Sponsor loyalties rule decisions like Waltrip's
By David Newton, NASCAR.COM
May 28, 2006
01:02 AM EDT (05:02 GMT)


CONCORD, N.C. -- Rick Hendrick can't remember buying his way into a Cup race as Michael Waltrip did for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600, but he can understand the motivation.

Sponsorship.

"We've got 5,000 Lowe's employees here,'' said Hendrick, who has won the past four points races at Lowe's Motor Speedway with Jimmie Johnson in the Lowe's-sponsored Chevrolet. "This is where these sponsors bring their people to have an event.

"If we didn't make the race it would be a really awkward deal not to have a car in there. I feel [Waltrip's] pain, because I know that would be a disaster for your sponsor.''

What Waltrip did is not much different than when Joe Gibbs Racing made a deal to put the FedEx paint scheme on Bobby Labonte's Interstate Batteries-sponsored car after Jason Leffler failed to qualify for last year's 600 in which FedEx had a powerful corporate presence.

"Ours probably cost a little more than his did,'' J.D. Gibbs, the president of JGR, said jokingly. "The bottom line is the sponsor, you've got to make it work.

"It's a hard, hard situation. Give credit to Michael. He's committed to his sponsor and he sucked it up and paid to make it happen.''

Waltrip made it clear that buying the right to drive Derrike Cope's car was to satisfy NAPA, his primary sponsor, not because he needed to extend his streak of consecutive Cup races to 262.

"We just needed to have the NAPA car on the track,'' Waltrip said. "The story is told that Michael bought his way into the race. Michael got NAPA in the race is what we did.''

Sponsorship always has been a big part of NASCAR. It's how teams pay the estimated $12 million to $18 million it takes to run a Cup team and why NASCAR made a rule where the top-35 teams in owner points are guaranteed a spot in the field.

Waltrip was 36th in owner points, 35th in driver points.

"This is not the way we're going to do business, but if it happens we'll cross that bridge when we get to it,'' said Waltrip, who will field two Toyota teams next season. "If it didn't work out here at Charlotte it isn't the end of the world.''

Rising costs have made keeping sponsors happy increasingly tough. That was evident listening to Waltrip's explanation for buying Cope's spot in the 43-car field.

It also was evident as Hendrick announced a new three-year deal in which Kellogg's and Carquest will be co-primary sponsors, not one primary and one secondary as they have been, on Kyle Busch's car so neither will be left out of a race.

Hendrick said this could be a wave of the future.

"What I'm trying to get away from is when you have paint-outs,'' Hendrick said of changing the entire paint scheme of a car for a sponsor. "Some teams have paint-outs where the sponsor the week before wasn't even on the car.

"This is my first attempt at trying to get two dominant sponsors the same equal billing on one car.''

The paint scheme basically will be the same every week with only the sponsor identity flopping between the hood and quarterpanel.

The biggest difference for the sponsors is neither has to pay as much, but Hendrick still gets all he needs to run the team.

"Kellogg's deal was up this year and we started negotiating and said these are two options: You can have whole car, or this is what it'd cost you as co-primary,'' he said. "They had a little heartburn.

"Not heartburn but the more they looked at it, the more they felt it was the way to go.''

Hendrick said the beauty of the deal is if Busch wins the Daytona 500 with Carquest on the hood, Kellogg's can shoot pictures of the victory celebration from the side and get full exposure for its company.

And vice versa.

"So I think it's going to work out extremely well,'' he said.

Gibbs said he has approached his sponsors about similar deals.

"If you've got companies that match up, it is the best way to go,'' he said.

The difference in Hendrick's deal and one like Richard Childress has with Goodwrench and Reese's is the car is painted black for Goodwrench and orange for Reese's.

But Childress agreed that sponsorship deals such as Hendrick's are the direction the sport is headed.

"It's tough,'' he said of selling sponsorships. "And it's going to be tougher next year [with Toyota coming in].''

Childress said sponsors pay for 60 to 75 percent of the funding for each of his three teams -- the No. 29 of Kevin Harvick, No. 07 of Clint Bowyer and No. 31 of Jeff Burton.

"Then you've got to lean on winnings, earnings, souvenir sales, endorsements,'' he said. "That's where you make up the balance. It's hard to get $18 million in one company.''

But when you do have a top sponsor, keeping it happy as Waltrip did NAPA for the 600 is key.

"The reason why I'm here today and running this race is because of my commitment to NAPA and making sure people understand and realize they're a big part of this sport,'' Waltrip said. "I want to make sure they're well represented in every way I can.

"They looked to me and said, 'What are we going to do now?' I said we're going to race on Sunday night. They said, 'Good, that's what we want to do.'''

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