Pepsi 300 - Stanton Barrett Notes

Barrett Has Nashville, Not Movies, On His Mind
‘Dukes Of Hazzard’ due out in summer,
But stunt man thinking NASCAR, Saturday race

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – With his new movie Dukes Of Hazzard due to be released sometime this summer, Stanton Barrett has his eyes on more immediate things right now – especially Saturday’s NASCAR Busch Series stock car race at the 1.33-mile Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.

Barrett is driving the #36 DCT Motorsports Chevrolet this season, which is owned by John McGill and his wife, Nancy. The couple is the first car owners from Cleveland, Ohio, in the history of NASCAR’s top two racing divisions. McGill is a major real estate developer; Barrett an award-winning stunt man from Hollywood.

The two are working together to continue building DCT Motorsports, which has evolved into a full-time NASCAR Busch Series team, one of the few new full-schedule teams in the series the past few seasons. They are not only growing in a competitive sense on the track but also in the development of sponsorship opportunities for corporations.

“This is a phenomenal organization, and there is a tremendous amount of potential here,” said Barrett, who has a great deal of racing and marketing experience.

“John and (crew chief) Ricky Pearson are very dedicated to the program, just like I am,” Barrett said. “There is a lot of experience here – racing and marketing – and a lot of desire to make this work for everyone.”

One of those ways is utilizing Barrett’s Hollywood connections with team sponsors. Coming from a family known as the “Earnhardts of stunts” in Hollywood, Barrett has a multitude of ways to incorporate team sponsorship. The release of Dukes Of Hazzard this summer – starring Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds and Willie Nelson, among others – will bring a tremendous amount of attention to Barrett and the team.

In addition, McGill’s business-to-business acumen would work well in a variety of ways for sponsors.

“John, Ricky and myself are known for doing whatever it takes to make sponsorships work,” Barrett said. “That attitude is the key to making it work for everybody. You look at John’s background or mine or Ricky’s . . . everything we have done in this sport has been with that attitude. That’s the only way to make sponsorship work the way it should but, believe it or not, is not a common attitude in the garage.”

On the track, the team is growing as well.

“We are growing in a smart way, and more of the equipment you need to run competitively is getting to us,” Barrett said. “Hendrick Motorsports does our over-the-wall pit crew. We have a great engine program with Fisher Engineering. We have some really good people working on the cars, and it’s starting to show up on the race track.

“Everyone here is very dedicated to making this as good a program as we can possibly make it,” he continued, “and that dedication is going to really show. Ricky Pearson has a lot of experience winning races and championships, and his family legacy is among the top in the sport. John McGill is a great businessman and has a highly successful real estate development business, and his showing that excellence in the building of DCT Motorsports.

“This is a race team going some pretty great places, and a tremendous opportunity for a potential sponsor.”

McGill, meanwhile, has developed sponsorship packages that could incorporate the full remainder of the season or blocks of races. Utilizing his own business and marketing acumen, McGill brings creative and fresh approaches not just to team sponsorship itself but areas such as hospitality, cross-promotions and business-to-business possibilities.

An award-winning stunt man from Hollywood, Barrett has appeared in well over 100 movies – including the soon-to-be-released Dukes Of Hazzard, Spiderman II and others – as well as hundreds of television shows and commercials. Barrett, who is also running some NASCAR Nextel Cup Series events again this season, has been driving since he was 16 years old, and has competed on the highest levels of NASCAR racing. He is a native of Bishop, Calif., and is well known not just in Hollywood but also in motorsports.