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Monday, May 22, 2000
I have returned from a very hectic week in
Charlotte, which included our major promotion of the year, The
Winston. This year we developed a new consumer promotion to
go along with all of the activities already on tap for the
Winston. The Big Roar was very successful, but did keep the
candle burning at both ends. The Big Roar was by invitation
to Winston Smokers only and included things like reduced
concession prices, tire changing competition. giveaways and live
driver appearance.
Each of the five drivers entered in this week's
Winston Bull 5 at the Coca-Cola 600 drove a Daytona USA video game
race to determine which fan they will be paired with for the
600. If one of these drivers wins the Coca-Cola 600, both
the driver and their paired fan will win $1 million cool
ones. Here's who's paired with whom:
|
Driver |
Fan |
| Mark Martin |
John Warner, Milwaukee,WI |
| Tony Stewart |
Jim Tolan, Lake Ariel, PA. |
| Bill Elliott |
Edward Rzonca, Bellmore, NY |
| Bobby Labonte |
Doug Robinson, Hattiesburg, MS |
| Jeff Burton |
Wendell Culver, New Haven, KY |
|
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The Winston Cup drivers earned their shot at the
Winston No Bull 5 million by finishing in the top five at the
CarsDirect.com 400 at Las Vegas earlier this year. The fans
were selected as part of a national sweepstakes promotion.
The kids' school year is winding down.
Last week I missed Katie's end of school band concert and Andrew's
school field day and class picnic because I had to be in
Charlotte. However, I was able to stop by Katie's class
picnic today. I couldn't tell who was looking forward to the
end of school this week more, the kids or the teachers. I
think it's equal anticipation on both parts.
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Wednesday, May
24, 2000
I returned to Lowe's Motor Speedway today.
Our Winston Thunder Theater promotion has replaced last week's Bog
Roar exhibit and today was our first day of operation.
Everything ran smoothly. Just about the time we were
preparing to close there came reports of a monstrous thunder storm
headed our way, so we checked out the weather channel and could
see a nasty thunder storm buildup. The Weather Channel was
also reporting a tornado touching down in Hickory, NC, which is
about an hour from our location. Most of the storm missed
us. We only got a light sprinkle and not much wind at
all. I hope it doesn't decide to circle back.
The pedestrian bridge that collapsed on Saturday
evening has been removed. Only the pillars that supported
the pre-stressed concrete bridge are remaining standing. The
speedway also decided to close the second pedestrian cross over
because of concerns it might have the same problem as the one that
collapsed, sending more than 100 people to the hospital.
It's still hard to believe there were no fatalities.
There
was an amazing photo, snapped by a spectator of the sea of
humanity that tumbled with the bridge Saturday night. The
ironic this is this photo was taken by Gus Lejano, who I knew when
he worked in the RJR marketing department a few years ago.
It now appears that North
Carolina's transportation department is going to begin inspecting
the private pedestrian bridges sprinkled throughout the
state. This had not been the case prior to Saturday's
catastrophe at the Lowe's Motor Speedway.
Richard Petty made a brief appearance at the track
today to talk about how the Petty family has been coping since
Adam's death a couple of weeks ago. The King, obviously
emotionally drained but as always composed, said it been extraordinarily
difficult on the family. "Kyle has been keeping busy,
Mongomery Lee (Adam's sister) has been busy with her horses and
Austin (Adam's brother) has been busy with girls. "
Kyle will resume racing next week in Dover after
sitting out the Winston and the Coca-Cola 600. He plans to
race both his Hot Wheel Winston Cup car and Adam's Sprint
sponsored Busch Grand National car in Dover.
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Thursday, May 25,
2000
I forgot to mention earlier this week that Bob
Thompson had also given the Wall Street Journal Suzy's name and
number for their story on dishwashers. Suzy spoke with the
reporter, but I will be surprised is she makes it into the
story. An interview does not mean you will make it into
story. Maybe I'm clouded by my normal occupation where I
believe the best interview or press encounter is one that doesn't
make it into print or on the airwaves.
Tomorrow will be a joyous day for the kids,
but not necessarily for Suzy. It's the last day of school,
which means the little varmints will be home all day with their
mom for the next couple of months.
However, Suzy is getting a little break. She's
heading off to Chicago with me next week and I am sure the kids
will be even more spoiled when we return home.
