Old Spice, Office Depot to sponsor Stewart; team will race Nos. 14 and 4
INDIANAPOLIS - When it came time for Tony Stewart to choose numbers for the two cars he’ll co-own next season at the new Stewart-Haas Racing, the choices were easy and obvious.
There was the No. 4, which was Stewart’s number during his early go-kart racing days. And there was the No. 14 made famous by Stewart’s racing hero, open-wheel legend A.J. Foyt.
Faced with the decision of which number Stewart wanted for the car he’d be driving at Stewart-Haas, the choice wasn’t so straightforward.
“It was a hard decision to decide which one of those two numbers that I wanted but I’m going to be really happy to run A.J.’s number next year and see if we can have the same success that he’s had," Stewart said on Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Foyt, a four-time Indianapolis 500 champion and winner of the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, wasn’t in attendance Friday. But he didn’t need to be for Stewart to be at peace with his choice to drive the No. 14 when he formally begins a new chapter in his NASCAR Cup career in 2009.
“Everybody knows that A.J. Foyt has always been my all-time hero and when this opportunity came about, it was about a five-minute tug-of-war between, ‘Do I want my first number back or do I want A.J.’s number?’” Stewart said. “It was pretty easy to decide that I wanted the number that my all-time hero had. … If I had to guess, I would say he’s pretty happy and very proud that we’re able to do this and share the number with him.”
As for who will drive the No. 4 on the second Stewart-Haas entry in 2009, Stewart said no final decisions have been made.
“We’re looking at everybody right now,” the two-time NASCAR Cup champion said, noting that Ryan Newman – widely considered to be the leading candidate for the ride – is in the running. “We’re weighing all the options.”
While the picture of who will drive the second Stewart-Haas car remains muddied, speculation on the primary sponsorship on Stewart’s car is over. Stewart confirmed Friday that Old Spice and Office Depot would serve as co-primary sponsors on his Chevrolet next season.
Office Depot, which previously announced plans to end its primary sponsorship on the No. 99 car of Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards at the conclusion of 2008, will have a 60 percent share in the sponsorship. Old Spice, which has a 10-year relationship with Stewart, will sponsor the other 40 percent as part of the multiyear agreement.
The arrangement puts Office Depot as the primary sponsor on Stewart's car for 22 points races next year, with Old Spice taking the other 14. Both cars will feature a red and black paint scheme.
Office Depot will also maintain its official partnership status with NASCAR.
"I think we’ve done a pretty good job of building equity with Roush Fenway and Carl Edwards,” said George Hill, senior vice president of Office Depot. “And we think that Tony is going to take us, honestly, to a new level. We really know that Tony is a champion; he’s a proven winner. Tony is a small business owner. We take care of small business – that’s what we do."
Stewart indicated the decision to bring on co-primary sponsors might have been driven in part by the economic climate that is impacting sponsorship dollars throughout the Cup garage. Financial terms of the contracts were not disclosed.
“I think everybody’s realistic on what the economic situation is now,” he said. “ ... If it works out better that you can accomplish the same thing in a budget that works for two major corporations that are willing to work with each other, it makes it better for everybody all around. It just seemed like it made sense, I think.”
The announcement came 15 days after Stewart announced at Chicagoland Speedway that he was entering into a 50 percent partnership with Haas Automation to form Stewart-Haas Racing, which will absorb Haas CNC at the end of the season.
Stewart, who has driven all 10 of his Cup seasons for Joe Gibbs Racing and won his two titles and 32 races with the group, will reunite with Chevrolet next season. JGR switched from Chevrolet to Toyota for the 2008 campaign.
“If you look at history with marketing programs we’ve had the opportunity to run in the NASCAR space, we’ve had some of our greatest performance when we’ve used Tony as a spokesperson and an ambassador for our brand to help us sell our cars and trucks to consumers,” said Terry Dolan, marketing manager for Chevrolet Racing. “So being able to demonstrate that to the GM leadership and the value that he brings as an ambassador helped us close the deal on what we felt could be a game-changer program for 2009 for us.”
