The May 19 issue of Street&Smith's Sports Business Journal had an extended article on open-wheel unification. Amongst many other interesting bits, they make the point that when NASCAR sponsors run ads during the race, they not only help the sponsor, they help the sponsor's driver show his personality, shape his image and build his own brand. During the race at Milwaukee I noticed that Honda, Ethanol, Firestone, and DirecTV are all major IRL sponsors and all run commercials during IRL broadcasts (and I assume they run them during other ABC/ESPN broadcasts).

Wouldn't this be a great chance to give the male drivers some publicity? Why don't they put RHR in an Ethanol ad? Have Graham and Marco tell us why we should buy a Honda. Do something funny with DirecTV and Helio. Right now the only driver who is on during commercials is Danica. That's a good step but we have the opportunity here to put more drivers (sort of) in the spotlight. What is stopping them from using everyone else?

Didn't Target do some good stuff in the 90's with Vassar and Montoya? I guess they don't feel the value is there anymore but why don't the series's main players try something? At the very least it'd make the commercials more entertaining.