Realtree: Community: Realtree’s Real American Racing Presence

With NASCAR coming to Atlanta Motor Speedway for this weekend’s Kobalt Tools 500 race, one would think that trading paint, racing hard, and taking the checkered flag would be foremost on the mind of Ryan Newman.

After all, Newman, the newly crowned 2008 Daytona 500 champ, is very much in contention for the NASCAR Sprint Cup series lead, coming to Atlanta only 41 points out of first place after finishing in the “Top 10” in two of the year’s first three races.

But would you believe that as much as thoughts of another trip to “Victory Lane” are in Newman’s mind, so too is the gobble of a spring longbeard?

That much seems apparent after a visit by Realtree founder and CEO Bill Jordan to Newman’s pit stall just prior to the beginning of this year’s Daytona 500.

“I talked to Ryan right before the actual race started at his car and we were talking hunting (as much as racing),” Jordan said. “I told him that we would get together at Atlanta to map out a turkey hunt and a fishing trip.

Jordan, whose February chat with Newman came on a morning when the driver would become a part of NASCAR racing’s storied history later in the day with a last lap victory at the 50th Great American Race, said that “…Ryan is a good outdoorsman.”

Just like many of his other NASCAR competitors.

Such truth makes Realtree’s highly visible trackside presence at NASCAR events for a number of years easy to understand.

That visible presence includes the following:

• The company began its NASCAR run as an associate sponsor on Mike Skinner’s #31 Chevy.

• Realtree was the primary sponsor for Dave Marcis’ #71 Chevy prior to his retirement from racing in 2002.

• The company was an associate sponsor on the late Dale Earnhardt’s legendary #3 Chevy from 1997 to his untimely death in the 2001 Daytona 500.

• Realtree is and has been an associate sponsor on Kevin Harvick’s #29 Chevy since 2001.

• The company was the primary sponsor on the Richard Childress Racing owned #21 Chevy, driven by former Cup champ Bobby Labonte, in the NASCAR Nationwide Series' Camping World 300 race at Daytona last month.

• Realtree has been a sponsor for Kerry Earnhardt, son of the late Dale Earnhardt, in a number of races.

• Realtree’s camouflage racing apparel ranks very high on the list of trackside sales.

• And finally, Realtree is finishing production for the second season of its highly successful ESPN Outdoors’ television show “Driven to Hunt” that will feature NASCAR drivers, owners, and other racing personalities this fall.

“Our presence is well known,” Jordan said.

That well-known presence is important not just from a business standpoint as it elevates Realtree’s brand recognition among outdoorsmen and race fans, it’s also important to help send a positive message about hunting and the outdoors.

“It legitimizes hunting in the eyes of a non-hunter,” said Realtree’s Dodd Clifton. “To see Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart (involved in the outdoors), people see them in a different light.

By involving well known people including Hollywood celebrities, musicians, NASCAR drivers, and other sporting personalities, Clifton said that the hunting pastime has been put in a more favorable light in recent years among the general public.

“It helps to put hunting in front of other people that aren’t otherwise exposed to it,” he said.

That exposure – and Realtree’s NASCAR presence – will continue to be highly visible throughout the remainder of the 2008 racing season.

In addition to continuing to be an associate sponsor on Harvick’s #29 Chevy, other plans are unfolding for additional Realtree appearances in the Sprint Cup series as well as plans to sponsor Bobby Labonte’s #21 Chevy a few more times on the Nationwide circuit.

Such efforts will not only benefit Jordan and Realtree, but it will also allow the Columbus, Ga. company to bring aboard a number of its key licensees such as Bad Boy Buggies, Dri Duck apparel, and Evolved Habitats, to help them get their first taste of the NASCAR sponsorship experience.

It will also help to serve as a launching pad for Jordan and his company to promote the Chevy Silverado pickup as the “official ride of Team Realtree” in commercials featuring Jordan and longtime friend and racing owner Richard Childress.

Other key NASCAR partnerships – including a possible one with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – are also in the making as the connection between America’s favorite camouflage and America’s favorite racing sport continues to grow.

To fully appreciate Realtree’s lofty place in NASCAR racing today, it is necessary to understand that it all began in an innocent manner a number of years ago, ironically enough, on a deer hunt in Alabama.

“Bill went over to Montgomery years ago to the Buckmasters hunt that they have every January during the rut,” Clifton said. “He met a couple of NASCAR drivers there including Davy Allison. They started a friendship and that turned into an eventual business relationship and the promotion of trackside memorabilia.”

