Hooah, 01!
We’ve got to get him qualifed first. The new superintendent at Fishburne Military School, Col. Roy F. “Rick” Zinser, grew up in Florida just down the road a bit from Daytona, so he knows the drill in NASCAR.
Fishburne has what you might call a rooting interest in the goings-on at Daytona this race weekend, specifically regarding the No. 01 JD Motorsports Chevrolet in Saturday’s Camping World 300.
“Every alumni is excited. The parents and kids are excited. It is a great opportunity to launch a recognition of our 130th year of serving kids and families in our nation. So that exposure can’t hurt, and it’s serving as a rally point around which everybody is celebrating what we’ve done here,” said Col. Zinser, talking about the sponsorship of the 01 car that will have the FMS crest and its “Leadership for Life” slogan making left turns and straightaway runs at Daytona International Speedway in Saturday’s Nationwide Series race.
How the one-time sponsorship came to be is “serendipity,” said Zinser, who took over the reins as superintendent at Fishburne on Feb. 1. “The sponsor that was going to sponsor Mike dropped out, and they happen to have a long-term relationship with a board member, and they’d talked about it previously, and it sparked something in Mr. Wallace’s memory, and he talked to our board member, and as they say, the rest is history,” Zinser said.
Wallace said this week that the sponsorship deal is “just as exciting for them as it is for us.” “I’m just hoping we can do them proudly and represent them well on the track. Heck, why not go out there and shock the world with a win – its Daytona baby!” Wallace said.
Zinser has a similar thought in mind.
“I’ve got a mixed emotion. I hope Mr. Wallace is going slowly enough around the track so that people can see the car, and I want him to be in the lead. So I don’t know how all that works. Maybe a yellow flag once he gets in the lead so he has to slow down. And then some doughnuts in the infield to celebrate the win,” Zinser said.
Programming Note
- A profile of Col. Roy F. “Rick” Zinser will run in the AFP on Monday.
- Story by Chris Graham
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Too bad Fishburne’s real website is Fishburne.org not Fishburne.com
Good point, Fred. I asked the folks at FMS about that, and they’ve said that the mistake there is being corrected and will be corrected before the race. Good catch!
Col. Zinser is also wrong when he stated “Every alumni is excited. The parents and kids are excited.” I’ve talked to a few alumni and they thought there could be a lot better things they could have done with the money. Great for advertising but does nothing to help the kids, teachers, faculty, or old buildings of Fishburne. It would be interesting to know how parents that send their children to Fishburne really feel about it.
Another perspective – filling up the barracks and getting more day students would help the kids, teachers, faculty and old buildings. And marketing is a way to fill up the barracks. From talking with Col. Zinser, the school is operating at about 70 percent capacity for full-time students and is well under capacity for day students.
I don’t know that it’s a guarantee that sponsoring a Nationwide Series car is going to lead to a flood of applications next week or next month or even next year. My experience tells me that marketing doesn’t work that way. It also tells me that one way to guarantee that you don’t grow your numbers is to continue doing what has been done over and over and over and hoping against hope that what hasn’t been working finally does.
Update – Mike Wallace finished 19th in the race. He finished on the lead lap.
Update-
Mike Wallace and the No. 01 Fishburne Military
School Chevrolet of JD Motorsports had an eventful day at Daytona International
Speedway on Saturday.
Starting 28th, the three-time DIS winner of Wallace radioed in very early the car’s nose was
sliding pretty bad in the turns. With that information, crew chief Ricky Viers
and team made massive changes in the air pressure, track bar, fender and chassis
areas to get the car’s handling better through two pit stops.
It seemed to work as Wallace went from 32nd on lap 50 to end up running in the
top-10 with less than 10 laps remaining. Aided by a pit strategy that put him
on a different rotation than almost everyone else earlier in the race, Wallace
used his superspeedway prowess to maintain a top-20 running position.
Utilizing that same pit strategy by staying out, when others hit pit road for fresher
tires, left Wallace seventh for a lap 113 restart. It quickly became apparent the
cars behind him with fresher tires were going to be a handful. Staying out of
harm’s way and still battling for position, Wallace came across in 19th place for
his one-race deal with JD Motorsports.
Mike Wallace How was your race:
“Our car was really tight all day long. We did everything we could to free it up.
Finally, on the second-to-last run we had a caution and stayed out. If we would
have been on equal terms (fresh tires) with everyone else, we might have had a
top-15 or better finish. It was just an average day, but we brought the car home in
one piece and straight.
“If you take a look at the cars that finished in front of us, we did a pretty good job for
this race. I’m not going to jump up and down and be thrilled about it because
we all want to go to victory lane. The good part is we did the best we could;
we all did and you can’t ask for much more than that from everyone.”
Working with JD Motorsports with Fishburne on board:
“I want to thank Johnny Davis and everyone at JD Motorsports for putting this deal
together with Fishburne Military School. It was a one-race deal and I’m looking
for a ride right now, but it was great we were able to make the race for their
sakes and have a good showing. I hope everyone at Fishburne enjoyed watching
their car in the race at Daytona.”
Fred, are you a graduate by chance? Let me clear up a couple of items. None of the money came from the normal annual fund or operational budget. This past weekend around 80 sets of parents attended Winter Parent’s Weekend. Not a single parent expressed any concern about the issue. The bottom line is increasing name recognition, leading to filling the beds which leads to money to increase salaries, staffing and improve facilities. I would hope any graduate with concerns would contact Colonel Zinser. I am sure he would appreciate their input and their support of the school.