NASCAR "Champions Week"

Grand Central Marketing has been working with NASCAR since 2003 to generate awareness, build a fan base and boost the sport's popularity in New York City. Among the highlights of this ongoing campaign was placing stock cars around the city during NASCAR's 2003 Champions Week, and creating a headquarters for New York's motor sports fans to gather every race day during the 2004 season. When the top 10 drivers in NASCAR's NEXTEL Cup Series came to the Big Apple for their season-ending banquet in 2004, GCM produced two city-wide, fan-friendly celebrations designed to let New Yorkers know that NASCAR was in town.

With the help of the mayor's office and other city organizations, GCM produced the "NASCAR NYC Victory Lap," a procession of the top 10 drivers piloting their cars through the streets of Manhattan. The Victory Lap started at the NASDAQ building in Times Square where the drivers rang the opening bell. They then headed out to 42nd Street and Broadway where, after a brief ceremony before thousands of screaming fans, they got into their cars and grand marshal Donald Trump gave the famous command: "Gentleman, start your engines!" The procession cut across 42nd Street (lined with checkered flag-waving fans!), headed uptown and crossed the "finish line" at NASCAR's corporate office on Park Avenue.

Not only did every New York TV station cover the Victory Lap, but news footage of the event aired 20 times on national television, plus an additional 183 times on local television stations across the country.

GCM also produced the "Pit Stop Tour" which placed show cars in 10 high-traffic locations around the city. Thousands of NASCAR fans visited the cars for premiums and prizes and to be entered into a sweepstakes to win a trip for two to the 2005 Daytona 500. Over the course of the week, more than 50,000 New Yorkers took part in the Pit Stop Tour. GCM handled all of the permitting, logistics, sweepstakes, Q104 and Daily News partnerships, staffing and all event development and management.