It's Time for NASCAR to Cut Ties with NRA

by Julian Spivey
Flags flew at half-mast at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. last Sunday during the 60th running of the Daytona 500 just over a three-hour drive north of Parkland, Fla. where 17 students and faculty had been gunned down a few days before in one of the worst school shootings in American history. Parkland victims and survivors were in the prayers of those at the speedway all weekend during the prerace invocations.
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Austin Dillon would go on to win the Daytona 500 that day. One of his sponsors is the National Rifle Association (NRA), which thankfully wasn’t on his car that day. Imagine how that would’ve looked. The reigning NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. is also occasionally sponsored by the NRA. The NRA also is set to sponsor the August race at Bristol Motor Speedway once again this season and has sponsored races at Texas Motor Speedway before.

The sport of NASCAR depends on sponsorship for survival maybe more than any other professional sport in the country, but they can be picky about what brands they allow to associate with the sport. Journeyman racer Carl Long found this out the tough way last season when NASCAR made the driver’s team remove decals for the company Veedverks from his No. 66 car. Veedverks is a hemp vape shop based in Colorado.

NASCAR takes issue with a legal (in Colorado) hemp vape shop but is OK with the NRA – a group that some people refer to as an American terrorist organization.

The same NRA that donated $10,000 to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s four-person varsity marksmanship team, in 2016. Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz was on that team and honed the very skills needed to perpetrate the tragedy at his school. The NRA that seemingly proves time and time again it cares more about the sale of firearms than people killed by AR-15s, which should be used for military purposes and nothing else.

NASCAR has never taken issue with the NRA as a race or team sponsor before, and the topic has come up before. In 2013, just months after 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook in Newton, Ct. the sport announced the NRA would sponsor a spring race at Texas Motor Speedway. NASCAR simply distanced itself from the decision with spokesman David Higdon saying, “Texas Motor Speedway ultimately secured this entitlement sponsor, not NASCAR.” After that season NASCAR instituted a new clause in its sanction agreements stating that it had to approve race sponsors, according to ESPN. Two years later the NRA was back as a race sponsor at Bristol, where it’ll serve as sponsor for a third consecutive year in August. NASCAR didn’t say no. This time they also didn’t comment. NASCAR team owner and NRA Second Vice President Richard Childress did, praising the sponsorship deal. He said: “So many fans are supporters of the NRA. They [NASCAR/Bristol Motor Speedway] made the right decision putting the NRA back in because so many of our fans are NRA members.”

There’s little doubt that many NASCAR fans are NRA supporters, but that doesn’t make it a right decision by the sport or a decision that looks good upon it. I’m sure a lot of NASCAR fans support marijuana, as well. I’m sure a lot of NASCAR fans are also supporters of Playboy magazine, which has been rejected as a sponsor multiple times for not being “representative of the image of NASCAR,” according to USA Today.

Pot and naked ladies aren’t good for the sport’s image, but high-powered machines of death are fine.

NASCAR should reconsider its relationship with the NRA, but it’d be highly surprising if they did. In the last few days many companies have felt the heat from people claiming they would no longer support them if they didn’t cut ties with the NRA. In response companies like Enterprise, Alamo, National and First National Bank of Omaha have already cut ties. Other companies like FedEx, LifeLock, Hertz and Norton Online are being pressured, as well. Nobody seems to be putting any pressure on NASCAR, probably because they view it to be a lost cause. Like I said, it probably would be. But, it’s still worth the fight. Who knows maybe NASCAR will decide to do something just because it’s the right thing to do? They lowered their flags and said they’re prayers in Daytona. But, as long as they’re taking the NRA’s money and giving them a sales boost by placing their companies on their cars, races and tracks they aren’t doing enough.

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