Roush Fenway Racing still searching for 2010 sponsors; not seeking Danica Patrick
Roush Fenway Racing President Geoff Smith says the organization continues to seek sponsorship for 2010. // Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Scene
HAMPTON, Ga. – Roush Fenway Racing is still looking for many sponsors for next season. What it is not looking for is sponsorship for Danica Patrick.
Roush Fenway President Geoff Smith said time is running out to get sponsorship for the organization's No. 26 team in order to be able to move that group to Yates Racing. Roush Fenway must cut from five to four Cup teams after the 2009 season. It still needs to find half a season of sponsorship for Matt Kenseth on the Cup side as well as sponsors to help field the organization's three or four Nationwide teams.
Smith said the problem in trying to do a multiple-sponsor deal with one team is that the organization can’t guarantee it would run the entire season. Even if a company isn’t interested in a full primary sponsor role, it wants to be with a team that is running the full schedule, Smith said.
“It’s Labor Day and there has been no significant change in the economy of the sport as it relates to sponsors,” Smith said. “If anything, there’s been a frenzy to try to get costs reduced from the sponsors that are here. Usually by this time there are four or five big players that are entering the sport that we can all go compete for.
“That’s not here right now. These programs are not simple investments.”
As far as Patrick, Smith said Roush Fenway had discussions with the Indy Racing League driver’s representatives a few months ago but the team wasn’t interested in a proposed program that he said would be for a few Nationwide races prior to the start of the IndyCar Series season and then a few more after that season ends.
“We’re not in play,” Smith said. “We’ve got cars, but I have no idea what differences in the discussions there have been among the various teams by her agents.
“I only know what the discussions were with us and what our approach would be, and there doesn’t seem to be any interest in [that] approach. … We couldn’t see any way to make the money piece work out with the plan they laid out. The plan may be different now. I don’t know.”
One driver the team is evaluating is one that’s already in the stable. Erik Darnell has driven for Roush Fenway the last four years, three seasons in the Truck series and then part time this year in the Nationwide Series. The organization cannot run a Cup entry for Darnell from its own stable this season because NASCAR said the only way Roush Fenway could bring out a sixth car was if the driver was going to definitely be a rookie the following year.
So the team has him running seven of the remaining Cup races in the Hall of Fame No. 96 car, which is operated by Yates Racing, in place of Bobby Labonte.
“Erik is at a point of his career with us that we have to make a decision about keeping him with us and … we needed an opportunity to see what we might do,” Smith said. “The schedule that we’ve got selected for him is not the perfect schedule for what we’d like to see. We feel he’d show very well at the shorter tracks … so we can evaluate whether we keep him in our stable, even on a limited basis.
“We’ve got a lot of investment in Erik Darnell. We were able to, because of the sponsorship relationships we had, make a deal with Yates Racing.”
