Gordon will likely run this scheme in 2010 as well, after which DuPont’s contract with the team runs out. Many are suggesting that Gordon will retire after the 2010 season, or scale down to a part-time schedule similar to what Martin currently runs.
\n
The team hopes that development driver Landon Cassill will be ready to take over the No. 24 in 2011.
\n
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will run a special scheme at Daytona for Speedweeks that features the addition of silver to the current Amp Energy and National Guard car.
\n
While it was originally suggested that the new color run the entire season, reports suggest that Amp didn’t want Dale Jr. fans to have to run out and buy new merchandise for the 2009 season. Thus, the scheme will only run one race.
\n
The car will feature relatively minor changes to its paint scheme for 2009, with only a couple lines moved around. Earnhardt Jr.’s driving suit, however, will change in a more prominent way: the trademark Adidas triple stripe will grace the sleeves of his firesuit.
\n
2. Klondike will move from Gillett-Evernham Motorsports’ No. 9 Nationwide Series Dodge to the No. 5 Nationwide Series car.
\n
This team will again feature rotating sponsorships, with many of the current primaries (Delphi and GoDaddy.com among them) returning. The National Guard will reportedly scale down their involvement with this team, likely due to the shift in dollars towards Gordon’s car.
\n
Cassill will spend some time in this car again next season, and Martin, Earnhardt Jr., and Johnson will likely also run selected events. However, the juiciest rumor in the garage regarding this team is the potential addition of Tony Stewart to the driver lineup for 2009. The assumption is that Klondike is leaving GEM to partner with Stewart at Hendrick.
\n
1. The US Navy will be replaced on Brad Keselowski’s No. 88 Nationwide Series car by Craftsman Tools. Craftsman will not return to its primary sponsorship of the Truck Series beyond 2008, thus freeing up advertising dollars to partner with JR Motorsports.
\n
Keselowski will use next season as another year of development, with a partial Sprint Cup schedule almost guaranteed as well. Keselowski will run 10 races in the No. 5 in 2010, with an eye on taking over full-time in 2011 for the likely retiring Martin.
\n
Finally, congratulations to last week’s winners: Mike Skinner in the Truck Series at Las Vegas, and Greg Biffle in Sprint Cup and Kyle Busch in Nationwide at Dover.
This week, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Kansas Speedway, which will be the second-to-last track to feature the debut of the Car of Today.
This creates a lot of unknowns for teams and drivers, whether they’ve had past success at the track or not. Even a team such as Hendrick Motorsports, which has four wins over NASCAR’s big three series at the young track, is going into this race with a lot of questions about how the new car will handle.
Hendrick is a team about to make some big changes for 2009 and beyond. The biggest change involves the No. 5 Sprint Cup car, which will be driven by Mark Martin next season.
Martin will make his return to a full-time Sprint Cup schedule after two years of 24 races each, partially because his son, Matt, has decided to give up racing and focus on schoolwork. The departing driver of the No. 5 for this season, Casey Mears, will head to Richard Childress Racing and drive the No. 07 Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet.
However, the Martin deal was announced weeks ago, and everyone in the garage is aware of the change. Not a team to rest on its laurels, Hendrick is making some other moves for next season that may shock and surprise some: new paint schemes, other new drivers, and new sponsorship deals to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
An anonymous source provided the following information, which serves as this week’s five Quick Hits:
5. Jimmie Johnson will run a special paint scheme for his 250th career start at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in a few weeks. This new scheme, which features the addition of red to the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, will also supposedly be run in 2009 and beyond. The scheme is a lot less “sharp” than Johnson’s current car, and features more silver than the 2008 car does.
4. In a dramatic change from the first 16 years of Jeff Gordon’s Sprint Cup career, the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet will primarily feature black, as opposed to the usual navy blue and day-glo orange.
The flames on the car will change, fading from yellow to orange, and the National Guard will replace Nicorette on the lower quarter panels. No word on whether or not Nicorette will return to the team.
Chris - great read and good information. I know the paint schemes are cool and exciting and sure make the money for the die cast folks, but I really like being able to pick out my driver and my car on the track......I guess I just easily confuse...
I'm hearing denials from a couple people on the first three reports now... so, a warning: take the reports with a grain of salt. (Then again, we hear denials in this sport all the time... UPS vehemently denied negotiating with other teams earlier this season, and look what happened there.)
As such, I have to say that those three reports are subject to change.
However, all three reports have a shred of reason to them:
3. Junior ran a silver Citizen-Soldier car earlier this season in a massive marketing campaign with the National Guard, which featured a promotional song by the band 3 Doors Down that made it to No. 96 in the US Billboard Hot 100. The scheme, inspired by an old Buddy Baker livery from the 1970s, was a huge hit with fans. Meanwhile, the current Amp scheme already features trace amounts of silver.
2. The No. 9 Nationwide team has struggled this season, with only three top-5 finishes in 29 starts - a far cry from the past two seasons, when Kasey Kahne won two races each in the car. Given Unilever's prominent marketing campaign based on the team - the Ultimate Chargers (formerly Hungry Drivers) - it's understandable for the company to shift sponsorship dollars away from GEM to JRM, which has won four races this season with its two cars and sits 5th and 11th in owners' points after Dover. The long-rumored addition of Stewart to that Nationwide program, as I've stated, can only help the team.
1. Craftsman announced that it would leave the Truck Series after 2008 a long time ago, deciding to shift its marketing budget elsewhere. When the US Navy pulled out of sponsoring Keselowski beyond this season, it opened up a perfect opportunity for the brand to ally itself with one of NASCAR's top up-and-coming drivers, who will likely be a future star in Sprint Cup.
To clarify: It's very possible that none of the three scenarios will happen, but all have a strong rationale behind them, if they are indeed true.
