Sponsor Wars

The sponsor wars are heating up as we head into the second half of the season in preparation for the much ballyhooed 'Chase for the Championship.'

I happened to notice a few weeks ago when Robby Gordon was being interviewed by a television crew that the Nextel Series insignia on his driver's uniform was blacked out. The usual colors of bright yellow and black were matted over with a dark grey. Why? Robby Gordon's team and car sponsor for Richard Childress Racing is the Cingular Wireless Telephone Company.

You'll see the same thing on Ryan Newman's uniform, his sponsor is the Alltel Wireless Telephone Company. Neither the Cingular nor the Alltel Company wants to publicly recognize the Nextel Wireless Company, especially on their driver's uniforms.

It's a NASCAR rule that the drivers have to have the series sponsor's insignia mounted high on their uniforms where it will be visible during television interviews, but apparently where there is competition issues between sponsors, the insignias can be blacked out where they aren't quite so visible.

Some of you may remember that when Nextel was awarded the Cup Series sponsorship, the AT&T Wireless Co. wanted to change from associate to major sponsor on the #49 BAM Racing Dodge, but Nextel said no. The other two wireless companies were already entrenched in Cup racing with major sponsorships within the Penske South and Richard Childress Racing organizations, so they had to be accepted, regardless of the competitive consequences. I believe they called it 'grandfathering them in.' Don't ask me where they got that term from, because I don't have the slightest idea.

The latest round of sponsor wars are equally amusing. NASCAR President Mike Helton has gotten into the fray by warning drivers about removing race sponsors wares off of the top of their cars when they exit their driver's windows in victory circle.

The race sponsorships at two of the events in question were acquired by the International Speedway Corp (ISC), which is owned by the France family, who also own NASCAR. The latest problem resulted at Chicagoland Speedway, an ISC track that had Tropicana for a race sponsor. Tony Stewart won the event, and when he exited his car in victory circle, he unceremoniously knocked the Tropicana bottles off of the top of his car. Stewart is one of the Coca-Cola drivers and Tropicana is owned by Pepsi, he was probably told by his associate sponsor Coca-Cola to remove the competitor's wares from his car when and if he got it to victory circle.

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