Mattioli agrees with Hendrick that part of the reason for the down-home drought is the trend toward young drivers with Sprint Car experience. "When you've grown up flying a fighter jet, it's easier to make the transition to a Cessina," he says.
While some trace the trend toward open-wheelers to Gordon, Mattioli says it goes back even further. "The late Tim Richmond was the first to make a really dramatic jump from sprints to stock cars," he says. "I helped Tim get his first NASCAR ride, and from the start I was absolutely amazed at his talent. There's no telling how great he could have been if he had lived.
"Then along came Jeff Gordon, another Sprint Car graduate-and later Tony Stewart, who also quickly progressed from an open-wheel racer to a NASCAR champion. But it was Gordon who turned this sport upside-down. He won more races and more championships faster than any driver in history, and suddenly everybody was looking for the next Jeff Gordon."
Mattioli says it is significant to note that Gordon's allure doesn't stop with his racing talent: "He's a bright, good-looking young man, extremely poised and articulate. More and more, those are qualities that team owners demand in a driver. Don't misunderstand-driving ability is still primary, but nowadays racing talent alone is not enough. A kid has to have the rest of the package to go with it, and as Rick said, the talent pool has become so big that owners are better able to find that perfect combination they're seeking. They're not tied down to the South."
Does that mean that a shuffling, aw-shucks Good Ol' Boy can't cut it anymore in NASCAR's media-magnified, sponsor-intensified, corporate-driven world, no matter how tough he may be on his home-town track?
"Something like that," Mattioli says. "You've gotta have the polish. Talent alone is not enough; there are literally hundreds of talented young racers out there who unfortunately will never get a chance to prove what they can do at the upper levels of this sport. They simply lack the polish and poise to go with their driving talent."
Mattioli has a plan to help improve the big-league prospects of his local drivers. He intends to introduce more Sprint Car racing to his weekly program and also offer Dale Carnegie-type training as a grooming aid-sort of a finishing school for drivers.
"In terms of polish, it's the little things they need to learn," he says, "like remembering to sit up straight, look into the TV camera, and speak well when they're doing interviews. Used to be, that wasn't a big deal for a stock car driver, but it certainly is now. They need to know how to conduct themselves with the media and with the sponsors. 'Uh-huh' answers won't cut it. For some, it comes naturally; for others, it doesn't. How are they supposed to learn if someone doesn't teach them?"
Today, image is everything. NASCAR, in recent years, has undergone a calculated image makeover as it transformed from a regional to a national sport and gained more of a mainstream following. It has morphed from the backwoods to Broadway, shifting more races from the traditional rural tracks of the South and Southeast to glitzy new urban venues in Las Vegas, California, Chicago, and Kansas City. The new generation of drivers fits NASCAR's new urbanized mold. They are more at home on a golf course or wired to a video game than hunkered down in a bass boat or a deer stand.
NASCAR has clamped down on fightin' and cussin'-once an accepted part of the sport-and earlier this season officials nixed a "RedneckJunk.com" logo on Derrike Cope's car. They explained that redneck is not a term with which the sport wishes to be associated.
"The term redneck never bothered me," says Nashville's Mattioli. "If it means working hard, liking the outdoors, country music, and stock car racing, then I consider myself a redneck. But I suppose the term has certain connotations that NASCAR is uncomfortable with."
Big Tobacco, which underwrote NASCAR for three decades, is out, and wireless communications are in. Political correctness has seeped into the sport (no Confederate flags or similar insignia may be displayed by competitors). Diversity is the new buzz word.
Country music, once entwined with NASCAR racing, is being replaced by molar-rattling rock at most tracks.