Commercial shoots keep Cup stars on their game in busy offseason
Tony Stewart seemed oblivious to the woman spritzing hair spray on his ever-growing wavy black locks and twisting them to make sure every hair was in place.
So did Kevin Harvick as a woman dabbed powder under his eyes while he talked to the two-time Nextel Cup champion.
"The day we have to do it in the garage is probably the day I quit," Tony Stewart said with a laugh. "It feels kind of weird the first couple of times you do it. As you get used to it you don't even think about it and know it's part of the deal."
Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick were preparing for a commercial shoot promoting Coke Zero as a part of NASCAR's Coca-Cola team.
A few feet away, Dale Jarrett, Elliott Sadler, Greg Biffle, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Michael Waltrip never stopped their conversation as makeup artists worked to erase the shiny spots on their faces.
Next to them, Kyle Petty was having his forehead wiped.
"They can touch everything but the ponytail," Petty quipped.
The drivers seemed as comfortable here as they are going nearly 200 mph around Lowe's Motor Speedway just outside this Nationwide Series garage-turned-television studio.
And they are.
Today's Sprint Cup drivers are expected to be as good in front of the camera as they are behind the wheel. They are as much models and actors as they are drivers, particularly during the offseason as sponsors finalize marketing campaigns for the upcoming season.
They work with some of the top professionals in Hollywood, as was the case on this day with director Stephen Gaghan, who won an Academy Award for writing the original screenplay for "Traffic."
"I never dreamed about signing autographs, doing commercials, being a pitchman," Petty said. "I dreamed about being a race car driver. That was my dream when I was 9 years old, never this.
"But our sport has always been driven by the marketing dollar. If you look at all sports, whether it's NASCAR or the NBA or NFL, all these guys become actors in some way or media stars in some way."
Today's NASCAR drivers spend countless hours in front of the camera doing things for which they've never had formal training. Matthew Davis, one of the actors hired for this shoot, was more than impressed.
He said without question the drivers could step into his shoes easier than he could theirs.
"It was fun to see how on their game they were," said Davis, who in a way felt more out of place than the drivers as he stepped into a NASCAR garage for the first time only a few days after completing a Burt Bacharach musical.
Davis didn't know the names of most of his fellow actors. He referred to Waltrip as the tall one and Petty as the one with the ponytail.
But he appreciated the ease and humor with which they handled the spotlight.
"You have to grow into it," Sadler said. "I was the shyest kid in the world growing up. I wouldn't stand up in front of my class to do any kind of current event or speaking. I did not want to be around any kind of public speaking.
"Now I could speak in front of anybody."
Good thing. Top-tier drivers often do five to 10 commercial shoots a year and sometimes that many photo shoots. They might spend eight to 10 hours a day in front of the camera, making the offseason as much of a grind as the 36-race schedule.
"Here we are mid-December and we're still all working," Tony Stewart said with a sigh. "Today is my last day. There's guys that still have a full week next week. It's not an offseason. It's an off-track season, but there's no offseason for the drivers and teams."
Ask them whether it is more taxing to drive 600 miles around LMS as they do in the May race or spend a day shooting a commercial and to a man they'll pick the commercial.
"I'd rather do 1,200 miles," Jeff Burton said. "It's the waiting around that's hard. You're so used to everything being time structured. Two o'clock we do this. Three o'clock you do this.
"Here, you're supposed to be here at a certain time but you often don't know what you're going to do until you get here."
It was that way in particular on this day. Drivers were coaxed into believing they were shooting one commercial when they actually were shooting another, the director's hope of getting a more natural, ad-lib reaction.
"This wasn't something most of them had in mind when they were hoping to run the Daytona 500," said Susan Stribling, the director of communications for Coca-Cola North America.
Dale Jarrett, a three-time Daytona 500 champion who in 2003 did a commercial with Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Phil Mickelson, seconded that.
"No, I never dreamed I'd be doing this," he said. "I think all of us would say the same thing. All we wanted to do was drive a race car."
Action! Roll 'em ...
"Quiet please! Quiet please!" screamed a voice from the back of the set in a tone that was more demanding than polite.
"Scene No. 103, apple!" shouted another.
"Rolling!" another bellowed.
Davis, who looks like the white version of Manute Bol, walked onto the set. Tony Stewart turned to Jeff Burton and whispered, "Where'd they get that guy? That guy needs a cheeseburger."
Drivers often cut up behind the scenes, and this day was no different. As Davis moved into position with another actor dressed in a Coke Zero can, Waltrip interjected, "Is this where we're supposed to like him? Sorry. I lost my focus."
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