USATODAY.com - NASCAR not just for the boys anymore

RICHMOND, Va. — In a scene repeated countless times during the 36-race Nextel Cup season, four die-hard NASCAR fans are waiting for their friend to wade through the sea of American-made cars, sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks to join their tailgate party.

The straggler arrives just as Sheree Temple spots a souvenir trailer in the distance with a small caption painted on the side. "What does the trailer say out there?" she asks. " 'Race Chick or Race Girl?' Race Girl! We are Race Girls!"

These "Race Girls" have been at the track since 6 a.m. With two gas grills on standby, their carefully planned tailgate is impressive.

"It's not hot dogs and hamburgers. We pull out the steaks and the scallops and the shrimp cocktail," says Annette Ardler, 38, from Ashland, Va. "This morning we had mimosas. We really do it up right when we come to the races."

These five are not an anomaly in the fast, high-octane world of NASCAR, where 42% of the fans are women, according to an ESPN Sports Poll compiled during the last 12 months from phone interviews with Americans 12 and older. That's up from 36% in 1995.

Nielsen Media Research figures from 2003 show NASCAR led the NFL and major league baseball in percentage of female viewers on broadcast networks. Women were 35% of the total audience for NASCAR, two percentage points more female viewers than for the NFL and MLB.

Tim Buckman, spokesman for Fox Sports, says the fastest growing segment of the television audience for the 2004 Nextel Cup Series on Fox is women 18-34. Their numbers are up 19% from this time last year. The next fastest growing segment: women 18-24, up 17%.

Women say they are drawn to NASCAR because of the charismatic drivers and family-friendly atmosphere. Like men, they are attracted to speed and the excitement that permeates race day.

"I think there is a great deal of appeal for the young crowd for the drivers we have today," says Darrell Waltrip, legendary NASCAR driver and Fox Sports analyst.

Handsome, well-spoken drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are attracting women who don't fit the mold of NASCAR's traditional fan.

Sisters Ashley, 18, and Katy Speegle, 23, from Williamsburg, Va., have been fans for a year, and this NASCAR race in mid-May in Richmond is the first they have attended.

Ashley wears a Kasey Kahne T-shirt, and Katy sports Kahne's No. 9 on her bag. Kahne is their favorite because "he's cute, he's young and he's a rookie."

They did not know what to expect at the race, but both say they are having a great time. "Everyone is so friendly here," Ashley says.

Roger VanDerSnick, NASCAR's managing director of brands and consumer marketing, credits the sport's wholesome atmosphere for attracting women to stock car racing. "It is a family-run sport. Families participate in the sport," VanDerSnick says.

"Our drivers are terrific role models that families and moms and children enjoy rooting for."

Chris Stiffler, 37, is just that type of fan. She drove 5½ hours from Johnstown, Pa., with her husband, son and daughter to attend the Richmond race.

"You are not afraid to bring your children," she says. "Everything is fan-friendly, so that's why we enjoy it so much."

Nextel Cup race day combines the elements of an auto-themed amusement park, a family barbecue and an autograph show. Fans can spend hours, sometimes days, before and after each race socializing and partaking in activities.

"What draws people to NASCAR is the experience of the sport, following the teams and the drivers, and that's the part people identify with and relate to," says Tim Calkins, clinical associate professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "People immerse themselves in the culture of NASCAR, and it comes to define a little bit of who they are."

Ann Hinsberg, 29, from Abingdon, Md., says the key difference between going to a NASCAR race and other athletic events is the energy. "It creates a huge rush just being down here. When they start their first lap and those cars go past you for the first time, it takes your breath away."

Hinsberg and her friend, Melissa Bard, 28, from Odenton, Md., waited in the garage area to get Ryan Newman's autograph before a race at Dover, Del., in early June. As he walked by and signed their tickets, both women were elated.

Like other female fans, they planned to spend time wandering through the rows of brightly colored trailers covered with sponsors' names and drivers' faces, buying souvenirs. Women can find a growing array of merchandise made specifically for them, including tank tops, shorts and T-shirts.

Don Wade, 71, from Grove City, Ohio, has been selling Race Girl products from his trailers at NASCAR races for the last seven years. He carries about 70 designs and says sales have increased year by year. "The more people see it, the more people buy it."

Stacy Walker, 41, from Elkins Park, Pa., bought a pink Race Girl cap to wear while she cycles. "This is my first race," she says. "I love it. It's very exciting."

