ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605140004
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRUCE STANTON STAFF WRITER
NASCAR folks have been saying for years that Winston Cup racing isn't just for good ol' boys anymore. Judging from recent Internet data, they're right.
* On April 28, the day of the Winston Select 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, more than 1.9 million clicks were recorded on NASCAR's World Wide Web home page on the Internet. Two days earlier, 927,000 clicks were registered during qualifying.
* On March 31, the day of the Food City 500 at Bristol International Raceway, NASCAR had its first 1 million-click day, less than two months after going on-line.
* On April 21, the day of the Goody's 500 at Martinsville Speedway, there were more than 940,000 clicks by mouse-happy race fans.
As fast as Dale Earnhardt blisters a straightaway at Talladega, NASCAR is becoming a big hit with computer owners.
In computer terms, a ``hit'' occurs when a user clicks on a home page on the Internet.
So, unless Bubba and cousin Billy Bob have rigged their PCs to fool the Internet in NASCAR's favor, there are thousands of computer users who are showing enormous interest in auto racing.
One of NASCAR's on-line junkies is Debbie Finney of Roanoke, a regular participant on America Online's NASCAR chat session Tuesday nights. She trades messages with racing fans with screen names such as ``Gearhead Girl'' and ``Racing Moose from Ohio.''
Finney said she spends several hours a week looking at racing home pages.
``Way too many hours,'' she said. ``I spend way too long on there.''
But for fans such as Finney, the quick access to NASCAR's information is hard to turn down.
NASCAR went on-line about three months ago to provide its fans with accurate and timely information, NASCAR Online manager David Hyatt said. Besides weekend coverage of races, fans can check out pages for every Winston Cup driver, owner, crew chief and track.
There also is full coverage of NASCAR's big three series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National and Craftsman Truck. The information provided includes starting lineups, race results, points standings and stories and notes about each race.
Eventually, Hyatt said, coverage will expand to all 12 NASCAR touring series, making it possible for people with regional interests to keep up with their favorite drivers.
And fans who prefer a mouse to a remote can keep up with races on a lap-by-lap basis on race day or follow qualifying on a driver-by-driver basis.
``Race fans have a voracious appetite for the sport,'' Hyatt said. ``Those who have a computer in their homes are finding they can get some information and maybe get it faster.
``They're saying, `Forget that the paper is coming in the morning. I want to know it now.' That's human nature.''
And the fan base is expansive. Hyatt said he has received E-mail from Malaysia, Sweden and England.
Fans also are finding the home page belonging to Martinsville Speedway, public relations director Steve Sheppard said. Martinsville is averaging about 2,000 hits a month, and that's without any advertising of its home-page address.
On the speedway's page, users can get information about upcoming races, the history of Martinsville Speedway and information about hotels, restaurants and things to do in the Henry County area.
``I think the tracks are searching for new fans, and we're trying to bring in as many fans as possible, and this is a way to do it,'' Sheppard said. ``There are a lot of race fans who are on the Internet. That's evidenced by NASCAR Online and the response they're getting.''
In the weeks leading to the Goody's 500, fans could click on Martinsville's home page and see the view from the new Bill France Tower, which opened this spring.
``People called leading up to the race saying they saw the page,'' Sheppard said. ``They said that looks like a great view, and they came to the race.''
In the crowd at the Goody's 500 were Finney, her husband, Richard, and six friends from their Tuesday night NASCAR chat group. The race served as the venue for their first face-to-face meeting. The group, which represented fans from Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Florida, had planned the meeting in November through its on-line relationship.
``We were just normal people,'' Finney said. ``No one was a murderer or anything. When you hide behind a computer, you never know what a person is going to be like.''
Finney said they had a good time, and they had a common bond.
``Some of us are Earnhardt fans, some Terry Labonte, some of us anybody but Earnhardt and all of us were anybody but [Jeff] Gordon,'' she said. ``When [race winner Rusty Wallace] passed Gordon, all eight of us were rooting for Rusty.''
It was just another day at the race track to some, but to a few members of the computer generation, it was more evidence that NASCAR is a mainstream sport.
Racing ``is growing every day,'' Finney said. ``And with the corporate sponsors and corporate people, it's not just a Bubba sport anymore.''
Said Hyatt: ``It really shows how far the people who support the sport have come along.''
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. Steve Sheppard (left) ofby CNBMartinsville Speedway and David Hyatt of NASCAR keep fans updated by
putting information on home pages for their organizations. color. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING