Thursday, April 02, 2009

6611: Gentlemen, Start Your Search Engines…


From USA TODAY…

Magazine’s Obama-NASCAR hoax creates April Fool’s stir

By Larry Marshak, USA TODAY

A Car and Driver April Fool’s hoax on the Web, reporting President Obama had ordered Chevrolet and Dodge out of NASCAR after the 2009 season, turned into a sizzling Internet topic Wednesday.

“Just when we thought we could take a breather from Barack Obama’s wacky policies, he reached across the Atlantic today to drop another one on us,” wrote Sandra Rose at Rightfielders.com. “Naturally, NASCAR fans are outraged.”

Car and Driver later pulled the fake story (which estimated savings of $250 million between the manufacturers) and apologized for “going too far” while noting the magazine “has a proud tradition of irreverent editorial and we amplify that each year with our April Fool’s Day joke.”

The mea culpa wasn’t enough for Denny Darnell, who does public relations for Dodge’s motor sports program. He wrote in an e-mail that “I’ve been in this business more than 30 years and I have never seen a story so irresponsible.”

3 comments:

HustleKnocker said...

I love this! NASCAR can't get right with ethnic fans—or ethnic drivers for that matter. they alienate everyone darker than a suntan and laugh it off as if this is a good thing.

So whaddoo they do now? They go after the pres.

As Bugs Bunny once noted: What a buncha maroons.

kiss my black ads said...

This is a funny show of "some" public sentiment. Don't touch our Nascar. deep.

coffee maker said...

Car and Driver has at least gotten a lot of publicity for their Nascar April Fool's stunt; the question is -- is bad publicity better than no publicity at all?