I'm not so sure about the rumor of Craftsman going to Brad Keselowski's #88 Nationwide car. Lowe's already has strong ties to JR Motorsports, with the team being a Hendrick satellite and Lowe's being a partial sponsor on the #5 Nationwide car. Lowe's makes Kobalt tools, which have a lifetime guarantee to them just like Craftsman tools, which are made by Sears. So you basically have Craftsman as a direct competitor to Lowe's. I think this would prevent Craftsman from coming on board to sponsor a JRM car.
That's true, but also remember that the No. 5 ran National Guard decals in many of the same races that the No. 88 ran Navy decals, and that represents a conflict of interest as well, if one driver runs for both branches of the military.
That's one of the reasons why Mark Martin didn't run for JR Motorsports until this year, and only in the Delphi/GoDaddy.com cars - because of the potential conflicts between the Army and the Navy in 2007, and the Army and the National Guard this year. It's also the reason why the Navy created a "Dale Jr. Division" so Junior could run a race for them this year - while Junior's contract forbids him with running races for the other branches of the Armed Forces, the Dale Jr. Division isn't technically part of the Navy, in that it's a recruiting division for them. Somehow they worked that out.
It's true that Kobalt and Craftsman are direct competitors, but Lowe's and Sears are not, and Kobalt is never a primary sponsor on the No. 5 anyway - all of Kobalt's marketing is done with Jimmie Johnson.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Roush Fenway runs cars sponsored by both DeWalt Tools and Irwin Tools, who are both competitors in the industrial tools market. So it's not as if it's unprecedented to see two companies in the same market running for the same team.
6 comments Last one added 9 months ago — Leave a Comment
Mary Jo Buchanan 9 months ago
Chris - great read and good information. I know the paint schemes are cool and exciting and sure make the money for the die cast folks, but I really like being able to pick out my driver and my car on the track......I guess I just easily confuse...
Edit Comment Cancel
S M Napier 9 months ago
I hear you Mary Jo, had a hard time the first few races after Bobby left JGR to Petty.
Edit Comment Cancel
Christopher Leone 9 months ago
I'm hearing denials from a couple people on the first three reports now... so, a warning: take the reports with a grain of salt. (Then again, we hear denials in this sport all the time... UPS vehemently denied negotiating with other teams earlier this season, and look what happened there.)
As such, I have to say that those three reports are subject to change.
However, all three reports have a shred of reason to them:
3. Junior ran a silver Citizen-Soldier car earlier this season in a massive marketing campaign with the National Guard, which featured a promotional song by the band 3 Doors Down that made it to No. 96 in the US Billboard Hot 100. The scheme, inspired by an old Buddy Baker livery from the 1970s, was a huge hit with fans. Meanwhile, the current Amp scheme already features trace amounts of silver.
2. The No. 9 Nationwide team has struggled this season, with only three top-5 finishes in 29 starts - a far cry from the past two seasons, when Kasey Kahne won two races each in the car. Given Unilever's prominent marketing campaign based on the team - the Ultimate Chargers (formerly Hungry Drivers) - it's understandable for the company to shift sponsorship dollars away from GEM to JRM, which has won four races this season with its two cars and sits 5th and 11th in owners' points after Dover. The long-rumored addition of Stewart to that Nationwide program, as I've stated, can only help the team.
1. Craftsman announced that it would leave the Truck Series after 2008 a long time ago, deciding to shift its marketing budget elsewhere. When the US Navy pulled out of sponsoring Keselowski beyond this season, it opened up a perfect opportunity for the brand to ally itself with one of NASCAR's top up-and-coming drivers, who will likely be a future star in Sprint Cup.
To clarify: It's very possible that none of the three scenarios will happen, but all have a strong rationale behind them, if they are indeed true.
Edit Comment Cancel
Jamerson 9 months ago
I'm not so sure about the rumor of Craftsman going to Brad Keselowski's #88 Nationwide car. Lowe's already has strong ties to JR Motorsports, with the team being a Hendrick satellite and Lowe's being a partial sponsor on the #5 Nationwide car. Lowe's makes Kobalt tools, which have a lifetime guarantee to them just like Craftsman tools, which are made by Sears. So you basically have Craftsman as a direct competitor to Lowe's. I think this would prevent Craftsman from coming on board to sponsor a JRM car.
Edit Comment Cancel
Christopher Leone 9 months ago
That's true, but also remember that the No. 5 ran National Guard decals in many of the same races that the No. 88 ran Navy decals, and that represents a conflict of interest as well, if one driver runs for both branches of the military.
That's one of the reasons why Mark Martin didn't run for JR Motorsports until this year, and only in the Delphi/GoDaddy.com cars - because of the potential conflicts between the Army and the Navy in 2007, and the Army and the National Guard this year. It's also the reason why the Navy created a "Dale Jr. Division" so Junior could run a race for them this year - while Junior's contract forbids him with running races for the other branches of the Armed Forces, the Dale Jr. Division isn't technically part of the Navy, in that it's a recruiting division for them. Somehow they worked that out.
It's true that Kobalt and Craftsman are direct competitors, but Lowe's and Sears are not, and Kobalt is never a primary sponsor on the No. 5 anyway - all of Kobalt's marketing is done with Jimmie Johnson.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Roush Fenway runs cars sponsored by both DeWalt Tools and Irwin Tools, who are both competitors in the industrial tools market. So it's not as if it's unprecedented to see two companies in the same market running for the same team.
Edit Comment Cancel
S M Napier 9 months ago
Nice article, Chris. Glad to see Keselowski may have a sponsor for next year lined up.
Edit Comment Cancel
Leave a Comment
You must register to post a comment.