One Month Left at Atlanta Motor Speedway :(

      Well, this internship is slowly coming to end with it just beginning to wind up!  I've done a ton this Summer at the track.  It really has been such a great experience.  Our first big project that we had to get ready for was our Legends Media Day.  Kiffy (the other marketing/promotions intern) and myself helped our supervisor create media guides for the media that came out to our event.  We featured four drivers that we contacted in order to promote our Legends racing summer series.  Local media came out as well as Fox 5 and Channel 2 Action News.  We were also in charge of getting the media center set up.  It was our first big event that we got to do things behind the scenes and learn how things work at AMS.  Myself and Kiffy even got to drive a Legends car! 

   
      I learned that our weekly Legends racing series wasn't just about the racing, but it's also an entertainment production.  The other interns and myself create different crowd games in order to entertain the fans during cautions and in between races.  We would also work on our weekly newsletter The Pacesetter, in order for fans to enjoy reading and learn what is going on each week.  The first three weeks we would have a banana chase where Monkey Wrench would chase the bananas.  We quickly found out that the bananas were not going to survive until the end of the season because of the kids that wanted to stop us.  We also switched off being Monkey Wrench when the kid who usually does it didn't come.  That was definitely a different experience, but rewarding to see the smiles on the kids faces.

Hanging out in the flag stand before Thursday Thunder

     From the beginning I've learned that things are what you make of it and I have been trying my best to do so.  It's not that hard because I know that working at AMS is the best opportunity that I have in order to network and make connections for my future.  I really love the staff that we have at the track and we've had fun experiences.  All of us interns have actually created a Twitter account to document our journey there. 

Sheena, Kiffy, and me in the worst rain I've ever seen at Thursday Thunder

     Now that we have less than a month left until race weekend, everyone is pacing a little faster in the corporate offices.  The past two weeks Kiffy and myself were responsible for finding Atlanta Motor Speedway promotional gifts to send out to radio stations thanking them for promoting our race.  I love ideas like this because it does make an impression on the stations that we give these to and makes them want to support us as we support them.  It's truly the little things that we do, that will go a long way.  It was a lot of hard work for us having to create, package, and ship all of these items but will be well worth it for the track.  When I had to get the boxes from the merchandise shop at the track, apart of it made me realize how much effort is put into hosting a NASCAR event.  Let alone smaller events leading up to the weekend.  Every department of the track is doing something in order to pull off a successful event.  The merchandise shop was stocking up on merchandise that will eventually make thousands for just that one weekend.  Many of those items would be things that I would buy as a fan. 

Our last Thursday Thunder of the summer.  Such a pretty night!

Kiffy and I got to ride in the pace car around the track after our Monkey Wrench Club kids recieved their rides

                                                                          
     This coming up Tuesday we have an event at Sky Zone Atlanta, an indoor trampoline park with drivers Austin and Ty Dillon.  I am extremely excited for these next few events that are coming up because I am a fan.  I am the person that would come out to these different autograph sessions to meet and socialize with people who have the same passion as I do.  We also get to go to Bass Pro Shops where Austin and Ty will be signing autographs!  I just love Bass Pro Shops anyways, so it's going to be a fun filled day.  

     Race week leading up the race is going to be awesome.  I can not wait to experience what it's going to be like working in the marketing and promotions department during that week.  I know it'll be busy but this is what we've been working for the whole summer.  It will be the first time working behind the scenes at a race since I worked with Levy Restaurants in the suites.  I just can't wait to see what the future holds and how everything is going to happen.  Stay tuned...

Today is Only the Beginning

     I started my internship today at Atlanta Motor Speedway.  It was a pretty easy day.  I got a tour of the track, met the staff, made some phone calls, and cut out newspaper clippings with anything that mentioned Atlanta Motor Speedway.  I feel like I've already been doing that for years though because I always save the promotional fliers and stuff that they send to my house.  Maybe I'm a hoarder? Oh well.  While I was meeting the staff I got to meet Ed Clark again.  He's the track president and he's really good friends with my Great Aunt and Great Uncle and cousin.  They've known each other for years and I was looking around in his office and I spotted two shelves just dedicated to my cousin Allison.  My cousin is mentally retarded and she just adores Ed.  They're always at the track every Thursday for Thursday Thunder.  Ed's got all kinds of pictures with him and her on the two shelves.  I thought that was just too cute cause they've been really good friends over the years. 

