All football fans have a beer belly, and all baseball fans have a farmer's tan, but perhaps no one has been more prone to stereotyping than a NASCAR fan -- a white male, in his thirties, who speaks with a slow, southern drawl.

	NASCAR would like to see a speedway added to the redevelopment plan of the Meadowlands Sports Complex.

NASCAR might be changing that perception.

Born out of the desire of bootleggers of the 1920s and early '30s to to occupy themselves during the day, NASCAR long had enjoyed unparalleled popularity in small southern towns like Daytona Beach, Fla., Talladega, Ala., and Bristol, Tenn., before it expanded to tracks on the outskirts of major markets like Atlanta, Kansas City and Phoenix. Today, stock cars roar around superspeedways that are within 50 miles of Los Angeles and little more than 40 miles from Chicago.

Now it has its sights set on the most unlikely of markets -- New York City.

"The tremendous growth is in these urban markets," said Roger VanDerSnick, managing director of brand and consumer marketing for NASCAR. "All our partners, including ISC (International Speedway Corp.) and SMI (Speedway Motorsports Inc.), understand how important previously untapped markets are to our future success, as well as theirs."

Officials at ISC are, not surprisingly, keeping a location near the Big Apple at the top of their priority list. The France family, which owns NASCAR, also has a majority voting share in ISC and its soon-to-president Lesa Kennedy sits on NASCAR's five-member board of directors.

"I think there are great opportunities in larger market areas and we are looking towards that in the future," Kennedy said. "We have been focusing on getting a track in the metro New York area, and over the last three years, we have been particularly interested in a site by the Meadowlands."

Despite pushing hard, ISC hast been unable to gain support for a track in East Rutherford, N.J., just 13 miles from New York City. Three years ago, the organization entered negotiations with the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority (NJSEA), which operates the Meadowlands Sports Complex, and even teamed up with real estate magnate Donald Trump. But many issues, including concerns over funding and the effect of noise levels on the surrounding area, have prevented a speedway from being constructed there.

Scheduling shuffle

The connection between NASCAR and the International Speedway Corp. is a sensitive one. Speedway Motorsports Inc., which operates six tracks and has previously expressed interest in adding another in the New York market, filed a federal lawsuit in February 2002 against NASCAR and ISC for allegedly violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. SMI's Bruton Smith claims he built his Texas Motor Speedway with the promise that the track would have two Winston Cup races each year. NASCAR executives have denied a promise was ever made, but for the past seven years TMS has only had one race, while four of five new NASCAR races have been granted to ISC tracks in Chicago, Fontana, Calif., Homestead, Fla., and Kansas City. Although a trial is scheduled to take place in January, it might not get to that point if NASCAR eliminates second racing dates in Atlanta, Charlotte and Rockingham, N.C. and Darlington, S.C., which each are host to two NASCAR races this year. That would allow a relocation of race dates to include a second race at SMI's track in Fort Worth, Texas, though it remains to be seen if such a scenario would play out. Realignment talks are expected to begin in late April and continue throughout the summer. "It's a complicated process," said Roger VanDerSnick, NASCAR's managing director of consumer and brand marketing. "You have to balance tradition with the responsibility to grow the sport, which will help everyone involved in it."

Last year, ISC proposed a speedway with an 80,000-seat grandstand, but speedway plans were not included as part of the Mills Corporation's winning bid last month to develop a $1.3 billion, 4.8 million-square foot family entertainment and recreation complex at the Continental Arena site.

The winning proposal includes a year-round indoor alpine ski resort, a baseball park and a hotel. Work on the complex was scheduled to begin this summer, but Hartz Mountain Industries, a losing bidder on the project, filed a lawsuit Tuesday and seeks an injunction. Hartz's project did not include a speedway.

NASCAR officials claim one-third of the adult population (75 million people) as its fans and the organization has the second highest-rated regular season sports ratings on television behind the NFL.

However, unlike other major sports leagues that generally started in large cities and expanded to smaller ones, NASCAR's roots began in smaller cities before expanding into larger markets. But with some tracks in smaller markets not filling up all the seats, securing a more lucrative New York location is tempting.