When Allison was killed in a Talladega helicopter crash in July 1993, Clifton said that Jordan eventually sold his interest in the business.

But try as he might, Bill couldn’t get away from NASCAR.

“Through various connections, Bill kept meeting drivers,” Clifton said. “He met Richard Childress somewhere in that process. He (Childress) loved to hunt and the next thing you know, Realtree had helped to sponsor the Mike Skinner car. That led to the sponsorship of the Dave Marcis car and eventually, an associate sponsorship of Dale Earnhardt’s #3 Chevy Monte Carlo SS.”

As important as the business side of things were for Jordan, it was the passion for the outdoors that people like Childress, Earnhardt, and Allison shared with the Realtree CEO that helped to put everything into place.

“What got me involved with those guys was that they liked what I did,” Jordan said. “Deer hunting was a common bond that we all had together.

“Those memories, especially with Davy and Dale, all of the good times we had together, the fact that they were good personal friends, and the good times we had on hunts, it’s all very special to me,” he added.

The growing connection between Jordan and the blossoming sport of NASCAR racing has a common thread – and a camouflage thread, at that – according to Clifton.

“Bill would see camo at the track, so he knew they were hunters,” Clifton said.

That they were – and continue to be, I might add.

Realtree’s highly successful “Driven to Hunt” television show on ESPN2 last fall gives plenty of proof to that statement.

“We came up with the concept (for the show) and thought let’s leverage our NASCAR relationship by inviting top name drivers, pit crew guys, team members, and owners to hunt with us as we film them trackside, then take the cameras into the woods to film their hunts,” said Realtree’s John Skrabo.

In the show’s inaugural season, episodes featured a New Mexico elk hunt with NASCAR announcer Jeff Hammond; a spring turkey hunt with 11-time NASCAR winner Kevin Harvick; crew chief Tony Eury, Sr. on an Oklahoma whitetail hunt; Richard Childress on a Roosevelt elk hunt; and former driver Jeff Green on a Kentucky whitetail hunt.

How successful was the first year of “Driven to Hunt”?

Well, let’s just say that there is no shortage of candidates for this fall’s episodes!

“It accomplished everything we wanted to do,” Jordan said. “Viewers get to see these guys in a whole different light – they get to see these guys kicked back and enjoying the outdoors just like they do.

“These (NASCAR) people say they are outdoorsmen (and that) they enjoy the outdoors experience.

“They enjoyed it, they like it, they endorse it, and they want to do it again.”

Take Kevin Harvick, the 2007 Daytona 500 champion, for instance.

As a result of their business relationship and budding friendship, Jordan has helped to spawn a passion in Harvick for turkey hunting in the spring and big game hunting in the fall.

“Being at the race last year with Kevin and Richard, being in Victory Lane, and getting our pictures made there – for Tyler and (me), those are special memories,” Jordan said.

What are Harvick’s best memories from ’07?

You might be surprised.

“He’ll tell anybody that when he shot his (first) elk, it was the most adrenaline filled moment in his life,” Jordan said of the September 2007 elk hunt in Utah that he shared with Harvick.

Mind you, Harvick isn’t the only NASCAR driver with a burgeoning passion for the outdoors.

When Bill, Tyler, and other Realtree personalities showed up at various Sprint Cup drivers’ garages last month in Daytona, it didn’t take long for the conservation to take a decided turn to places where the smell of gasoline, oil, and burnt rubber are not in the air.

“At Daytona, none of these guys wanted to talk about racing – they all wanted to talk about hunting,” Skrabo said.

“Driven to Hunt’ is kind of the buzz of NASCAR right now,” Skrabo added. “It’s the longest season in sports, running February through November, and that’s a brutal schedule and these guys are dying to do something else.”

Especially when that “something else” actually involves donning Realtree camouflage, getting in the woods before the cameras, and hunting with Bill Jordan to chase spring turkeys, bull elk, and rutting whitetails.

While the fall 2008 episodes haven’t been completely finalized, Realtree production editors are working hard on footage involving hunts with Jordan and such NASCAR names as Dale Earnhardt, Jr; Tony Stewart; Martin Truex; Clint Bowyer; Bobby Labonte; and Kevin Harvick to name a few.

When all of the final cuts have hit the proverbial film room floor and each “Driven to Hunt” episode is complete, it will continue to help cement the amazing combination of America’s favorite camouflage pattern, Realtree, with America’s favorite racing sport, NASCAR.

And you can take that fact all the way to Victory Lane – with a Team Realtree camouflage cap on, of course.