| DiGard Racing Company History | |
| DiGard
Racing is one of the legendary names in NASCAR
racing. At a time when motorsports was seen as a
sport for southerners with participants that were not far
removed from the rum runners/moonshiners that are credited
with creating stock car racing, Bill Gardner and Mike
DiProspero entered the sport and put the wheels
into motion that have helped turn NASCAR racing into a marketing
platform that is virtually unrivaled in American sports.
Started in 1973, DiGard Racing quickly became a force in
what was then the NASCAR Grand National Series. Gardner purchased
DiProspero’s interest in 1973 after DiProspero was
involved in a serious automobile accident, and his brother Jim
Gardner joined the team to start building a championship-caliber
organization in 1974. With drivers such as Donnie Allison,
Darrell Waltrip, Ricky Rudd, and Bobby Allison, DiGard
Racing quickly became a contender for top-5 finishes
and wins. In
addition to working with superstar drivers, the team also
launched the careers of numerous other individuals in NASCAR,
including team owner Robert Yates, former NASCAR Vice
President of Research and Development Gary Nelson,
NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton,
and 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series champion crew chief Jimmy
Fennig, to name a just a few. DiGard Racing also employed a legendary Crew Chief,
Jake Elder.
At the time of Gardner’s
retirement from active competition, not only had he racked
up 43 victories and one series championship, but he had also
played a major role in the transformation that brought NASCAR
out of the backwoods of the southeast and helped put it on
a path to the mainstream that has made it a multi-billion
dollar industry and one of the most popular marketing platforms
in America. The
team achieved its first win with Darrell Waltrip at the wheel
in 1975. Waltrip went on to win 25 more races in the
team’s white and green No. 88 Gatorade cars, and came
within 11 points of winning the series championship in 1979. While
Waltrip narrowly missed the series championship, members
of the motorsports media voted him the Driver of the Year
in 1979, the first such honor for a DiGard driver. While
it was a bone of contention at the time when Waltrip was
forced to buy his way out of it, Gardner was the first
NASCAR team owner to sign a driver to a binding contract.
Previously, team owners were without business savvy and
drivers agreed to drive for them based on a handshake or
a verbal commitment. Gardner brought his business acumen
to the sport, and from that day onward every driver and
team have entered into their relationship with a written
contract in place. In a flashback to 1980 when Waltrip
bought his contract out to move to another team, two high
profile drivers, Kurt Busch and Jamie
McMurray, bought out their contracts in 2005 to
terminate their relationships early and move to other teams
for the 2006 season. In
1982, Bobby Allison took the controls of the DiGard
Racing ride and made an immediate impact. He started
off the season with a dominant win in the season’s
most prestigious event, the Daytona 500 and the Busch
Clash (an all-star event for the previous year’s
pole winners, now called the Budweiser Shootout).
In addition, Allison also picked up the win at Daytona in
the Firecracker 400, being the first driver
to sweep the Busch Clash, Daytona 500, and Firecracker 400
in a single season. Allison ended the season with 8 wins
and finished second in the series championship standings. The
following season the team created a new relationship
with Miller Brewing Company, and Allison
continued to pick up checkered flags at an astonishing
rate. Gone were the familiar green and white Gatorade colors,
and in was the red and white Miller look. The Miller
sponsorship was the first in NASCAR history to be valued
at over $1 million annually. Little
did it matter what color the car was. Bobby Allison collected
six more wins, but more importantly, claimed the 1983 NASCAR
Winston Cup Series championship. Insistent that the team
look professional when they celebrated the series championship
at the awards banquet in New York, team owners Bill and
Jim Gardner had the team wear tuxedos, becoming the first
team to do so. The event has now transformed from a casual event
with blue jeans and t-shirts into a black-tie affair that is nationally
televised. In addition to picking up his first championship as
a driver, Allison was also voted by the motorsports media to be
Driver of the Year in 1983. DiGard
Racing won 43 NASCAR Cup series races from 1975 through 1985,
won the series championship in 1983 and finished second in the
series championship twice in 1979 and 1982. ^ Company History Continued on Next Column ^ |
DiGard
Racing won at every track on the schedule and the team also
