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Bootleg breakdown Fight to curb counterfeit Earnhardt goods a daunting task
By Mike Fish, CNNSI.com CONCORD, N.C. -- As the early morning clouds break, Joe Hedrick and Chris Williams huddle in a motor coach, surrounded by colorful trailers selling souvenirs from popular NASCAR drivers in a lot across from Lowe's Motor Speedway. Almost four months have passed since racing icon Dale Earnhardt was killed at Daytona, and the two business friends are busy fending off bootleggers, folks quick to make a buck pushing unauthorized Earnhardt stuff. Hedrick is director of licensing for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI). Williams oversees track sales for Action Performance Companies, which holds trademark and merchandising rights to more than 20 of NASCAR's leading drivers -- including Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Jeff Gordon. Hustling counterfeit T-shirts and reports of trademark infringement aren't new to NASCAR, where drivers have their individual line of goods much like a NFL franchise or college athletic program. But it's been off the charts since Earnhardt's death, with anything bearing his name or the black No. 3 in huge demand and often at inflated prices.
An estimated $20 million of Earnhardt product, alone, has been sold illegally since February. By year's end, the figure could top $100 million, Hedrick predicts. To date, the family hasn't authorized any products that memorialize Earnhardt's passing. And yet, you've probably seen the stickers and decals as you've driven down the highway. Or the T-shirt that reads: "Gone forever, 1951-2001." "Every inch of it is bootlegged and illegal," Hedrick contends. "People are taking advantage of a situation." Two weeks after the fatal crash, Williams confiscated more than 1,000 T-shirts from independent vendors working the grounds outside the track in Las Vegas, lugging the shirts in large black plastic bags. It's been a similar scene at almost every Winston Cup stop. But the most productive bust came in mid-March at Darlington, S.C. As Williams recreates the scene, circling above in a Bell-407 helicopter borrowed from Rusty Wallace ("Rusty said, 'go get 'em'"), you can imagine DEA agents scouring the Darlington grounds for drug dealers or hardened criminals. Here, you had rumors of a lot of product about to hit the streets. You had an eye-in-the-sky operation, complete with photographs being snapped from the helicopter. "We flew around looking for different people we heard had some product," Williams recalls. "We actually saw two cars that African-Americans were in, and we landed the helicopter. Sure enough, they had about 1,000 shirts in each car. We confiscated them and got people at the racetrack to arrest them and stuff. "That afternoon, after the race, it broke loose. There were probably 45-50 people walking around with black bags and selling. We took our vendors out of the trailers, took racetrack personnel, state police, private detectives ... before it was over, we had 17 in handcuffs. That's because we only had 17 people there that had handcuffs. And we had another 15-20 people sitting on the ground. "We had fans helping us gather these guys. We had a fan cut a guy's tire so he couldn't get away." The rogue entrepreneurs aren't just costing the Earnhardt folks, though the late driver accounts for more than half of all merchandise sold. Dick Paysor, business manager for Rusty Wallace, has registered the driver's likeness and marks, essentially making Rusty Wallace a registered trademark. But that can't prevent someone with a computer and good color printer from selling Rusty Wallace T-shirts and hats from the back of his pickup. "In a few cases, we've even found some of our own manufacturers hurting us," Paysor said. "Let's say we order a run of 10,000. They'll make a run of 13,000. Then, send us the 10,000 and take the other 3,000 and sell them out the back door to some guy in Roanoke, Va. The next thing, you find them in a convenience store. "We prosecuted guys like that, but they open in another name and entity and off they go again." DEI and Action Performance have only pressed charges against four people in recent months, opting simply to confiscate the goods for a promise to desist. The bulk of counterfeit goods, they believe, originate primarily in California, Florida and Pennsylvania. "The people at the racetracks are generally locals hired to move it," Hedrick said. "Ninety percent of them don't know what the hell they're doing. You tell them it's illegal and give them an option of turning it in and giving a deposition, and they generally do it. They don't want any part of it." With some instances of trademark infringement, where commemorative plaques and such are sold via direct mail, the Earnhardt team has purchased the product itself and then turned it over to attorneys to pursue civil action -- either simply to stop the practice or to seek compensation. At racetracks, alone, Earnhardt and Action Performance have at least six people monitoring the vendors for the sale of counterfeit die-cast cars, T-shirts and such merchandise. That often includes private investigators they have under contract. One shirt they stumbled upon before the Coca-Cola 600 here featured Earnhardt under the headline: "Driver on a Mission." The guy selling it turns out to be from Earnhardt's hometown of Kannapolis, N.C., who is the subject of an ongoing civil suit. When the evidence is rushed to the motor coach, no one is overly concerned. The real test for the anti-counterfeit crowd looms in early July when Winston Cup makes its first return to Daytona since the February accident. Of course, the fact that NASCAR is headquartered in Daytona lends some comfort. "The Daytona market is really under control because the [Bill] France family controls the town." Hedrick said. "In fact, all their tracks are policed well."
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