Goody's a constant around NASCAR for three decades

Not many things have stayed the same in NASCAR over the last 30 years.

Several of the same tracks still host races, but even they have undergone massive facelifts. Countless drivers have come and gone, and sponsors, too. Lugnuts. They're unchanged. That's about all that remains the same.

Except for Goody's Headache Powders ... they're still here, and in a big way. No other non-automotive-related company has been in the sport longer. The company's logo is as familiar around race tracks as ... well ... lugnuts. Much of Goody's success in the sport is due to its approach to activating its sponsorship.

"The brand is not a high-falutin', fancy brand. It's a down-to-Earth, blue-collar, grassroots kind of brand," said Darren Singer, vice president of marketing for the company. "We're more personal. There's a family history that race fans have with Goody's. It's very deep.

"If the race fan stays at the heart [of a marketing program], you can quickly start to make it less complex. We constantly have to remind ourselves, 'Remember who you are. Stay as close to the ground and as close to the fan as possible.' At the end of the day, we've simplified it because we remember who we're trying to serve, and that's the fan."

Doug Agee, who oversaw the Goody's sponsorship for years, is now retired and living in Winston-Salem, N.C. He says the company was simply "in the right place at the right time."

"We were a blue-collar product and we went to the blue-collar places to sample [give away product] and concentrate our sales effort," Agee said. "Places like Hickory, N.C. We would sample those furniture factories, and those people would go to Hickory [Motor] Speedway. It was like breeding elephants ... it took a long time to get going.

"Sometimes, you'd think, 'Are we spinning our wheels?' But all of a sudden, you'd go in the market and see that the product was moving. It was selling well. You could pinpoint it. ... It all turned out to be pretty successful for us."

Richard Petty has been a spokesman for Goody's since 1977, and in January of this year, signed a lifetime contract to promote the brand. It's a relationship that has worked incredibly well, with the two becoming almost synonymous with each other.

It all started with Petty sampling a packet of Goody's.

"As it happened, Richard Petty was having a news conference," Agee said. "The guy I was with was pretty brassy, and he walked over right in the middle of the news conference and said, 'Mr. Petty, would you like to have a Goody's?' Richard picked up a handful and said, 'Thank you ... just a minute. I'm gonna take one of these.' (Continued)