Ginn enters NASCAR only way he knows

He hired 75 new employees, and made plans to expand the 144,000-square-foot shop. He bought two jet airplanes to make travel more convenient, and purchased a seven-post rig to simulate the stresses on a racecar. No wonder his Nextel Cup team nearly won the Daytona 500 in its first time out. Bobby Ginn doesn't know how to do anything on a small scale.

His developments, like the 2,300-acre Reunion Resort near Orlando, Fla., are big. His visions, like a 4,300-acre private ski resort near Vail, Colo., are big. The risks he takes, like an attempt to build up Hilton Head, S.C., that left him nearly bankrupt, are big. His company, which employs 1,500 people and did $2.5 billion worth of business in 2005, is big.

Martin welcome
to race full time

Should Mark Martin get the urge to race for a Nextel Cup championship this season, team owner Bobby Ginn says the veteran can remain in the 01 car.

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So Bobby Ginn, deal-maker and risk-taker extraordinaire, could not tiptoe quietly into NASCAR. He came in the only way he knew how, with a confidence befitting his status as one of the Southeast's pre-eminent real-estate developers, a man with 40,000 acres currently being worked by the bulldozer's blade. He sank cash, people and resources into the team formerly known as MB2 Motorsports, and darn if he didn't almost claim NASCAR's biggest race.

"We've had good, solid finishes there before," Ginn Racing general manager Jay Frye said of Daytona. "We've never finished second. We've never come up three feet short. One of the things this company always needed was an identity, and the opportunity to do some different things. He's certainly provided that."

Mark Martin's narrow loss to Kevin Harvick at Daytona was an auspicious NASCAR debut for Ginn, who last summer purchased an MB2 outfit which always tried to hang with Nextel Cup's big boys despite serious disadvantages in money, sponsorship and personnel. Sure, he grew up a racing fan in the watermelon capital of Hampton, S.C., but the deal was all business. Just as Rick Hendrick started a race team to build brand recognition for his automotive dealerships, Ginn bought one to bring more attention to his resorts.

The advent of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow, which theoretically attempts to level the playing field between the sport's climbers and achievers, made the timing right. What began as a sponsor relationship on an MB2 car driven by Bill Elliot in last year's Daytona 500 grew into an ownership deal, with Ginn managing his new NASCAR team as if he were handling a new golf course or hotel. (Continued)