Walker, an African-American, brought two of her sons to the race, inspired after Magic Johnson got involved in NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program a few weeks ago. "There is a lot of acceptance, and it is a good experience for African-American boys," she says.

In the beginning, Waltrip says, NASCAR was "a guy sport. It was all about gearheads, technical things and cars. And the sponsors reflected that," being mostly auto-related. But that began to change in 1976 when Gatorade entered the sport as Waltrip's team sponsor, showcasing a sports-related consumer product. In 1987 Tide joined NASCAR as a sponsor for Waltrip's car.

"I think that opened up a whole new group of fans for us, the female fan," Waltrip says. "They could sit at the breakfast table, and their husband could talk about the NAPA (Auto Parts) car and the wife could talk about the Tide car."

Richard Petty, owner of the No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge, was instrumental in creating a loyalty in NASCAR fans that extended to the marketplace. Petty convinced fans he needed them to support his sponsor to get the money necessary to have a winning race car. Others followed suit.

When the Cheerios/Betty Crocker sponsorship began in the 1997-98 season, the initial goal was to boost business in the Southeastern USA.

"But what we quickly discovered was that NASCAR is a powerful and relevant marketing platform, not only in the Southeast, but across the country," says Laurie Greeno, vice president of event merchandising at General Mills.

Beth Ann Morgenthau, owner of BAM Racing, sees the connection. Her team sponsor is Schwan's Home Delivery, a service that delivers frozen food to individual homes. "People are going to buy more Schwan's because Kenny Schrader is in the car," she says.

Female fans support this. One says she bought a Kodak camera because the company sponsors her favorite driver, Brendan Gaughan. Another bought a cereal solely because it contained a bobble-head of driver Matt Kenseth. Most say they show their loyalty at the marketplace, whether they buy a pack of M&M's or a Dodge.

In a state with deep NASCAR roots, Elon (N.C.) University offers a winter course called The Business of NASCAR.

In the last few years, course instructor Doug Glass says, more women have been drawn to NASCAR because "it's a lot less, if you really want to put it this way, less sexist than it used to be. As a result, the outreach and the generic marketing perspective that a lot of these groups are going with now truly promotes having more women come into the sport."

Driver and car owner Kyle Petty says the longevity of the drivers is an important component of the sport, allowing fans to grow older with their favorites.

"If there is a little boy or little girl out there that became a Kyle Petty or Terry Labonte fan when they were 6, hey, they are 31 years old now. Chances are they have children of their own that they've brought back to the racetrack," Petty says.

DeLana Harvick, 30, wife of driver Kevin Harvick, spent much of her childhood at the track outside Winston-Salem, N.C., while her father, John Linville, raced in the Busch Series. She has worked in public relations for NASCAR teams and understands the important relationship between the drivers and their fans.

"Their fans support them and buy their merchandise and cheer for them week in and week out whether they have a good weekend or a bad weekend," she says. "They know their livelihood is basically dependent upon everybody in those grandstands."

"You know what else has made me follow (NASCAR) more?" asks Misha Kelly, 32, from Annapolis, Md. "That reality show, NASCAR Drivers: 360. I love it!"

NASCAR Drivers: 360 (FX, 10 p.m. ET Friday) is finding an audience with female fans. The show premiered May 14 and was replayed three times that weekend, receiving a strong 3.8 cumulative rating, pulling in 4.8 million viewers. The ratings have remained steady since the show's launch.

Eight episodes focus on a rotating cast of drivers and their families on and off the track. Women at the Nextel Cup race in Dover say they were tuning in because it showed the human side of the drivers.

Shana Mayfield, 27, and her husband, Jeremy, driver of the No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge, are featured with their three dogs. She says fans can relate to them because "we love our dogs, we sleep late and we don't eat right."

"Jeremy's fan base will grow tremendously once they see that he's not only a great race car driver but also a great family man," she says.

This is one of many efforts to drive NASCAR into popular culture and expose it to a new audience. Says NASCAR's VanDerSnick: "You'll see us reaching into the entertainment realm strongly. NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience is setting box office records everywhere for IMAX. NASCAR Drivers: 360 is not the last entertainment program you'll see on television."

But Northwestern's Calkins sees a risk of changing too much, too soon, alienating core fans. "With any brand, you can only grow it so far until you begin to break what it is about. But so far NASCAR has been really successful at it."

Agnes Atwater, 55, from Warrenton, Va., would agree. Five hours into an 18-hour-day at Richmond, she says, "This is my favorite thing in the whole world. To me, this is what I look forward to. This is what I work for."