Scott Woodruff wants your help in growing drag racing. He wants you to tell ten friends about how exciting NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing is and encourage them to tune in to the television broadcasts.

Woodruff, the highly efficient publicist for the Jegs Mail Order team, believes the straight line sport can use word of mouth advertising through the “Tell Ten Friends” initiative as a viable promotion in a challenging economy where entertainment dollars are not as easy to come by.

“It’s a simple point that if you have friends who value your advice, you can make a solid point by advocating drag racing,” said Woodruff.

Woodruff said the goal of the program is to encourage those who aren’t familiar with drag racing to either come out to drag races in their immediate area or either tune in on ESPN2 during the weekend coverage.

Scott Woodruff wants your help in growing drag racing. He wants you to tell ten friends about how exciting NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing is and encourage them to tune in to the television broadcasts.

Woodruff, the highly efficient publicist for the Jegs Mail Order team, believes the straight line sport can use word of mouth advertising through the “Tell Ten Friends” initiative as a viable promotion in a challenging economy where entertainment dollars are not as easy to come by.

“It’s a simple point that if you have friends who value your advice, you can make a solid point by advocating drag racing,” said Woodruff.

Woodruff said the goal of the program is to encourage those who aren’t familiar with drag racing to either come out to drag races in their immediate area or either tune in on ESPN2 during the weekend coverage.

“We have to start planting the seeds of interest,” said Woodruff. “It’s a relatively easy way for those of us who are involved in the sport to bring in a new demographic. I think the more people we let know when we are on television is a good start. Even if we are getting a one or two person increase if we all step up, the end result could be incredible.”

Woodruff said “Tell Ten Friends” was actually born out of frustration.

“You just get tired of hearing talk about what is wrong with our sport and no one does anything to try and fix it,” said Woodruff. “I really don’t think you can complain until you’ve tried to do something to fix it or presented a potential solution. Complaining is wasted energy.”

He was also influenced by learning of friends who had stopped watching the ESPN broadcasts because of Jeggie Coughlin’s absence from Pro Stock.

“They just stopped watching because Jeg wasn’t racing,” said Woodruff. “Those are just the people who know me. They know who I work for, what I do and they know Jeg. That really got me to thinking that people will engage in something they have a vested interested in. Their vested interested is they know the driver and in trying to find out how he did exposes them to the entire sport. What’s that worth?”

Woodruff says his solution is actively implementing word of mouth advertising and challenges the entire community to do the same. He has presented his initiative to many people within drag racing’s inner circle who have planned to pull their part of the load.

“I spent about 30 minutes talking to Shawn Murphy [producer for ESPN2 coverage] and he pointed out how much a one-percent swing could benefit,” said Woodruff. “When we can do this, we can eliminate the need for outside advertising and besides, it’s the word of mouth advertising which can carry more weight. I think it breaks down barriers.”  

Woodruff said he’s enlisted the support of the sport’s leading publicists to help spread the movement to grow the sport. He’s even gotten the NHRA’s social media driving force, Alex Baca, to jump in by providing the latest in television scheduling and revisions.

Elon Werner, public relations director for John Force Racing, is one of those who has joined Woodruff’s movement.

“I love it,” said Werner. “I think anytime we can step up and do what we can to stir the masses, can only help our sport. I think this is the most critical thing we can do to grow our sport. We promote it on our Facebook and Twitter page.”

And in the end, these drag racing loving publicists hope their efforts combined with the race fans efforts can grow the sport.

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