     A really cool thing that I got to do today was sit in on a staff meeting.  We talked about how they're going to Charlotte for the All-Star Race on Saturday which I would LOVE to go.  Maybe one day.  Then we talked about different driver event ideas that we need to come up with before race weekend in September to promote the race.  I was really glad that I got to voice my opinion in the meeting and be involved in pitching ideas because this is what I've been preparing myself to do for a while now.  I don't think anyone understands how happy I am to finally get the chance to work with people who know racing and knows NASCAR.  They understand my language! I only have a select few friends that I can talk about NASCAR and they know what I'm talking about.  No offense but the rest of y'all are clueless.  

     I realize that this internship is what I'm going to make of it and hopefully they'll want to hire me after I graduate school.  I know that I'm going to learn a lot about Public Relations and the media and I already can tell that I have numerous contacts and connections for myself in the future of racing.  It's going to be a challenge but I think that it's what I've pretty much been preparing myself for since I realized I wanted to work in PR for NASCAR.  I really can not wait to see what the future holds for me and the experiences that I'm going to gain from this.    

                                                 
                                         Here's a picture of the track that I took this morning. 
                                                          The road to my future!

                           

The Daytona Trip That Could Change My Life

This past weekend I had the opportunity of a lifetime. Teamwork Online, NASCAR's job board hosting site put together a networking event at Daytona International Speedway. Very important people within the sport were represented and I knew as a Communications and Media Studies major, these are the types of events that I need to attend. Early Friday morning, two of my sisters and myself packed up and drove the seven hour trip to Daytona.

We got to our sorority sisters house at around 1:30 in the afternoon. As a side note, I can not tell you how important it is to make connections with sisters around the country. Stef Fussell, one of the Alpha Tau Chapter's alumnae opened her home to us and I could not be more grateful. Once we arrived to the house we decided to walk to the beach. It was 85 degrees and beautiful!

My meeting started at 6:00 so we headed back to the house. The awesome ladies of Alpha Tau came and picked up Lena and Emily while I went to my meeting.

It was very surreal for me on the way to the track driving through Daytona by myself. It really hit me when I was downtown passing the boardwalk and turning on to International Speedway Boulevard. This opportunity could change my life forever. Just the feeling of being in Daytona and knowing how much history was made in this town because of Bill France. His dream was to build a racetrack that could be a home for racing and create a series that would be the foundation of what all racing series strives for. His dream evolved into even more than he could imagine. My dream is to be able to work in the sport that he was able to help create and that I love. I know this seems a little stupid but I started to tear up when I pulled up to the track. I could not wrap around the fact that I was at Daytona International Speedway during Daytona 500 race weekend. It blew my mind.

The parking lot that I parked in was right across from the track. Right beside it was a huge glass building that was the corporate offices for NASCAR, ISC (International Speedway Corporation), and the Grand-Am Road Racing Series. I thought hopefully my future will one day be in that building. I made it to the meeting at just the right time I wanted to get there. I was a little bit early but wasn't late. When we got started, there was a speaker who introduced who he was and who the important Daytona and NASCAR officials were and then we were on our own to meet them throughout the suite. I made a lot of great connections and traded business cards with many of the officials. A lot of the important people I met were vice presidents of marketing for either the track, ISC, sponsor relations in NASCAR, and NASCAR itself. Just people that I really needed to meet in order to get my foot in the door for public relations type work.

