Entrepreneur sees dinero in Hispanics' first Nascar team
Dallas Business Journal - by Rusty Cawley Staff Writer
FAR NORTH DALLAS -- Auto-racing entrepreneur Rudy Rodriguez is building the first Hispanic-owned, Hispanic-sponsored, Hispanic-driven team in Nascar history.
His inspiration for the project came a year ago in a tobacco field in Vera Cruz Llave in Mexico.
A fan of motor sports since his youth, Rodriguez was looking over a crop destined for his line of private-label cigars. A chill had descended from the mountains into the valley, so Rodriguez was wearing a sweatshirt that promoted Nascar champion Jeff Gordon.
On the spot, a field worker offered Rodriguez three months' salary for the sweatshirt.
"I asked him if he wanted the jacket because he liked Jeff Gordon," Rodriguez says. "But that wasn't it. `Car racing,' he said to me, `it's Numero Uno.'"
That convinced Rodriguez that Nascar was missing an opportunity by ignoring Hispanic fans of motor sports. So the second-generation Cuban-American sold his cigar company and set out to change Nascar's mind.
That quest took less time than Rodriguez imagined.
He originally targeted the 2001 Nascar season for a first run. Instead, HRT Motorsports Inc. -- which is co-owned by Rodriguez and his cousin, Miami developer Mike Vazquez -- will debut at a Nascar Busch Series race on Nov. 13 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.
"We've taken preparations that usually require a year and a half and squeezed it down to about six months," Rodriguez says. "Our slogan is that we want to be `the Nafta to Nascar.' Once they understood that idea, the people at Nascar couldn't wait to get this going."
Coffee to sea cruises
HRT, which stands for "Hispanic Race Team," has allied itself with a veteran Nascar owner, Larry Hedrick, to put its team on the track.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has signed on as a secondary sponsor, as has coffee maker Cafe Bustelo.
Negotiations continue for a primary sponsor, one that will underwrite most of the team's major expenses. Such contracts typically go for tens of millions of dollars spread over three years.
In return, that sponsor -- who could come from a group that includes Corona beer, Bacardi rum and the Univision and Telemundo television networks -- will get its logo splashed on the hood of HRT's Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
"We should know who our major sponsor is in a few weeks," Rodriguez says.
The team also auditioned drivers from all over Latin America as well as the United States, eventually settling on Colombian driver Jaime Guerro.
"We want to put the best team we can on the track," Rodriguez says. "We owe that to our sponsor."
`A natural fit'
For Rodriguez, there's more to HRT than cultural pride. He believes that Nascar is primed to attract millions of new fans from the Hispanic-American culture that stretches from Miami to Dallas to Los Angeles.
"Motorsports is huge in Latin America," he says. "The English-language TV channels down there will take a broadcast of a Nascar race and play it four times in a row. Auto racing is part of the Hispanic culture. Nascar is a natural fit."
Rodriguez is not the only sports impresario seeking Hispanic fans and bucks. Pro teams in the Metroplex have made a point of appealing to the state's Hispanic market, which has grown by 35% since 1990 to top 5.9 million people.
The Dallas Cowboys, for example, have broadcast their games on Spanish-language radio for 21 years. America's Team also attracted 100,000-plus fans to an exhibition games in Mexico City in 1998.
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