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Racing

Goosebump moments lead NASCAR's focus on fan experience

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On paper, a ticket to a NASCAR race is the pathway to an action-packed day of racing. In reality, it's so much more.

This ticket provides access to concerts from top artists, unique pre-race shows, games, and numerous other experiences that showcase NASCAR's revamped approach to the race-day experience.

This approach boils down to one main component -- "goosebump moments."

"Anybody that has attended the Daytona 500, at the end of the national anthem when the Thunderbirds come over the top of the Speedway and they do the starburst, you immediately get the tingles on the top of your arms, and you start to just feel warm and special," Michael Verlatti, vice president of event experience for NASCAR, told AltDriver.

"And that's my description of goosebumps. And in every event that you attend, there is that moment. And that's where I think the difference between good and great event experiences is. How many of those did you create?"

Verlatti, whose first stint with NASCAR began in 2000, has decades of experience in live events. He has spent his career trying to provide these goosebump moments, both with NASCAR and with other companies.

Since 2022, however, the efforts have ramped up as NASCAR has visited new markets, revitalized long-gone pre-race shows, and partnered with unexpected artists.

These moves have largely been done in pursuit of delivering those goosebump moments to fans willing to put their money on the line to attend races.

"In every event that you attend, there is that moment," Verlatti said. "And that's where I think the difference between good and great event experiences is. How many of those did you create?

"The Coca-Cola 600, it's when they do the military demonstration, and they're dragging the soldiers out of the facility hung from the ropes (on helicopters) as Lee Greenwood is singing. That immediately creates it.

"At Ohio State, when they dot the 'I,' like that creates it. At concerts, maybe it's that opening song that hits where the pyro goes off, the band walks on stage."

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Setting up the pre-race experience is not a linear process

For fans attending races, the pre-race experience is set. They see the interviews, the concerts, and the attractions. They don't see the months of effort and the "juggling" that takes place with schedules.

How does NASCAR determine which artists play at which races? Why did Ice Cube and Cypress Hill perform at the Busch Light Clash while Chris Janson performed at Kansas and Nashville in recent seasons? Why did Daytona choose Lit for its summer race while Phoenix chose Nelly for the season finale?

Putting the proverbial puzzle pieces together requires examining different factors. The biggest piece is each artist's touring schedule. Are they available during the specific race weekend, or will they be out of the country on a worldwide tour?

There must also be a mutual interest. Bands and artists must want to be at the track interacting with fans. Playing before the Ally 400 or the Coke Zero Sugar 400 isn't the same as a Friday night show in Los Angeles or Seattle.

"We haven't been to a proper, iconic Daytona race, so to be here for that is epic," A. Jay Popoff, lead singer of Lit, said at Daytona in August. "It's one of those bucket list things."

Then there is the location of each track. Some artists just make more sense for specific markets.

"Year one, it was very purposeful to have someone like Ice Cube play at the Coliseum (for the Clash) for a lot of reasons," Phil Metz, Managing Director of Entertainment Marketing & Music at NASCAR, told AltDriver.

"One, Ice Cube had been to a NASCAR race before. So it wasn't a fish completely out of water. We wanted some type of organic tie (in) year one. Also, Ice Cube is very geographically tied to Los Angeles. I mean, he wrote 'Boyz-n-the-Hood,' which is not too far from where USC is. So all those things come into it."

Of course, there are times when there isn't a background involving NASCAR. The artist is just a big enough name to warrant including them in an event.

"(Wiz Khalifa), he's from Pittsburgh, but big name supersedes all the other things," Metz added. "And that's another way to make the funnel bigger. (It) relates really well to that millennial or Gen Z audience. He broke in the 2000s, if you will."

The fan experience involves much more than concerts

Everyone has a different "goosebump threshold," if you will. Some will get this feeling while watching their favorite singer or band perform. Others will get the feeling as 40 cars roar by, taking the green flag to start the race.

For Verlatti, his goosebump moment was watching Steve Phelps talk to the NASCAR fans ahead of last season's championship race at Phoenix while Rick Hendrick, Joe Gibbs, and Roger Penske stood behind him in unity.

For some fans, they could get goosebumps simply by interacting with their favorite drivers from past and present.

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This is why the event team -- which is expanding amid planning for the 2025 season -- provides a variety of options throughout the race weekends. The fans made it clear that they wanted something to do before the races began.

"I started traveling, like I said, in 2000," Verlatti said. "And I was also part of the Sprint Experience and the Speed Channel Stage in like the 2000-14 era. And certain moments in that were really a high point in the fan zones of our racetrack.

