Coastal students up for top honors in NASCAR Kinetics program

By: Lou Bezjak | SCNOW
Published: November 15, 2009

The Sprint Cup championship won’t be the only thing crowned this week in Homestead, Fla.

Three colleges, including Coastal Carolina, will be vying for the title as part of the NASCAR Kinetics program.

The program, which deals with marketing and strategy of the sport, is in its first year and is offered at six colleges and universities.

Three schools, Coastal, Howard University and Notre Dame were picked as finalists in the semester-long course. Each school will present their case study Wednesday to a panel made up of NASCAR executives.

The winning team will stay in Miami and receive an all-expenses-paid trip for race weekend. They will also will get a letter of recommendation that can be used in their portfolio and help on their resume.

“We are excited and this is a huge opportunity for us,” said Coastal student Charlie Decker. “It has been a lot of hard work but I think we got a good shot.”

Decker and his team’s case study will be on how NASCAR can attract younger fans between the ages of 6 through 24, a demographic the sport is lacking these days.

Decker said some of the reasons why they are failing to attract the younger fans are lack of a centralized mascot and the sport lacking a presence in the the reality TV market.

The Coastal group gathered information from students on campus and various other sources. The group also held a panel discussion with NASCAR officials.

The group worked approximately 40 hours a week on the project since August in addition to the other classes they were taking.

“It was definitely a big workload,” Decker.

All the students in the program report directly to Talia Mark, the head of the NASCAR Kinetics program.

Mark said the information gathered in the schools’ case studies might be used by NASCAR in future marketing strategies. She also added that NASCAR hopes to expand to more colleges in the future.

“The college market is important to us,” Mark said. “And the bonus is they are learning from us as much as we are learning from them.”