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Code Blue Light
By Steve Wingate, TCGOB Publisher
Originally Published on Mike Calinoff's "Stock Car City"
Anyone who has been conscious at some point during the past 24 hours knows what is happening with the Kmart Corporation. The 2nd largest retailer in the United States has filed for bankruptcy. It's been rumored that 500 Kmart stores across the country will turn off their blue lights for good, leaving thousands of people unemployed. In fact, the Kmart in my adopted hometown of Jasper, Alabama is rumored to be one of those slated for execution. It's a bad deal, and it doesn't seem that Kmart will ever return to prominence.
Yet strangely enough, I've been reading on Jayski's that Kmart officials have told Travis Carter, owner of the #26 and #66 Kmart-sponsored Ford Tauruses, to "conduct business" the same as they always have. Okay…. Seems to me that telling a NASCAR team owner with a bankrupt sponsor to conduct "business as usual" is a lot like telling someone with a collapsed lung to "just breathe normally". Both can be done…. It's just uncomfortable as hell.
The fact that Travis Carter has been told to carry on as always can mean one of two things: First, is that Carter has been given the classic corporate "smoke up the wahzoo" treatment. (Author's note: I'm not sure how to spell "wahzoo", but it sounded better than "patookus".) In other words, the corporate boys at Big K aren't going to say one way or another whether the Carter teams still have a sponsor for fear of being sued by somebody. So instead of just coming right out with the unpleasant truth, they'll hem-haw around until mere seconds before executioner's blade actually falls. I wish I could say that this is all pure speculation, but I've had to swim the shark-infested waters of corporate mumbo-jumbo myself, and I know how these corporate boys operate.
The second, and more distressing of the two possibilities, is that Kmart officials are actually serious about continuing their sponsorship of NASCAR and the Travis Carter team. I definitely don't want to see the 26 and 66 lose their sponsor, but continuing to funnel millions into a NASCAR sponsorship would be extremely unwise for the ailing retailer at this time. Kmart is looking to save $250 million by severing leases on some 350 store locations and save another $350 million by cutting jobs, so the preservation of the company's ties to NASCAR will come under close public scrutiny. And public scrutiny is something the PR conscious Kmart Corporation does not want. They don't want to have to answer questions from the liberal press about why Kmart pays $25 million plus to have their logos on race cars while they lay off thousands of workers.
So, either way, Kmart is more than likely out of the NASCAR business. However, I do have a solution for them… a solution that we free up enough money for NASCAR and possibly save their collective heinies as well. Kmart, I've got just two words for you:
Corporate salaries.
2002 Car Guy of Benchfield