I've been watching various "celebrity" reports this past week about Bruce Jenner . His name always gets my attention because a company I worked for once sponsored race cars that he drove.
A little background is in order.
Bruce Jenner came to worldwide attention when he won the Gold Medal in the Men's Decathalon (10 event track & field trial) at the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal.
His smiling face was soon featured on every Wheaties cereal box in the USA.
Along the way, Bruce divorced his first wife and married the long-time girlfriend of Elvis Presley. The past few years Jenner has been best known as the husband of Kris Jenner... the one time Kris Kardashian and mother to the daughters of Keeping Up With the Kardashians fame.. or infamy.
Back in 1984-1986, I was Motorsports Coordinator for Dallas, Texas-based Southland Corporation and its family of brands, including 7-Eleven, CITGO and Chief Auto Parts.
My prime interest was the stock car program featuring Kyle Petty and Derrike Cope. However, we had a lot of deals going, including drag racing, Indy cars, unlimited hydroplanes, and TransAm and IMSA racing.
The car program sponsorships were all being done in conjunction with Ford Motor Company. We sponsored the Zakspeed/Roush Ford Probe GTP car in IMSA races and also the Roush Prototype and Roush Racing Mustangs in IMSA GTO.
It was at the 1985 Charlotte IMSA event that I first met Bruce Jenner. He was a rotating co-driver of our 7-Eleven/CITGO GTO Roush entry, usually with Scott Pruett. The IMSA series sponsor at the time was RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company under its Camel cigarette brand.
Charlotte could hardly give away tickets to the sporty car race, even though Camel distributed some 90,000 free tickets.
Jenner spent most of his time riding a bike through the infield and hanging out in one of the new turn one condos bought by a Chief Auto Parts VP, usually the one sublet to Ford's Michael Kranefuss. There the unshaven Jenner complained about everything. He was a total prima donna pain in the butt.
The straw that broke the camel's back... literally... was when RJR's Robertson came to me and said Jenner refused to do a promotional head shot wearing a Camel hat. With 7-Eleven being the country's largest distributor of Camels and Winstons, we quickly explained to the uncooperative Jenner why he needed to cooperate. He finally did, whining all the way.
Exactly one month after Kyle Petty won the first Winston Cup race for 7-Eleven at Richmond in February 1986 (Derrike Cope had already been winning NASCAR Winston West races for us for two years) , Bruce Jenner co-drove the 7-Eleven/CITGO Roush Mustang to a GTO class victory at the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Whereas we all cheered Kyle's win, the same wasn't true for Jenner. Some people are just hard to like.
With the completion of the Rolex 24 at Daytona this past weekend, it seemed somewhat ironic to me that Bruce Jenner was once again in the news. Seems he has been getting medical assistance to puff out his lips and other areas. Rumor has it he'll announce a "transformation" on national television this coming week.
Two phrases come to mind... "only his hairdresser knows for sure (paraphrased)" and "you can't tell the drivers without a program."
Back in the 60's, FoMoCo used the ad campaign "Ford has a Better Idea." With Jenner in its race cars, it did not, IMHO.
Now lets move on to stock cars at Daytona!
--
"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/16/16 07:54:05AM