"Being in the major markets defines you as a big-time business," said Max Muhleman, president of IMG/Muhleman Marketing, a Charlotte, N.C.-based sports marketing and facilities consulting firm. "The NFL is the king of leagues and it's clearly concerned about not being in the No. 2 market (Los Angeles). New York would complete NASCAR as far as being a more bona fide national sports organization."

Not only would NASCAR need to garner only a small percentage of one of the nation's most populated areas, but television ratings in the New York market seem to reflect an increased interest in the sport. Fox ratings on its Winston Cup broadcasts are up by more than 15,000 households so far this year and Los Angeles, New York and Chicago represent NASCAR's second, fourth and seventh most popular television markets, respectively, in terms of number of viewers watching its races.

The death of Dale Earnhardt in February 2001 accelerated the interest in NASCAR in non-traditional markets, VanDerSnick said. "After the first five or six races following his death, we expected to see ratings from these markets fall, but the ratings indicated that many people that were on the fringe watched and liked what they saw."

NASCAR's corporate marketing headquarters has been located in New York for the past five years and its annual banquet has been held in New York for more than two decades. New York is also among the top three cities in licensed NASCAR products purchased on NASCAR.com, VanDerSnick said.

Since many corporations are based in New York, NASCAR executives believe the brand is well accepted in the metropolitan area. Corporate America will dish out an estimated $500 million for sponsorships this season.

	Measuring popularity
	Winston Cup TV ratings through last weekend: NEW YORK 2003: 167,492 households 2002: 153,322 households CHICAGO 2003: 154,161 households 2002: 124,348 households LOS ANGELES 2003: 143,586 households 2002: 159,104 households
	Source: Fox Sports

"Key Fortune 500 decision-makers might not completely understand the sport, but they realize that it's probably a place they need to be in to help grow their bottom line," said Brett Yormark, NASCAR's vice president of corporate marketing.

Still, when Chicagoland Speedway opened up three years ago in Joliet, Ill., it was met with skepticism.

"Chicago is a traditional ball-and-stick sports town," said Matthew Alexander, vice president and general manager of the facility. "When we opened, we could not get our calls returned from the media members or businesses. But today, if we call, any company or reporter will meet with us immediately. The turnaround has been tremendous."

In its first year, the speedway sold out all 75,000 tickets to its only NASCAR event, the Tropicana 400, just two days before the green flag dropped. Last year, the sellout came four and half weeks earlier. This year, speedway executives are projecting a sellout will come two months before the event.

"Supermarkets in Chicago weren't all that gung-ho about putting NASCAR stuff in their store," Alexander said. "But once Miller, Tropicana and Pepsi did it and had record sales in the four weeks around our event, they started to believe."

Some say brand acceptance of NASCAR in any area can be gauged by the number of everyday consumer products with driver involvement in local supermarkets.

"In the '50s, it was oil and tire companies. In the '60s, it was car parts and car dealerships. And in the '70s it was guy products like beer and tobacco," said Tom Cotter, managing director of Clear Channel Entertainment/Motorsports, a sports marketing firm. "But once a company like Tide embraced Darrell Waltrip and he appeared on a Tide box in 1988, that really said something about how companies had faith in the broad reach of the sport."

"In supermarkets in New York City, you can now see plenty of NASCAR presence from drivers' images and cars on Kellogg's cereal boxes to bags of M&M's," Yormark said.

Today, the majority of Winston Cup drivers have primary sponsors that aren't even in the car business.

NASCAR already has been working hard on a public relations campaign, which includes trying to get the New York media to devote more coverage to races. Next month, stock cars and drivers will be present at the New York International Auto Show.

But many executives, including those at NASCAR and ISC, believe the curiousity piqued there can turn investment bankers and Wall Street types in business suits into the sport's next generation of fans -- if they have an event to attend in their backyard.

Darren Rovell covers sports business for ESPN.com. He can be reached at darren.rovell@espn3.com.