After the meeting we received a ticket to the Camping World Series truck race and were allowed to sit anywhere in the grandstand. At first I decided to sit near start finish line until I got a text from a buddy that said he could get me into the infield. Let me tell you, it's great to have friends. So we got into the Sprint Fanzone and watched the truck race. It was amazing to see what a world class facility DIS really is. We were able to watch most of the truck race on top of the garage stalls. When the race was over we were allowed to go into Gatorade Victory Lane and take pictures and just be engulfed in the winner's circle celebration with the driver and team. While were waiting we saw Austin Dillon coming out of the 500 Club and I got his autograph and a picture of him. I also got a picture with Ron Hornaday Jr. and his autograph after the race.

In Gatorade Victory Lane with first time winner John King

The next day we were up early to pack up and go to the track for the Nationwide race. I'm always so excited to broaden and share an experience that I love and I got to with Emily and Lena this past weekend. Everything is so much bigger than just what you see on tv. They had a blast and I really hope they enjoyed themselves this past weekend. We had to leave for home after the race because I had two midterms on Monday and could not stay for the 500. It's a blessing we didn't anyway because the Daytona 500 was postponed to Monday due to rain. All in all it was an amazing experience and trip that I will never forget.

Us being silly with Deebo the 3M mascot

NASCAR: Who Makes the Rules?

In my Media and Culture class we are reading about cultural norms of societies and groups of people. We read an article about how Americans are obsessed with taking care of our appearance with the way we dress, caring about of our hygiene, and wanting to improve what we look like. Who gives us this image of what we're supposed to look like? What is idealist? With my mind always thinking about NASCAR, I drifted off and started to relate this to NASCAR. Go figure.

In the culture society of NASCAR, one of the social norms is that a fan usually die hard for one driver. They've got every kind of memorabilia you can think of and will purchase anything with just the driver's number or sponsors on it. But what if you're a fan of multiple drivers? You hardly see fans dressed up that have a Kurt Busch backpack with a Kevin Harvick hat and a Jeff Gordon t-shirt. Personally I would look at you like you were crazy. It's a social norm in NASCAR for fans to express their passion to one driver but not to many. It's acceptable if the drivers that they are pulling for are all apart of one organization or they all drive for the same manufacturer. Who creates these social norms in NASCAR? What constitutes what is right and what is wrong?

I am a fan of several drivers but I only feel acceptable to favoritism to a small group of drivers, narrowing it down to maybe two or three. I'm not sure why I feel that way. I like to be diverse and like many different drivers, but yet I limit myself to only those few. I am a NASCAR fan in general and support many other drivers whether it be on Twitter or watch them make guest appearances on television and so on and so on. I'm not sure why I limit myself to only publicly displaying that one driver that I pull for. Is it because I feel socially pressured to like the one driver that most all fans like?


Recently I have really started to like Brad Keselowski. I pulled for him when he was driving for JR Motorsports back in 2009. Once he moved to the Sprint Cup Series I didn't pull for him as much because he was driving for Penske Racing. I have always loved the Chevy drivers and did not feel very open to like another organization or manufacturer. I'm pursuing to work in NASCAR doing public relations and I need to become more diverse in the atmosphere opening myself and allowing myself to accept other drivers and learn about their organizations. I know this might be off topic but I relate this a lot to my sorority and the National Panhellenic Conference. NPC is our governing body and umbrella head while there are twenty-six organizations that fall under the NPC regulation. In NASCAR, NASCAR is the sanctioning body and there are several different teams and organizations within NASCAR. It's recruitment week for my sorority so that's been on my mind lately.

I really believe in breaking the barriers in the sport and creating new social norms and being more acceptable and diverse. If you want to wear multiple drivers paraphernalia, go for it. I shouldn't be the one to make judgement on if you like multiple drivers. I should encourage it so NASCAR can become more of a melting pot of diversity.

NASCAR is Back with Daytona Testing

The longest not even two months of my life are over. You know why? Because NASCAR is back with Preseason Thunder at Daytona with testing! Those of you who have been anxiously awaiting this week since the NASCAR banquet ended in November, can finally get your NASCAR fix other than reading what drivers have been doing in their off season on Twitter and Facebook. I have to give credit to Twitter though because it has kept me in the loop on many major off season changes that has happened since the NASCAR season ended.



Now this is what I'm talking about!

