NASCAR can get weird with celebrities in the mix

“When you’re dealing with celebrities,” Jeff Motley says, “you just never know what might happen.”

While that’s a truism in any walk of life, Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s vice president of communications is speaking specifically about wrangling famous faces for a trio of positions — grand marshal, anthem singer and pace car driver — on race days.

Take the 2010 Shelby American.

Given that his name was on the race, it made perfect sense for Carroll Shelby to serve as grand marshal. Fifteen years prior, the automotive legend had signed on as the first tenant of the industrial park at the under-construction speedway.

Then, Kim Kardashian decided to use the race to launch her first perfume by sponsoring Mike Bliss in the pink No. 36 Kim Kardashian Fragrance Chevrolet. She, too, was named grand marshal by someone who wasn’t aware of the plans for Shelby.

After some behind-the-scenes drama, the race ended up with co-grand marshals, each of them a superstar in their own worlds with almost zero crossover appeal. On race day, Robin Leach introduced Kardashian as “America’s sweetheart,” and Shelby did the “Gentlemen, start your engines” honors. The sight of the 87-year-old Shelby with the reality star, who wore a racing suit that rivaled Adrienne Barbeau’s in “The Cannonball Run,” was one of the sport’s great odd-couple moments. A photo of the two hung outside Motley’s office for years.

Say what?

Leach, the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” legend, handled driver introductions for six or seven years. That was at the insistence of the motor sports mogul who owned the track.

“Bruton Smith just loved Robin,” says Chris Powell, the speedway’s president and general manager. “He just got the biggest kick out of him.”

Each year, Motley would sit with Leach, Powell says, and “go over these phonetic pronunciations of Travis Kvapil, or whoever it might be, so Robin could get it all dialed in.”

In addition to Kvapil, the 2005 UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 also included the potentially phonetically challenging names Bobby Labonte, Joe Nemechek, Randy LaJoie and Kasey Kahne. Leach was doing fine until he got to Morgan Shepherd, of all people.

The driver, a very religious man, didn’t have a full-time sponsor that season. Some weekends, including this one, he’d drive with the words “Racing With Jesus” on the hood of his car. Motley never thought to add sponsors to the cheat sheet, so Leach introduced Shepherd as the driver of the “Racing With Hay-soos” Dodge.

From then on, Motley went over every word Leach was expected to say.

Say what, again?

In more misadventures behind the microphone, singer Robert Goulet had a bit of a troubled history with the national anthem. Before the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight in 1965, Goulet famously botched the lyrics, singing “dawn’s early night” and, according to newspaper reports at the time, “gave proof through the fight.”

After a successful anthem performance at the 2001 Sam’s Town 300, Goulet tackled the song again before the 2004 UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400. Things were timed so as soon as he hit “home of the brave,” the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds would fly overhead. That may not have been enough of a warning for Goulet.

Sure enough, the jets flew over, the song was finished and, without lowering the microphone, Powell recalls, “He said, ‘That scared the (expletive) outta me.’ And it went out over the sound system.”

Interesting development

While those examples became the stuff of local racing legend, remembered fondly for years to come, some surprises actually turned out well.

As the 2014 Kobalt 400 approached, three or four grand marshals had fallen through. No one had been locked in by the middle of race week. Then Motley heard actor Jonathan Goldsmith, best known as The Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials, would be attending the race as a guest of one of the teams.

“So, we said, ‘Hey, guess what buddy? You’re saying “Drivers start your engines.” ’ ”

It went off without a hitch.

Setting the pace

Then there was the time when, to celebrate the Raiders’ pending move to Las Vegas, Motley reached out to the team in search of a pace car driver for the 2019 South Point 400. Unlike last year, when the race fell on the team’s bye weekend and wide receiver Davante Adams was able to do it, they’d need to get a former player.

Motley never could’ve imagined that, on an alumni questionnaire, former running back Marshawn Lynch had written “driving a pace car at a NASCAR race” as one of his bucket list items. He even canceled a planned trip to Hawaii to cross it off that list.

Lynch had been known to be on the prickly side. Four years earlier, he famously responded to every question during his Super Bowl XLIX media availability with a variation of “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.” But he showed up early on race day, exchanged helmets with Kyle Busch and was interviewed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. — whose father, Lynch told Motley, was one of his heroes — live on NBC.

The experience couldn’t have gone smoother.

“He was over the moon about it from the time that we first talked to him about it all the way up through the race,” Motley says. “He had a smile on his face the whole day.” ◆