THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610060177
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: 80 lines
It was the Friday afternoon of the Winston Cup weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and up in Mooresville, Lakeside Industrial Park was teeming with tourists.
The park might as well be called the NASCAR Winston Cup Industrial Park, because it is almost exclusively a place for stock-car shops and racing-related products.
The traffic was bumper-to-bumper in places. Even tour buses were rolling in as NASCAR fans wandered from one Winston Cup shop to another, gathering postcards like Halloween candy.
It was one of those telltale signs of the booming growth of NASCAR.
Most of the shops limited the tourists to their lobbies, which usually contain a show car and souvenirs for sale. But at Kranefuss-Haas Racing, fans could wander through not only the lobby, but also through the assembly room - part of the shop's inner sanctum.
In modern Winston Cup racing, accessibility is often a reflection of how a team is doing in the championship points hunt. And this was a telltale sign of how Kranefuss-Haas Racing is doing.
The team is 32nd in owner points. It has had such an abysmal season, co-owner Michael Kranefuss agreed to switch drivers with Cale Yarborough after the Darlington race. John Andretti went to Yarborough; Jeremy Mayfield joined Kranefuss.
It would overstate the matter to say Kranefuss opened his shop simply because his team was doing poorly. He sometimes goes into the grandstands to talk with fans and gauge the pulse of the sport.
``You learn a lot just by talking to people who come to the track,'' he said during lunch at his shop. ``But it's funny. A lot of people have stopped by, and never once did one say, `Get rid of that kid.' But the minute I did, half of the folks told me, `You should have done that a long time ago.' ''
Kranefuss is the former head of Ford's worldwide motorsports program. He had high expectations when he entered Winston Cup at the beginning of the 1995 season. But his vast experience meant little when he moved from Michigan to North Carolina.
His first year wasn't too bad. Andretti finished 18th in points, finished fourth at Michigan and won the pole for the Southern 500.
But this year has been abysmal. His car failed to make the Bristol race in the spring and failed to finish 10 races, seven because of crashes.
Did he ever reconsider his decision to leave the high-powered corporate world to go racing?
``About 20 times,'' he said. ``The whole thing came pretty close to collapsing. Monday mornings are the worst. It's when all the reality sets in.''
``Sunday evenings, too,'' said Kranefuss' wife, Emmy.
Michael Kranefuss, a native of Germany who speaks with a German accent, acknowledges that the cultural gap was larger than he expected when he came south. There were also huge communication problems between him, ex-crew chief Tim Brewer and Andretti.
``A lot of it is completely underestimating how important it is to have team spirit, camaraderie and chemistry,'' he said. ``But we didn't come here just to have a good time. We're a good-funded team and we've failed to turn this into success. With Jeremy, I think we'll be there.''
But that's not all that's been on Kranefuss' mind. He knows that hundreds of tourists visiting the park on a Friday is an example of how the sport is booming, and he wonders if NASCAR can properly control that growth.
``One thing that is not adequately dealt with is television,'' he said.
Each track currently negotiates its own television deals and contributes one-quarter of the income to the race purse. Kranefuss believes NASCAR could do much better negotiating a television rights package. But there's not a lot of opportunity to make that point, he said.
``There's very little communication going on between us (car owners) and NASCAR,'' he said. ``It's not even a situation of `let's sit down and discuss this; here's the plan.' There's a couple of guys they talk to - Richard Childress and Robert Yates. But not many beyond that.
``I think the series should at least be in a position to support 50 to 60 percent of the race expenses,'' he said. It currently costs his team $130,000 to $150,000 to run each race, and even a top 10 finish nets only $20,000 to $30,000.
``The two most successful racing series in the world are Formula One and NASCAR,'' Kranefuss said. ``Both are dictatorships - Bernie Ecclestone in Formula One and Bill France in NASCAR. You cannot argue with that concept.
``But there's very little communication going on, and that is something I do not appreciate,'' he said. ``I have nothing but respect for (NASCAR president Bill) France, but there's so much at stake.'' by CNB