Senator John McCain spoke critically about the survival of Chyrsler at a press conference during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. (Photo: Getty Images)

The goal, of course, is to win. But the way Gilles talked, there is more than just winning that makes the NASCAR program beneficial.

“Being there is half the battle and how you present it, how you feature it,” Gilles said. “On our Web site, there isn’t enough presence of NASCAR. I’d like to see more of it on the Web and connect our racing and our commercial side together.”

Gilles added that he didn’t see a formula that could show that NASCAR is not effective.

“If you can get your product in front of that many eyeballs, you can’t go wrong,” Gilles said. “Even though it’s not as measurable, it’s definitely just as beneficial as a car commercial for us. The trick is for us to be winning, to be up front, to get our name out there.

“A big part of it is business, but the whole thing is a business. But a lot of it is passion, too.”

One part that’s business related is trying to create race cars that resemble passenger vehicles. Gilles said he is happy with the new Challenger that will be run in the Nationwide Series in four races next season as part of that series’ new car rollout.

“I would like to see over the next, maybe, four or five years, we see that [manufacturer identity] happen on Sundays,” Gilles said in reference to Sprint Cup cars.

And Gilles addressed U.S. Senator John McCain’s comments at the Cup race at Phoenix last month that the government shouldn’t have bailed out the auto industry and “the unions didn’t want to have their very generous contracts renegotiated so we put $80 billion into both General Motors and Chrysler, and anybody [who] believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I’d like to meet them.”

Gilles response: “Stay tuned. He’ll be eating humble pie.”

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