I'm headed back to Charlotte for this weekend's activates
and the Coca-Cola 600. If you happen to be traveling there
for the race, you should remember the traffic will more than
likely be more congested. Read that slower. With the
two pedestrian bridges closed, race fans will have to cross US 29
to get from the parking lots to the speedway. That mean the
police will be stopping traffic to let the fans cross, which will
more than likely mean it's going to take you longer to get into
the parking lots. Patience will be the order of the day.
Since I travel quite a bit the following
tickled my funny bone. Supposedly these are true stories
submitted by travel agents, who I am sure, get all kinds of
different clients.
- I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or
her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the
window.
- A client called in inquiring about a package to
Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked,
"Would it be cheaper to fly to California and
then take the train to Hawaii?"
- I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to
Capetown. I started to explain the length of the
flight and the passport information when she
interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you
look stupid, but Capetown is in
Massachusetts." Without trying to make her
look like the stupid one, I calmly explained,
"Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in
South Africa." Her response... click.
- A man called, furious about a Florida package we
did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in
Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room.
I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando
is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't
lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very
thin state."
- I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it
possible to see England from Canada?" I said,
"No." He said "But they look so close
on the map."
- Another man called and asked if he could rent a car
in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed
he had a 1-hour lay over in Dallas. When I asked him
why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard
Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive
between the gates to save time." [Actually, this
is not all that implausible, if you're familiar with
the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.]
- A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it
was possible that her flight from Detroit left at
8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to
explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois,
but she could not understand the concept of time
zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast,
and she bought that!
- A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your
physical description on your bag so they know who's
luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do
you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked
in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that
said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any
connection?" After putting her on hold for a
minute while I "looked into it" (I was
actually laughing) I came back and explained the city
code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just
putting a destination tag on her luggage.
- I just got off the phone with a man who asked,
"How do I know which plane to get on?" I
asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied,
"I was told my flight number is 823, but none of
these darn planes have numbers on them."
- "A woman called and said, "I need to fly
to Pepsi-Cola on one of those computer planes." I
asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter
plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever."
- A businessman called and had a question about the
documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a
- lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him
he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to
China many times and never had to have one of
those." I double checked and sure enough, his
stay required a visa. When I told him this he said,
"Look, I've been to China four times and every
time they have accepted my American Express."
- A woman called to make reservations, "I want to
go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The
agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent:
"Are you sure that's the name of the town?"
"Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the
customer. After some searching, the agent came back
with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every
airport code in the country and can't find a
Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted,
"Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is.
Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the
state of New York and finally offered, "You don't
mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it
was a big animal!"
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And this one is NOT amusing. It was sent
to me from a co-worker as a true story with the strong
suggestion to pass it on to all parents. What better way to disseminate
info like this than via a web site.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ALL
PARENTS !!!!!
Even if you do not have little kids pass this one
on to everyone you can think of. You never know who you
might save by sending this email! Please take the
time and forward this to any friend who has children
& grandchildren!
I wanted to share something that happened today while
shopping at Sam's club.
A mother was leaning over looking for meat and turned
around to find her 4yr. old daughter was missing, I was
standing there right beside her, and she was calling her
daughter with no luck. I asked a man who worked at Sam's
to announce it over the loud speaker for Katie.
He did, and let me say he immediately walked
right past me when I asked and went to a pole where there
was a phone. He made an announcement for all the doors and
gates to be locked a code ADAM, so they locked all
the doors at once. This took all of 3 min after I asked
the guy to do this.
They found the little girl 5-mins later in a bathroom
stall. Her head was half shaved, and she was dressed in
her underwear with a bag of clothes, a razor, and wig
sitting on the floor beside her (to make her look
different). Whoever this person was, took the little
girl, brought her into the bathroom, shaved half her head,
undressed her in a matter of less than 10 min. This makes
me shake to no end. Please keep a close eye on your kids
when in big places where it's easy for you to get
separated.
It only took a few minutes to do all of this--another 5
minutes and she would have been out the door...I am still
in shock some sick person could do this, let alone in a
matter of minutes...The days are over when our little ones
could run rampant all over the place and nothing worse
would happen than them annoying people. The little girl is
fine. Thank God for fast workers who didn't take any
chances. |
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