(By Greg Engle)
Posted: Tuesday,January 6th, 2009
Along with Junior, Castroneves, John Force score well in latest Motorsports DBI study conducted by Millsport
CHARLOTTE, N.C., — Jimmie Johnson may have won his third consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship, but it’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. who’s won the hearts of NASCAR race fans.
That’s according to the Motorsports DBI (MDBI), an index created by sports marketing agency Millsport as an extension to the celebrity index developed by Davie Brown Entertainment in Los Angeles. Both Millsport and Davie Brown are part of Omnicom’s The Marketing Arm.
In a survey of avid NASCAR fans, Earnhardt Jr. scored the highest across each of the index’s nine attributes, including trust, appeal, influence, and passion. His overall MDBI score was slightly higher than Mark Martin, the second-highest-rated driver overall, and Johnson, who ranked fifth overall.
“There are a lot of reasons to like Junior,” said Ken Cohn, a vice president in Millsport’s Charlotte, N.C., office. “Clearly, he’s inherited a strong percentage of fans who supported his father, a legend in the sport who really transcended racing emotionally. But Junior has built his own fan base that genuinely appreciates his style, personality, character, and so forth.”
Tony Stewart and Jeff Burton, the third- and fourth-highest-scoring NASCAR drivers in the index, round out the top 5.
“The top five NASCAR drivers have at least one of three things in common,” said Cohn. “First, they’re consistently competitive on the track. Fans consider these drivers to be ‘in the mix’ to win. Second, these drivers have a history of winning, especially in recent seasons. Or, they have strong legacies, meaning that they have an association with winning championships.”
For the first time, the updated Motorsports DBI also includes data on the top drivers from the NHRA and IndyCar racing circuits.
Fans rate Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Danica Patrick, Dario Franchitti, and Scott Dixon the highest among IndyCar drivers, though Castroneves and Kanaan posted the strongest scores in nearly every attribute, including appeal and trust.
According to the index, fans consider Patrick to be a trendsetter and solid endorser.
Among NHRA drivers, John and Ashley Force ranked in the top two spots, respectively, with John’s scores slightly higher than Ashley’s across all of the attributes except for aspiration, where Ashley’s scores were slightly better.
Tony Schumacher, Ron Capps, and Larry Dixon round out the top five NHRA drivers on the index.
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