"There were not as many things to distract guests. There were people on property looking for stuff to do. There wasn't the infield fan zone at Daytona that they could go to, the infield experience in Phoenix, so they were spending all their time outside.

"And those guests really were the ones that I feel are the most vocal in the fan survey, and what they're saying is 'We missed that era. Bring back the Speed Stage, bring back the Sprint Experience."

NASCAR and the event experience team listened.

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Take the championship weekend for example. The NASCAR Experience will feature multiple attractions for fans. Several drivers will stop by the stage for Q&A segments. Mariachi Rubor and Project 520 will perform on Friday.

The festivities continue on Saturday and Sunday with more interviews, numerous mini-concerts, karate and dance performances, and even a Sunrise Service for those unable to make it to church.

NASCAR and the tracks built these packed lineups so that the fans would have nonstop entertainment options and wouldn't just have to stand around waiting for the green flag. This is something the fans requested en masse, and it gave the sport a little bit of a throwback feel.

"The NASCAR experience is really a knockoff of the old Speed and Sprint stages," Verlatti said. "So that has contributed to how we make those decisions. Now that we have it, we're looking at it year-over-year.

"How are they performing? We have a people counter at the front door. So how many people are coming in? What were the peak hours? What gets more people in at any time?"

Disruptions happen; deal with it

Putting the pre-race concerts and other festivities together each week of the season is no small feat, but the events team has it down to a science.

The concerts, in particular, start with a big rig that pulls the stage and sets it up on the frontstretch of each track. A line of John Deere Gators follows behind, pulling trailers loaded with amps and other essential equipment.

This is a setup that allows NASCAR's event teams to put together and break down the pre-race festivities and ceremonies in mere minutes, and it shows how far the team has come over decades of effort.

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Chicago was an entirely different situation considering that NASCAR used massive stages in a different area. It had a more traditional festival feel.

Of course, sometimes things just happen that throw a wrench into the works.

Biblical rainfall completely disrupted the inaugural NASCAR weekend in Chicago last season and forced the cancellation of the concerts. Rain forced NASCAR to postpone this year's Daytona 500, which led to the cancellation of Pitbull's pre-race concert.

Shaquille O'Neal couldn't make it to Sonoma in time to perform his DJ set before last year's Cup Series race due to heavy traffic in the Bay Area.

"NASCAR has taken weather really serious, has a partnership with the Weather Channel and some other services," Verlatti said. "We're looking at that stuff two weeks out and then really focusing on it maybe closer in, seven days out. We're building the contingency plans earlier than ever."

Sometimes, the contingency plan is simple. Shaq just performed his DJ set after Martin Truex Jr. won the Sonoma race. The fans that stuck around still got a show.

Sometimes, the plan is far more elaborate. NASCAR already had a commitment from Pitbull ensuring that he will perform before the 2025 Daytona 500. This concert will still happen, albeit one year later than expected.

However, Verlatti and his team still had to figure out what to do with all of the screens and signage they had purchased for the Pitbull concert. The solution was to just use them for other pre-race festivities. Adapt and move forward using knowledge gained from past experiences.

"My teammates at Wasserman (Live) that help us -- Matt Davis runs that business for us, and I hired him in like 2005 so he's been doing it for 20 years," Verlatti said. "We've suffered together in the rain, and that just makes us better producers."

NASCAR will continue to streamline the process in 2025 and beyond

This weekend's season finale at Phoenix Raceway marks the final time this year that Verlatti and his team will have to stress about a pre-race concert. That doesn't mean it's time to check out and go to the Bahamas.

Work is already ongoing for the 2025 Cup Series season, which will officially begin with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 16, 2025.

Verlatti is bringing in a creative consultant for the season to help him come up with more goosebump moments for the fans. He will continue having in-depth conversations with Metz about the best possible artists to bring in for Chicago and other big events on the calendar.

He will continue toying around with the idea of having a house band that travels each weekend of the NASCAR schedule and performs at Saturday night parties for the fans.

One big change will be bringing all of the regional event experience people in-house and creating what Verlatti calls "deployment teams." These teams will each handle around 10 events and they will focus on producing the highest-quality experience for the fans so that NASCAR can continue making the pre-race experience bigger and better.

"The leader of that team is a project manager or event director, and then under them are the skill sets like event operations, concert production, experiential activation, somebody that's laying out fan zones as a like CAD designer," Verlatti explained.

"So right now it looks like I've got about seven positions that it takes to produce a weekend. They'll get augmented by additional people, but seven defined skill sets. Those seven people will be part of that deployment team, and then I have a yellow, blue, and a red team, and then they'll rotate every three weeks."