of you might laugh, but we've come to try to win this race. And I know we can, because we led it last time.
"Our history as 'speedway' races is we always finish in the top-10.
"Hopefully we brought enough speed for this weekend."
And, yes, that was with a wink and a double-entendre.
What will it take for Gordon to win again?
"Money," Gordon said bluntly.
"It's pretty simple math."
How much money? Ten million dollars a year? Twenty million dollars a year?
"No – hundreds of millions. A year.
"Easy.
"Let me give you some simple math: If I can get 10 percent of the NASCAR fans, and that would be 7.5 million fans, to drink three of these a week, for 52 weeks a year...do the numbers."
That's $2.34 billion. Billion.
A little over the top?
Well, Monster's parent company had 2009 revenues of some $1.2 billion.
And Dietrich Mateschitz, who owns Red Bull, is worth an estimated $4 billion.
Maybe there is some gold in them there cans.
Robby Gordon loves the color orange....but will his new sponsorship venture payoff in green? (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
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Hey Mike, Great article.
Hey Mike,
Great article. Interesting to me that Scott Speed might be out of a ride next year at Red Bull. I think he'd be a perfect fit at RGM driving the Speed Energy car LOL.
And just a little something no one in the press seems to be picking up on during this whole RPM thing, how many big $$ teams have faded away or been eaten up during the time that RGM with its sponsor & $ issues have stuck around? There is a reason RGM is still here and they aren't and it's because of RG doing things like this.
People that say RGM would be better if Robby kept his head in Cup aren't seeing the big picture. If RG kept his head in Cup 100% of the time, RGM wouldn't have outlasted the teams he's outlasted.
~ Carrie
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