Well, the 2025 All-Star Race has a load of surprises this year. NASCAR’s annual visit to North Wilkesboro Speedway will witness a slightly extended race, from 200 to 250 laps. The ‘Promoter’s Caution‘ will involve drivers facing an unexpected caution flagged by Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus G. Smith. This added power given to the sport’s higher-ups has already attracted backlash from the NASCAR garage. Now, fans were particularly unimpressed by yet another underwhelming revelation. But this heatwave comes from something deeper.

At the beginning of 2025, SMEE and Ford announced a new partnership for Official Car and Truck at a few NASCAR race weekends. One of these includes the May 15 to 18 weekend excursion to North Wilkesboro. The partnership recently unveiled a sweet ride as the pace car for the All-Star Race. Although there was nothing sensational about it, they spectacularly unveiled the car. Do they think fans would not take notice?

NASCAR’s snazzy new ride for the All-Star event

The historic All-Star Race weekend has a jam-packed schedule this year. The newly condensed 4-race routine also includes the zMAX CARS Tour racing. Added events like live concerts and the NASCAR Pit Crew Challenge mean more eyes on wheels. Accordingly, the higher-ups decided to tickle fans’ visual appetite for the automotive industry. In a collaboration between the National Weather Service and Ford, the official safety car and truck would come from the automobile manufacturer’s fleet. Shedding direct light, the powerful Ford Mustang Dark Horse will serve as the official pace car during the All-Star week. The North Carolina State Highway Patrol will have a specially marked patrol Mustang GT on-site throughout race week that will also help pace the field. Sounds great, right?

Both these vehicles had a grand unveiling ceremony at the 0.625-mile short track on Tuesday. Defending All-Star Race winner Joey Logano and rising Craftsman Truck Series star Jake Garcia were part of this event. North Wilkesboro Speedway‘s official X account posted a video of the event. The two drivers and two NC State Highway Patrol officers helped in unraveling the rain covers of the two vehicles. The Ford pace cars had a sleek blue, grey, and white design with a horse against a blue background. The X post read, “Unleashing the beasts. 🐎🐎🐎 First-look at the 2025 @FordPerformance Mustang Dark Horse, the official pace car of the @NASCAR All-Star Race.” But, you valued reader, can you see the problem here?

The car is nothing new, but exaggerated. Fans have been seeing the car since 2011! How does NASCAR feel this trick could keep fans invested? There has been more excitement per head among fans for the paint scheme reveals of their favorite drivers. To put it into perspective, Team Penske revealed colors for their drivers on their X handle in February 2025, which gathered 826 likes with 25.4K views. However, the North Wilkesboro Speedway reveal has 994 likes with 52.5K views! This clearly shows the disdain of fans. How else would the views be doubled, and likes just be 200-300 more? Even if it looks like Ford is trying to draw eyeballs, their next move makes them the ‘realest safety car’. The manufacturer decided to give 25 powerful Mustang GTs to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.

Honoring this partnership, Public Information Officer Sgt. Chris Knox expressed his enthusiasm about the new rides. He shed light on the long-standing partnership with Ford: “We have Mustangs dating back to 1983, and we’re really proud of that partnership and what that means. We just want to say thank you to NASCAR, which is a longstanding partner of Highway Patrol. We’ve worked with NASCAR for years, and since the race has returned, that partnership has only gotten stronger, along with our partnership with North Wilkesboro Speedway.”

Despite the good feedback that this state official had for NASCAR’s new initiative, the same does not apply to the community. NASCAR fans let out their brutally honest opinions about the new pace cars.

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Fans yawn at the new ‘old’ stock car leader

Well, after all, there was nothing new or sensational about this unveiling. Ford Motor Company’s partnership with SMI has already been trumpeted at other tracks. They are Atlanta, Nashville, and Dover. So revealing the pace car by the same brand for the All-Star Race made a blip on the fans’ radar. One fan wrote, “Oh you mean like how the mustang has been the pace car all year? What are we doing.” Additionally, there was nothing much to ‘unleash’ other than the snazzy color scheme of the pace cars. What is more, the reveal video did not involve any quirky or interesting aspect. Only that 2024 Cup Series champion Joey Logano was there to unveil it, yet Logano whipped up immense controversy in Talladega after his harsh comments against his teammate. So another fan wrote: “What a disappointment. NASCAR marketing SUCKS.”

Another fan deflected the attention to another series altogether. The pace car for the Indianapolis 500 race was also unveiled recently – Chevrolet’s 2025 Corvette ZR1. Pro Football Hall of Fame member and two-time Daytime Emmy Award winner Michael Strahan will be the pace car driver. With its quickest Corvette ever speeds and snazzy arctic white exterior and jet black interior, the fan wrote it might rival NASCAR’s All-Star Race pace car. “It’s okay guys we already had THE pace car announcement today 🗿”

Others continued to discuss how unappealing the announcement was. Ford has not been a dominant force in the 2025 Cup Series season so far. Austin Cindric broke the OEM’s long, drab streak at Talladega Superspeedway. But at the same time, two of his Ford teammates got disqualified due to rear spoiler complications. So, one fan said another Ford announcement is not very impressive at this time. “Boy am I sick of nascar announcements that couldn’t be less important/exciting.” Somebody else took note of the applause that ensued after Joey Logano and others unveiled the cars. The sound of the clapping faded out quite shortly. The comment read, “That was the most awkward clap you could have asked for.”

Evidently, NASCAR’s news for the All-Star Race failed to capture the interest of most fans. Yet as the annual event looms into view, we have other exciting things to look forward to.