has dozens of wins in support series such as the NASCAR Late
Model Sportsman division (now the NASCAR Busch Series) and
the ARCA Re/MAX Series. DiGard
Racing was an innovator on and off the track. The team continually
hired the best and the brightest minds in NASCAR, such as Gary
Nelson, Robert Yates, and Robin Pemberton. Nelson
and Pemberton would go on to successful careers within the
sport before joining the upper management of NASCAR itself. Nelson
recently retired from his position as Vice-president of Research
and Development, while Pemberton is currently Vice-president
of Competition. Yates is renowned for his engine building prowess,
and has gone on to win three Daytona 500s and a Winston Cup
Series championship of his own as an owner. These bright
minds were the cornerstone of DiGard Racing’s innovative approach to the
sport. While other teams used tried and true technology, DiGard Racing pushed
the envelope looking for new ideas that would improve performance on the track. DiGard
Racing perfected the use of power steering in NASCAR racecars, developed shock
absorber technology that improved handling characteristics, and made a concerted
effort to use aerodynamics to lessen drag while giving downforce, thus increasing
overall speed. While
many teams were reluctant to try new technologies for the fear
they would fail and hurt their performance on the speedway,
DiGard Racing built a better mousetrap by taking the next logical
step: Gardner fielded a second car with the expressed purpose
of being a research and development vehicle. The R&D
car proved to be a good investment as it won its first race
out of the box in Daytona with Greg Sacks at the wheel in July
1985. Gardner himself was no stranger to innovative ideas
as he was one of the first racing spotters, perched above the
race track with radio contact with the driver to warn of accidents
ahead. With his core business being in the steel industry,
Gardner also was ahead of the game when it came to new materials
within car construction and was among the first to use tungsten
to add weight in the appropriate places. Tungsten was much
more dense than other metals and was easier to locate within
the chassis, giving the team more flexibility in where to locate
ballast. In
addition to the team’s strong performance on the track,
team owner Bill Gardner created strong programs to allow the
sponsors to reap the most benefits off the track. Gardner was
the first to bring a business approach to the sport, bringing
in contracts for drivers, team members, and sponsors. The
Gatorade sponsorship was the first national sponsorship by
a non-automotive, consumer brand in NASCAR history, and it
opened the door for other non-traditional sponsors to follow.
In the 30 years since Gatorade entered the sport, sponsors
of NASCAR racing teams have evolved from local car dealership,
towing companies, and service shops to Fortune 1000 companies
willing to pay $20 million annually to be a part of the sport. Gardner
also led the way in creating retail tie-ins, including the development
of a nationwide display vehicle program, to generate as
much goodwill for the brand as possible. When the team partnered
with Miller Brewing Company in 1983, they also escalated
their marketing efforts by creating one of the first ever
licensed merchandise programs. Gardner also hired Miller
Brewing Company executive Sam Belnavis, and part of his
duties were to push forth a program dedicated to diversifying
DiGard Racing with an African-American driver. DiGard Racing
was the first Major Cup Team to support a diversity program
in 1986 with the signing of driver Willy T. Ribbs an
African American. Belnavis’s efforts came to fruition
when Willy T. Ribbs ran a partial schedule for the team in
1986. Belnavis has remained in NASCAR racing, having been
an owner of his own team before taking on duties with Roush
Racing’s diversity program. While Bill
Gardner and the DiGard Racing team were
seen as “outsiders” to the mainly southern participants
while the team was active in competition, the legacy of the
team is that of innovator and champion. The result of DiGard’s
participation in NASCAR racing has opened
the door to dozens of other businessmen and women to enter
the sport as owners. NASCAR, which was once seen as nothing
more than “good old boys”
driving souped-up jalopies, is now a household word to nearly
75 million Americans and is a powerful marketing vehicle for
a large portion of the Fortune 1000. While DiGard
Racing has not been in active competition in 20 seasons, its
legacy does indeed go on. Famed NASCAR broadcaster Eli Gold was
quoted as saying that many of today’s brightest minds in
NASCAR were either “graduates of DiGard University,
or taught by someone who was.” |
DiGard Racing Highlights Chronology:
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