Teams say one of the benefits of going to Mexico is sponsor exposure. Credit: Donald Miralle/Getty Images

Mexico trip expensive for teams, but worth money

FONTANA, Calif. -- Roush Racing president Geoff Smith paused when asked if he was enthusiastic about a return trip to Mexico City for Sunday's Busch Series race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course.

Jorge Goeters won the pole for last year's race. Credit: Autostock

MEXICO CITY Mexican drivers Carlos Contreras, Adrian Fernandez and Jorge Goeters recently answered some questions about this week's race in Mexico City.  •   Complete story,  click here •   Track Page •   Entry List •   Complete Coverage FedEx PreviewNBC/TNT's Marty Snider previews all the action heading to Mexico Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836 LISTEN IN SPANISH •   FOX to broadcast in Spanish

"Enthusiasm isn't exactly the phrase that I would use,'' he said. "Let me put it this way, there isn't much operational enthusiasm, but there is marketing enthusiasm within our company.''

From an operational side, Smith estimates sending a Busch team to Mexico City costs 20 to 25 percent more -- about $50,000 -- than sending a team to a track in the United States. That includes building a special road-course car.

From a marketing side, Smith sees the same long-range advantages that NASCAR does for breaking into the North American Hispanic community that is basically untapped by stock car racing.

"Over time, we're going to have to get a breakthrough in that population here,'' he said.

The U.S. Department of the Census reported in 2000 that 35.6 million people were of Hispanic heritage. That represents 12.6 percent of the U.S. population.

Census projections estimate that number will rise to 24.4 percent by 2050.

Those figures and the fact that many of NASCAR's biggest sponsors -- Budweiser, Lowe's, FedEx and UPS -- have a big presence in Mexico make it a market the sanctioning body can't ignore.

That 50,000 people showed for last year's qualifying and more than 100,000 for the race reinforced the argument to be there.

"The guys on the ground floor of the operation, there's probably not as much enthusiasm because of the costs and logistics,'' Smith said. "But at the end of the day, it was just another airplane ride. Incrementally, it wasn't a devastating kind of thing.''

To offset some of the additional costs, such as extra security, insurance and longer trips for transporters, NASCAR set up a Busch Series record $2.4 million purse with more than $40,000 guaranteed for making the field.

"Some things are tradeoffs,'' NASCAR chairman Brian France said of sacrificing cost for exposure, "and that's one of them,''

Rick Hendrick, whose Hendrick Motorsports company will send two teams to Mexico, agreed.

Adrian Fernandez drove Rick Hendrick's No. 5 in last year's race. Credit: Autostock

"We don't make money, but for our sponsors it's important,'' said Hendrick, who has Lowe's as one of his primary sponsors in Busch and Nextel Cup. "It's one of those deals where there are races that are expensive for us, but it's a big race for our sponsors and that's where they want to be.

"It's one of those deals where it's helping us enter a new market.''

Smith calls it an investment in the future. He said many companies are looking for ways to invest their diversity program budgets, and this could give them a tool to do so.

"That sounds simplistic, but the fact is there's a lot of companies with diversity budgets,'' he said. "When you're trying to sell things and work programs, you listen to objectives and start to figure out how to address them.''

Richard Childress, whose driver Kevin Harvick finished second to Martin Truex Jr. in last year's inaugural race on foreign soil, said most of the companies his sponsors represent have a presence in Mexico.

"After we finished second, we still didn't make any money,'' he said. "But the way you have to look at it with sponsors and things, it should average out.''

Seven-time Cup champion Richard Petty, who doesn't field a Busch team, would prefer the money spent on sending teams to Mexico were spent at home.

"It looks to me like it's an awfully expensive deal,'' he said. "Now they're talking about going to Canada. I know they're looking to expand, but we've got so much room here to expand.

"There's 300 million people in the United States, and we have 8 to 10 million that come to the tracks here? Until we get all 300 million at the track at the same time, we're not doing our job here.''

Petty also admitted if one of his sponsors, such as General Mills, asked him to go to Mexico he would for the same reason NASCAR goes to California now instead of Rockingham.

"They get so much more out of their investment in California than they do in Rockingham, so we have to go along with that even though it costs us a lot of money,'' he said.

Car owner Felix Sabates, who has put a lot of effort into this event, said too much is made of the cost of going to Mexico.

He said it costs some teams less to go to Mexico than to California because the hotels are cheaper, teams don't have to stay a five-night minimum and most of the food is paid for by NASCAR or the track.

He said the exposure NASCAR and sponsors get out of the trip by far eclipses the cost of going.

"I don't even think NASCAR expected it to be so big,'' Sabates said. "What NASCAR got out of it was by far bigger than what it cost.''