Daytona Preseason testing started January 12-14. This in particular test is always crucial but more now because NASCAR is trying to eliminate the two car tandem racing. I hate this style of racing. Driver's are doing it because it's the fastest way to get around the track and it eliminates the factor of whose car is the best in performance. Doesn't even matter if your car is crappy, as long as you can push the other car in front of you it's going to go faster. So NASCAR is doing it's job to get back to the "old style" of racing at these super speedways.

It really bothers me when the racing is more strategy now with this style of racing than the racing itself. Of course we won't be able to see how this test really works out until The Budweiser Shootout but NASCAR did mandate that the drivers draft in a pack today. When they did run in a pack they were somewhat spaced out and the cars did not have any problems with over heating or air pressure. The cars were actually getting swirly and the drivers were excited to finally get racy. Jeff Burton said it best today, the two-car tandem racing won't go completely away but NASCAR is trying to minimize it. The speeds are about the same now with the two car tandem as they run in packs so they're making progress. As long as they get back to drafting in big packs I'll be happy and so will a lot of other NASCAR fans.

There's only 44 more days until the Daytona 500 which will go by fast and be here before you know it. In the mean time Barrett-Jackson and the Rolex 24 race are coming up and will by my racing fix till then. There is this other thing called school and work that might keep me busy for a while.

Kyle Busch Parked Texas Style

NASCAR has had it's fair share of bad boys over the years. Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, and Kurt Busch have all held the title at one point in their career. These days the only title that Kyle Busch will hold is the title of trouble maker. Kyle Busch's actions in Friday night's truck race at Texas Motor Speedway may have cost him the Sprint Cup Series championship. Kyle deliberately wrecked Ron Hornaday under caution and cost Hornaday his fifth Camping World Series truck championship. NASCAR parked Kyle Busch for the whole weekend not allowing him to drive in the Nationwide Series race that took part on Saturday and the Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday.






Looks like no winning in Texas will happen this week for him




The one thing in life that you don't do is mess with the law, in this case the law being NASCAR. Kyle Busch has had several run ins with the sanctioning body and has met several times in the NASCAR trailer for his behavior. When will his behavioral issues ever stop? Of course drivers will always get heated in midst of competition, that's competitive nature. But with Kyle Busch they seem to never go away. NASCAR has the power to either make it or break it for a driver. When you push the buttons on the ones who are allowing you to race, the consequences are detrimental. Usually you hear either fines or suspensions when NASCAR hands out punishments to crew chiefs, drivers, or team owners but you never hear drivers being parked individually for their own behavior.




It has to be embarrassing for the crews, sponsors, and Joe Gibbs to have a driver that can not control his temper. The crew members back in the shop probably don't appreciate his actions while they're working on making his car the best when he's not even going to drive it this weekend. Joe Gibbs especially is not one to put up with any type of that behavior. He is one of the most respected in the garage and surely will keep that title.




As far as competitors go, Tony Stewart said it best last week at Martinsville, "It's easier for driver's to handle it back in the garage. Don't take it out on everybody that works on these things." These million dollar machines are worked on every day to perfection to be the best car out on the track. For someone to wreck another competitor under caution gives no excuse. Kyle is an owner himself. He knows the things that go into getting a car prepared for each weekend.




The fact that gaining respect from other drivers has become a big issue in NASCAR these days, Kyle Busch has minimal respect from anyone after this weekend. Kevin Harvick is one who has thrown respect for Kyle Busch out the window a long time ago. Kevin and Kyle have had their on going rivalries in all three series that they both run and have teams in, quite frequently. Ron Hornaday's truck is a Kevin Harvick Inc. team that will be shutting down at the end of the season. Kevin Harvick Friday night came out with a win in the truck series and a championship win in the manufacturer's championship. Harvick was pleased with his results but was not pleased with Kyle Busch. That night on Twitter Harvick said, "Great night for the 2 truck!!! Just watched the race replay and saw what I already knew Kyle Busch is a bitch..." Now to say that Harvick has no respect for Kyle Busch is relevant. It's going to take a good long while for Kyle to build back up his credit that he has lost. We know how Harvick feels about Busch but what about his other competitors? How will Kyle Busch gain his respect back? Surely not by doing what he is doing now. Some good advice for him would be to stay out of the radar. Drawing bad publicity is not the way to go. He has the wins to prove he can be a champion but will he ever have the mindset to be a champion?

