Kim Crosby has made two Busch Series starts in 2005. Credit: Getty Images/Chris Stanford

Butt paste produces sponsor dollars, laughs

Louisiana company pours cash into Busch Series effort

NASCAR racing these days sure creates some strange bedfellows.

For instance, there's a sponsor in the NASCAR Busch Series which just naturally sets tongues to wagging every time it's mentioned.

The product, which is quite effective at doing what its makers say it does, is legitimate and corporate officials are pursuing their own marketing agenda just as Coca-Cola, DuPont and the rest of the Fortune 500 companies do.

Kim Crosby Credit: Autostock

The product is -- get this --Boudreaux's Butt Paste.

OK, OK, quit laughing. It's for real, as millions of babies and their parents will tell you. Some background, if you'll pardon the pun, is in order.

Originally developed in the 1970s by Louisiana pediatrician "Pappy" Talbot, the formula was compounded by a local pharmacist, Dr. George Boudreaux, in the town of Covington.

The combination of ingredients -- 16 percent zinc oxide, a proprietary blend of Peruvian balsam, boric acid, castor oil and mineral oil in a wax and petroleum base -- led local doctors to send patients with cases of particularly bad diaper rash to Boudreaux's store.

One doctor recalled sending patients over by saying, "Go see George, he's got a really good butt paste."

Credit: Autostock

Thus, a product was born, complete with ready-made name: Boudreaux's Butt Paste.

In 1994, Boudreaux sold his pharmacy to concentrate on marketing his product, which by then had taken off in a big way.

The product had expanded from treating baby bottoms to a variety of other ailments, including heat rash, acne, bed sores, abrasions, chicken pox, shingles, razor burn, feminine irritation, poison ivy, fever blisters and even chapped lips.

It is also used to treat the much-abused udders of dairy cattle, much as other products like Bag Balm are.

	Kim Crosby Once worked as an instructor at Buck Baker Racing School Former junior high principal in Slidell, La. Made five Busch starts in 2004, with a best finish of 20th (Talladega)

What does this have to do with NASCAR racing? Well, Boudreaux does not advertise his product.

Upon selling the pharmacy, he bought an RV, renamed it the "Butt Mobile" and hit the road to regional trade shows and local pharmacies, pushing his sore-bum solution.

He relied mainly on word of mouth to increase his market share.

At one of these shows, a regional manager at Wal-Mart took on the product for a trial. When the trial period was over, the manager found Doc Boudreaux's product outsold the leading brand by nearly 2-to-1.

Since then, Boudreaux has gotten his product on shelves at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, Target Stores and Walgreen's, and there's an enthusiastic Internet presence for the product.

He still does not advertise, preferring instead to keep up his promotional blitz using sports.

This is where NASCAR comes in.

Some athletes, including the Miami Heat's Shaquille O'Neal, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, former New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears head football coach Mike Ditka and iron-man cyclist Lance Armstrong, have all reportedly used the product with much enthusiasm.

Shawna Robinson Driver Page 2005 Stats

Butt paste is also used to treat male itch (otherwise known as jock itch) in athletes, and several major-league baseball teams keep the handy one-gallon jugs around the clubhouse.

OK, now as we all know by now, there is no better marketing tool in the world of sports right now than NASCAR.

Doc Boudreaux, no man's fool, saw the potential of getting involved with it and began to sponsor a NASCAR Busch Series car driven by former Louisiana school principal Kim Crosby.

Shawna Robinson Credit: Autostock

Marketing being what it is, NASCAR is the perfect vehicle for an entrepreneur like Boudreaux. You might even say it's the end-all, be-all...but that would be gratuitous.

Demographics don't lie. Families attend NASCAR races, and some of those families have little ones whose tushies suffer from diaper rash.

Word of mouth -- and an abundance of sample packets at each race -- help spread the word around the NASCAR community.

There has been no word on how sales have been affected by the NASCAR sponsorship, but we'll find out in the near future.

Another product that has made its way into the NASCAR Busch Series is Vassarette, the lingerie company. Vassarette sponsors Shawna Robinson's effort this season.

The lingerie/ladies' foundations component of the economy has been represented before, by Playtex, but this is the first primary sponsorship of a car by such a company.