Time to embrace, not fear, foreign interest in NASCAR (cont'd)

Granted, not all of those carmakers would be interested in getting into NASCAR, not all of them make vehicles that would fit in with a stock-car series, and not all of them would meet the criteria that NASCAR sets forth for foreign involvement. But clearly the possibilities are there. And with the Big Three struggling, it's easy to see why a foreign carmaker might look to NASCAR to carve a larger piece of the U.S. market. "We are the pre-eminent place in North America for car manufacturers to build their business with an auto racing group," France said. "... And clearly, there are some companies that are going to look at opportunities that may not have been there in the past that may be there in the future."

Foreign interest

Brian France is open to new manufacturers joining NASCAR and there have been talks.

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Of course, the biggest obstacle may not be disinterest on the part of foreign carmakers, or the criteria NASCAR sets forth. It may be the histrionics on the part of traditional fans, the people whom "back to basics" was concocted to appease, folks who would view the courting of more foreign involvement as tantamount to opening the Mexican border. Of course, they're conveniently blind to the current, almost untenable situation with the domestic manufacturers, who are pulling back more and more. And many of them are unaware that NASCAR is already knee-deep in foreign involvement, even if most of the cars on the race track are made in the USA.

Worried about the internationalization of NASCAR? You're too late. It's happening now, all around you. The official tire of Infineon Raceway, host to Sunday's Sprint Cup event? Yokohama, headquartered in Tokyo. A technical partner of Richard Childress Racing? Okuma, a maker of computer numeric control devices, based in Nagoya, Japan. A technical partner of Stewart-Haas Racing? Sandvik Coromant, a machine tool company based in Sweden. The parent company of Crown Royal, Jamie McMurray's car sponsor at Roush Fenway Racing? Diageo, a beverage company headquartered in London. Sponsor partners at Hendrick Motorsports? Siemens, an engineering conglomerate, and Bosch, an automobile component supplier, both based in Germany.

NASCAR has conducted premier-level exhibition races in Japan, held Nationwide events in Canada and Mexico, and has a managing director for international affairs. Races have been broadcast in Spanish. During the past decade, drivers from Canada, Mexico, Japan, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Brazil and Colombia have competed in the sport's premier series. NASCAR is only falling in line with other major American professional sports, which have made a practice of holding exhibition or regular-season events overseas, whose team rosters are stocked with international players, and who realize that diversification is one key to long-term survival.

So please, enough hand-wringing over the potential of more foreign manufacturers arriving in NASCAR, which would only help the sport. If the domestic carmakers were on solid financial footing and able to devote the same resources to building motorsports programs that they once did, everything would be different. But they aren't. And really, this shouldn't be a big deal now that NASCAR has a second foreign carmaker anyway. What, you didn't hear? Chrysler, Dodge's parent company, emerged from bankruptcy last week after it struck a deal with Fiat, which will own a 35 percent stake in the U.S. manufacturer. The new, combined company will be run out of Fiat's headquarters -- located in Turin, Italy.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.