Internships

The past few days I've been really focusing on looking up internships and doing my research on the opportunities that are available to me with my major. I am a Communications and Media Studies major and I have several media outlets that I can look into with Atlanta having Turner Broadcasting, CNN, The Weather Channel, etc. There are several radio stations based out of Atlanta and I would love to be an intern at 94.9 The Bull or Kicks 101.5. I listen to those stations nonstop and love country music. I've always been told that if you love what you do, you will succeed. I feel if I narrow down the kind of internships that I am interested in, then I will do my best at that type of internship. The internships that I've been emailing the most about are with NASCAR race teams and other affiliated associations like different driver foundations, Speedway Children's Charities, and a couple of racetracks. I know most of the race teams probably get emails asking about internships probably everyday. I just pray to God that someone will take a chance on me and at least email me back! That's all I can ask for. I don't like waiting in the dark and not being responded to.


I've always been taught that if you have a passion for something, you need to pursue it. I've had a passion for NASCAR since the 7th grade. There wasn't anything else that I felt stronger about and I wanted to work in the sport. I didn't know how exactly I could do that until about my freshman year of high school I was looking in this NASCAR magazine at my best friend Whitney's house that her brother Joey had gotten. In the magazine there was a page where it focused on one person and their job within NASCAR. I want to say that it focused on the Public Relations Representative for Jeff Burton and his number 31 Caterpillar Chevy at the time. Her duties were to promote a positive image for Jeff Burton and his team and be the communicator between himself and his sponsors. I was extremely influenced and intrigued by this woman's profession. She worked in an office throughout the week and then traveled with the race team every weekend. I thought to myself, what better way to work in the sport that I love and get to travel all over the country. It was just a dream job that I had to pursue.


If you're not passionate or enjoy what you're doing as a job or career, you're not going to perform at the best of your abilities. I know a handful of people that hate their job. If you hate your job, why work there? Those people that are working there still aren't sure what they're doing with their lives and years have gone by and nothing has been done to improve themselves. Those are the types of people that are working for the bare minimum and living pay check to pay check. I know for myself that I can not do that. Right now I can, because I'm in school trying to better myself with getting a degree and am going to move on from my current job. Working at O'charley's is not going to become my career. If anything, that place gives me motivation to do well in school because that kind of work is too hard to be dealing with the small amount of pay that I may or may not get.


I know that internships lead to jobs and in this economy right now jobs are scarce. So in order for me to apply to these internships I have to narrow my choices. I really need to get the internships with either Atlanta Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Speedway Children's Charities, or the NASCAR Diversity internship. I'm just going to do a pros and cons list because they pretty much are the easiest way to do things.


Atlanta Motor Speedway PR internship

Pros-20 mins. from my house Cons-non paid internship

-can still live at home

-can keep my part time job on the weekends

-get to drive the Chevy Camaro pace car

-achieve the public relations experience I need

Who wouldn't want to drive this thing?





Charlotte Motor Speedway PR internship

Pros-achieve the public relations experience I need Cons-find a place to live

-In Charlotte, NC "the hub of NASCAR" -take out loans :(

-Network and meet people in the sport -far from home and the people
I know

(best way to get a job is through who you know) -non paid internship

Speedway Children's Charities Internship
Pros-The same ones I have for AMS because it's at AMS Cons-non paid internship

These three internships are pretty much the most realistic ones that I can get a hand on but I'm not giving up on any of the ones that I do apply for.

I know with my major and the degree I'm pursuing I can work my way up and make a lot of money in the public relations/media industry. I feel like I can't be picky in what opportunities I get with an internship because I need to start somewhere. But I know what my dream is, I know the path I need to take to get to that dream, and I need to focus on it.