ONMC members treated like 'all-stars' in Charlotte

CONCORD, N.C. -- Imagine 150 of your closest NASCAR buddies descending on Lowe's Motor Speedway and the surrounding area for a three-day binge on the sport you all love.

Imagine going to visit The King, Richard Petty, at the Victory Junction Gang Camp and at his new shop in Mooresville, N.C.; taking a trip to Welcome, N.C., to see Richard Childress; and driving for prizes at NASCAR SpeedPark, within hailing distance of Lowe's Motor Speedway.

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Imagine touring shops at Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and JR Motorsports; getting a look inside the NASCAR R&D Center, where few -- if any -- race fans are allowed to tread, with former NASCAR driver Brett Bodine and NASCAR technical director Steve Peterson as your guides.

Imagine having a question-and-answer session with NASCAR president Mike Helton and NASCAR legends like Ned Jarrett, David Pearson, Rex White and Bobby Allison.

This could be you. Those 150 race fans are members of the Official NASCAR Members Club and they were in town during the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Challenge weekend for the third ONMC national convention.

The ONMC is NASCAR's licensed fan organization, designed to bring NASCAR fans fully under the NASCAR umbrella by offering them value and opportunity behind the velvet ropes, inside the areas that fans most want to see, including the garage area and driver introductions.

Helton spoke to the conventioneers at Joe Gibbs Racing on Friday and praised the ONMC's commitment to the sport of NASCAR.

"This is what NASCAR has always been about, and that's the fans," Helton said.

The ONMC was formed in 2005, just in time for the Daytona 500, and the kickoff event featured every living NASCAR champion with the exception of two. Petty, NASCAR's all-time winningest driver, is the national membership chairman.

Since then, the ONMC has doubled in size each year, and the attendance at the national convention featured members from 37 states and Canada.

One of the biggest enclaves of the ONMC is California, and there was a sizable contingent on hand last week. Local chapters, the building block of the ONMC's grassroots structure, are formed in cities and towns around the country to bring NASCAR fans together in large groups, and California has a couple of mega-chapters to offer.

One is in central California, around Bakersfield, Clovis and Paso Robles, and it has around 400 members. The Southern California mega-chapter has about 500 based in and around Los Angeles.

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That's not to say there aren't strongholds around the country. Large concentrations of members enjoy NASCAR in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, all along the eastern seaboard and Texas. The ONMC's most popular local chapter -- and one of the most active -- is in Hawaii.

What are the benefits of membership? There are many, chief among them the opportunity to take part in guided tours of the garage area on race weekends, hobnob with the drivers and other celebrities at driver intros prior to the race, and have access to places that non-members can only hope to imagine.

There are also deals and discounts -- national, regional and local -- that can save members a ton of cash on a weekly basis. Programs with Office Depot, The UPS Store, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. are among the benefits, along with a prescription program through Sun Rx designed to save 15-70 percent on prescriptions at most major pharmacies.

The ONMC also has programs within the RV and tailgating communities, including Thousand Trails, Motorsports Advantage and others, which should appeal to non-members who live the NASCAR scene by camping at the track.

The genesis behind the ONMC was to bring as many of the estimated 75 million NASCAR fans under one roof to provide a place for those fans to exercise their passion for the sport itself, through opportunity and value.

For NASCAR sponsors, the ONMC is an opportunity to first identify and then activate to perhaps the most active fan base in all of sport. Not only do you have real, honest-to-God NASCAR fans in one place, they are the most passionate among them.

For more information on the Official NASCAR Members Club, click here. Information on what you'll receive as a member -- including a weekly e-newsletter and quarterly magazine -- is available there, as well as instructions on how to join.

Then imagine yourself doing all the things listed above.