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.'

"He took one, right there in the press box, right in the middle of a press conference ... which didn't hurt us at all. Back in a staff meeting, I told about the experience we had. We started after Richard, and I guess the story tells itself after that. For 30 years, he's been selling Goody's. He's probably sold a lot more than I ever have."

All these years later, Petty is still a Goody's spokesman ... and user.

"Yesterday, we were at Talladega and I had to take two during the race," Petty said. "You're hot, you're sweating, you're run down and then you're teed off about the way the race is going. So I took two yesterday."

The relationship with the Petty family extends beyond just Richard. Several years ago, when the Victory Junction Gang Camp was nothing more than a set of plans on paper, Kyle and Pattie Petty approached the company. They had lost their son, Adam, to a May 2000 racing accident, but somehow, some way, wanted to make something good come of the unimaginable loss.

"Goody's was the first major sponsor that stepped in and helped us with the Victory Junction Gang," said Richard Petty. "They saw a need for the kids to have it, and an opportunity for them to do something the general public accepted. Being that they were already involved with us all those years anyway, it was just sort of a natural deal. It wasn't a hard sell."

Goody's responded with a $1 million donation, that went to the construction of the facility's hospital.

"We were the first corporate sponsor that Kyle and Pattie came to," Singer said. "There wasn't a shovel put in the ground yet, but Kyle said, 'We need a partner, somebody who is an extension of the Petty family who understands the loss of Adam is something that affected so many people.' To try and transform that tragedy into something positive, they came to family members.

"It was so emotional for me to hear Kyle say, 'You're part of our family and we need you.' I'll never forget it ... on the spot, I said, 'You have our commitment.' And we donated $1 million to the Victory Junction Gang Camp. That was one of those moments that said the relationship we have with the Pettys and the sport was something remarkable."

Having been in the sport for so long, Goody's officials became a part of the fabric in the garage area in both the Cup and Busch Series levels. Busch Series legend Tommy Houston once asked Agee for some Goody's T-shirts, so his crew could have clean clothes.

"We knew the drivers," Agee said. "We knew their wives. We knew them before they got married. We watched them have children. I don't think we made an effort to. It was just a natural thing for us to do. We just made it a big family affair. We had much respect for all of them. We didn't pick out any favorites. We worked with all of them and we tried to be friendly with all of them. Every race, we always kept lots of Goody's on the haulers."

The brand's involvement in the sport has also centered its race sponsorships, having backed races at Daytona, Bristol, Rockingham and Martinsville. The company had its title sponsorship on the Goody's 500 at Martinsville from 1983-2000, before returning this year with a new product title deal in the Goody's Cool Orange 500. To promote the three-year agreement, the speedway's walls were painted orange.

"I don't know if you ever went in their manufacturing facility, but they did a lot with very little," said Clay Campbell, president of Martinsville Speedway. "It was a streamlined, got-the-job-done type of business. We were the same way, very small in staff, and I think we got the job done. The two of us getting together was a natural.

"If you can have a business relationship with a company and you're able to also say you're great friends, that's just icing on the cake. We had that type of relationship. They were great friends with us. Obviously, they weren't [sponsoring Martinsville races] because they liked us, they were doing it because it got the Goody's name out there."

Even the race sponsorship isn't the full extent of the company's involvement in the sport. Goody's Cool Orange flew its colors on Tony Stewart's Busch Series entry in Atlanta this spring, and will do so again at Texas in the fall. The company has for years sponsored the Goody's Headache Award, and once backed the Goody's Dash Series for subcompact cars.

For all the changes the sport has undergone, Goody's remains the same. They're not going anywhere anytime soon, according to Singer.

"Even though the sport has changed, there are some things that never should change," Singer said. "Iconic people like Richard Petty and what he's meant to the sport over the years will never change, and the [Goody's] connection to Richard won't change. I think fans are really desperate to hang on to the essence of the sport that they came to love.

"You think about Richard Petty. You think about Goody's. You think about race tracks like Martinsville. Goody's has found a way, unlike any other brand, to keep the essence of what the true race fan wanted. Even though NASCAR has to grow and has to change, Goody's is proud to remain one of the sport's constants. I think the fans recognize that, and they appreciate that."