Now THAT’S A Sponsorship Program!
Written by Josh Katinger · October 11, 2004
For a single entity running a motorsports sponsorship program, days like yesterday don’t come along often. The US ARMY has been sponsoring race cars and using motorsports as a recruitment tool for several years, but no single race day, to my recollection anyways, has been so kind to a single sponsor’s motorsports PR and marketing programs as yesterday was the US ARMY.
Not only did Joe Nemechek win the Banquet 400 at Kansas Speedway giving that team and crew chief their first ever NEXTEL Cup victory, but Tony Schumacher also clinched the 2004 Top Fuel crown in the NHRA by winning the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway. To add the icing to the cake, Tony’s two teammates who compete in the NHRA’s Pro Stock Motorcycle ranks took first and second in their division at the same event. Angelle Savoie beat her fellow rider and teammate Antron Brown to the win light even after Brown cut a better light. Talk about domination. About the only thing the ARMY didn’t do this weekend was win an F1 race…but let’s not go there.
While there is no doubt that both NASCAR and the NHRA are big businesses these days, could there be a better or more deserving sponsor to earn such a great triple-victory? This had to be quite a thrill for all of the service men and women overseas watching “their car” take the victory in NASCAR, and then getting to watch Tony Schumacher (albeit on tape deal today), who has been nothing short of an amazing representative for the ARMY, take a race win and clinch a championship on the same day.
While people may vary greatly in their opinions on where our troops should be deployed in the world, I think it’s safe to say that as a nation we’ve all come around to the line of thinking that we need to support our troops even if we don’t support the conflict they are thrown into. What better form of support than total domination of two of the biggest racing series in the US? About the only military folks who were probably unhappy with yesterday’s race results are the Air Force who are associate sponsors on Ricky Rudd’s car – which couldn’t quite catch “Front Row” Joe Nemechek on the way to victory.
Comments
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.