When eventual 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson was preparing for his Indianapolis 500 attempt in May, he put on a headset to do an interview with the Fox Sports booth.<\/p>\n
Inside the commentary box was a guest \u2014 Larson\u2019s fellow Cup Series competitor Joey Logano \u2014 who had flown to Indianapolis to watch that day\u2019s practice session.<\/p>\n
But when the booth announcers welcomed Larson into the program and asked him a question, Larson first had a question of his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just curious if Joey is getting some DAP points today,\u201d Larson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDAP\u201d is short for NASCAR\u2019s Driver Ambassador Program, which recently concluded its first season with successful results. Modeled off a now-defunct PGA Tour program, NASCAR incentivized drivers to promote stock car racing in scores of media appearances by creating a points structure and payment plan.<\/p>\n
Logano won the first half of the DAP competition \u2014 pocketing a cool $1 million in June \u2014 and Ross Chastain won the second half, taking home the same prize. Drivers were paid out at every position rather than it being a winner-take-all program and found themselves almost as competitive with each other as they were on the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely, maybe,\u201d Logano responded to Larson\u2019s televised question that day in May.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not fair, NASCAR!\u201d Larson replied, looking into the camera. \u201cThat\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
The public exchange about a relatively private system underscored one reason the program worked so well. Drivers and their representatives each had access to an app that showed an updated scoreboard in real time, and the wide-open nature of race car drivers meant some went to great lengths to either score more points or try to keep their plans secret from the others (to avoid spurring their DAP rivals do more promotion in response).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tremendously moved the needle for me, personally,\u201d Brad Keselowski said. \u201cYou have to make a lot of sacrifices to be a part of the sport, whether that\u2019s on the competition side or the promotional side, and you just want to feel like it matters.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The DAP) has some short-term effects that are positive, but more so has significant long-term healthy effects for the sport I\u2019m proud to see us undertake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keselowski said he felt that way in part because of past experiences. When he won the Cup Series title in 2012, he went out to do countless unpaid appearances on behalf of NASCAR without so much as a thank-you or acknowledgment for his efforts, he said. He became \u201ctotally disenfranchised, totally disconnected\u201d with wanting to promote NASCAR as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not healthy, and that needed to change,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201c(DAP repaired) drivers\u2019 willingness to work to promote the sport, and NASCAR\u2019s willingness to reward them for that was sorely missing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny what a bit of money will motivate people to do. Keselowski and Kyle Busch, longtime rivals dating back to the late 2000s, appeared together in a NASCAR-produced, cinema-quality \u201cBack to the Future\u201d skit to promote Homestead-Miami Speedway\u2019s return to the season finale slot in 2026.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Seeing the two put aside their bad blood to crack jokes and exchange high-fives in the skit was jarring, but as Busch explained it: \u201cDAP program, let\u2019s just leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drivers earned one point for each 15 minutes spent promoting NASCAR, but they were given multipliers based on a variety of factors (the biggest names earned more multipliers). And NASCAR\u2019s internal numbers, provided to The Athletic, show drivers responded in a significant way: Nearly four million earned media mentions for the drivers who participated in the program, which was up 17 percent over last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is huge for us,\u201d NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps said. \u201cThey\u2019re building our brands. They are the face of NASCAR. The more opportunities we give to them, the more opportunities they step up and take, the better it is for the growth of this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, drivers spent more than 6,300 hours promoting NASCAR this year. That included hits as diverse as \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show\u201d (Larson and Busch), \u201cSesame Street\u201d (Bubba Wallace) and \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d (Logano).<\/p>\n
While the financial benefits were a plus, some drivers said the DAP program went beyond the monetary motivation by creating opportunities they might not otherwise receive. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who drives for a smaller, single-car organization at Hyak Motorsports, said NASCAR\u2019s promotional group secured various appearances at sporting events a team like his might not be able to get on its own.<\/p>\n
In Phoenix before the season finale, for example, seven drivers attended the Phoenix Suns game and were shown on the scoreboard to promote NASCAR\u2019s presence in town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose fans aren\u2019t used to seeing NASCAR drivers coming to events like that,\u201d Stenhouse said. \u201cBut when I first got into the sport, the Cup guys were everywhere and it was huge. \u2026 When you walk around and people are stopping you at sporting events, we want to get back to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In total, NASCAR\u2019s data shows 5,569 driver opportunities were completed in 2025 \u2014 58 percent of those being NASCAR or racetrack requests and 42 percent driver-generated submissions. It\u2019s no wonder Christopher Bell called it \u201cthe busiest year of my life, being out\u00a0and traveling and trying to promote the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, the extra effort felt worth it to the drivers \u2014 and so did the incentive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny how that stuff works,\u201d Ryan Blaney said. \u201cIf you get the option to make money going and taking time out of your week to go do stuff, you\u2019re probably going to go do it. And if you don\u2019t want to do it, fine. You weren\u2019t mandated to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you said yes to a lot of things or go find some stuff on your own \u2026 then that\u2019s on you, and you can do it. So it was good, and I\u2019m happy to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Top five finishers<\/p>\n
First half
Joey Logano
Kyle Larson
Ryan Blaney
Ross Chastain
Daniel Su\u00e1rez<\/p>\n
Second half
Chastain
Logano
Su\u00e1rez
Christopher Bell
Kyle Busch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When eventual 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson was preparing for his Indianapolis 500 attempt in May,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,12716,634,82,575],"class_list":["post-282478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}