NASCAR has figured out art of marketing to women

	Female fans line up for Robby Gordon's autograph. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

The pumps are $239.

They're bright red, have a race flag drawn across the back, kind of stiletto-ish heels and the bright yellow NASCAR logo slapped all over the sole. NASCAR thinks, come August, women will be out in droves buying these high heels.

For $239.

"Every time they come up with one of these things, I think it's the craziest thing I've ever heard," Denise Wood said. "And then... it works."

Back in 1989, Wood was a 21-year old sportswriter in Richmond when her boss asked her to sub in at a Winston Cup race. Though she'd grown up in the shadow of Richmond International Speedway, Wood had never, not once, felt compelled to watch men drive in circles at obscene speeds, and she only relented that night because her editor swore he wouldn't ever send her out there again.

Seventeen years later, Wood's the assistant editor at Racing magazine and an official Bubba's Mama.

That's what one woman on a racing blog very proudly called her fellow female race fans. Really, little about this whole NASCAR thing follows any easily computable logic. Especially when it comes to women.

According to a pair of recent surveys, of NASCAR's 75 million fans 40 percent are women. For every two new NASCAR fans, one of them is a woman. Women will spend $250 million on NASCAR-licensed products this year, and 68 percent of those women say they're only going to become bigger NASCAR fans. And according to Nielsen, women are more likely to flip over to a NASCAR race than any sport outside of football.

An oval track, sometimes a mile, sometimes 2½ miles long. Cars going at 90 miles per hour, sometimes 190 mph. For five hours. The "stars" are hidden under helmets and inside cars. And women are eating this up?

"On some maybe warped levels, there is the danger thing," Wood said, sounding a little unsure. "The heroism of putting your life on the line every Sunday, maybe there are some women that appeals to."