Who will sponsor Franchitti?

[Down F0rce]

40 days until Daytona and there is no word (from what I've read) about Dario having a title sponsor for this season. The Canadian Club logos seem to have disappeared from the #27 In the IRL so I guess they could follow him over, but you'd have thought there would have been an announcement by now... and he's still wearing the Target overalls from last year at the Daytona 24 hours testing.

The Sunday Hauler notes that Target will the sponsor for the Nationwide series though. Wonder if they will end up footing the bills for a few races.

[Knowlesy]

He has run a test in a Target House livery, but I don't see that being the case come Daytona because, well, why would both he and Reed Sorenson have Target sponsorship?

Obviously Coors are no longer in the picture either.

Hmmm....well, I'm sure they have something.

[Sparky7]

Jayski is showing Fastenal as the sponsor on the #40 team chart.

[the.cosmic.pope]

Originally Posted by Sparky7

Jayski is showing Fastenal as the sponsor on the #40 team chart.

Fastenal and Target will share sponsorship of the Busch car. For the Spring car i lists the following:

?Canadian Club
?Energizer
?Tums

It will not be Canadian Club as they are the same company as Jim Beam and said they are commited to Robby Gordon Motorsports and will not be joining Ganassi. In saying that, the Canadian Club website is still proudly saying they are Darios sponsor, so who knows?

I'd imagine that being Ganassi and running the current Indy 500 Champion in his rookie year will mean sponsorship is pretty easy to come by.

[muggle not]

It is very late for not unveiling a sponsor. I suspect there must be a problem somewhere along the line.

[the.cosmic.pope]

Originally Posted by muggle not

It is very late for not unveiling a sponsor. I suspect there must be a problem somewhere along the line.

Indeed. I wonder if that problem is Canadian Clubs link to Jim Beam.

[kingfloopy]

I had heard Fastenal was going to sponsor him in Nationwide series and not Cup. Jayski doesn't list any primary sponsor yet. It is rather late to still be searching for a sponsor. I doubt that Target will sponsor two cars in Cup due to the money involved. There's a large number of associate sponsors at Ganassi like Energizer, Fuji, etc. and maybe they will step up.

J.D.

[fish88]

This will be his Nationwide car.

[jonesi]

There's a bunch of teams with no or little sponsorship

In 'Top 35'
17th OP 01 REGAN SMITH DEI (Coors Light rumored)
26th " 40 DARIO FRANCHITTI GANASSI
30th " 28 TRAVIS KVAPIL DOUG YATES
31st " 66 SCOTT RIGGS JOE CUSTER State Waterheaters?
32nd " 38 DAVID GILLILAND DOUG YATES
33rd " 70 JEREMY MAYFIELD JOE CUSTER HAAS/ATLAS COPCO

Not in 'Top 35'
37th " 10 PATRICK CARPENTIER GEM VALVOLINE?
39th " 00 DAVID REUTIMANN MWR AARON'S?
44th " 27 JACQUES VILLENEUVE BILL DAVIS
45th " 4 M Wallace?/PJ Jones? MORGAN/McCLURE

DEI, Ganassi, & GEM can probably afford to to run an un/under sponsored car for at least awhile (7 to 10 races), Waltrip & Davis less so. Yates & Haas each with two unsponsored cars, could really be hurting soon after Daytona if sponsors aren't found. I wouldn't be surprised to see Cup down to 45 full time teams by mid April.

[the.cosmic.pope]

Not in 'Top 35'
37th " 10 PATRICK CARPENTIER GEM VALVOLINE?
39th " 00 DAVID REUTIMANN MWR AARON'S?

Vavoline is confirmed on the #10
Reutimann will move to the #44 UPS car after a few races.

[jonesi]

>Vavoline is confirmed on the #10
Are they? They're omitted as sponsor in Nascar.com silly season page, Jayski has them as questionable/partial season. With the announcement they will be assoc sponsor on #19, but nothing definite on #10 has people wondering.

>Reutimann will move to the #44 UPS car after a few races.
Should have shown it as Reutimann/Michael McDowell car.

[the.cosmic.pope]

There is Evernham official "renders" (they call them) floating about press emails of the #10. Jayski seems to have gotten hold of one -

http://www.jayski.com/schemes/2008/s...ine-layout.jpg

[FIRE]

Also no main sponsor for Morgan-McClure so they have closed their shop. Source: jayski.com

[kingfloopy]

It's pretty sad to see Morgan-McClure having to close doors. They haven't had a lot of success over the last 8 years or so, but its still sad to see a team that has run the last 25 years shut down.

I think the Yates teams are in danger of shutting down too. Unless Roush is willing to chip money I doubt they will run two teams for the full season (and maybe not even one). The plus for them is Roush has to get rid of a team next year so a driver and sponsor can move over. But they will have to survive this year. They have already said that Villeneuve will probably not run the full season either unless the team can stay in the top-35.

From the sounds of it the #00 will run the majority of the races with Josh Wise and Michael McDowell taking over after race 5.

J.D.

[Down F0rce]

Chip isn't worried regarding the Franchitti sponsor situation.

http://www.scenedaily.com/stories/20...e_daily73.html

[FIRE]

Ganassi expects to line up sponsors for Franchitti UPDATE: Team owner Chip Ganassi says that he expects to put together a "patchwork" of sponsorship for Dario Franchitti and his #40 Sprint Cup team. Franchitti, the 2007 IndyCar Series champion, will debut as a rookie in the NASCAR series this season. The team has not announced sponsorship plans for that car. Ganassi didn't seem too worried about that while speaking with reporters during the annual NASCAR media tour put together by Lowe's Motor Speedway.(SceneDaily.com)(1-22-2008)
UPDATE 2 - Energizer to sponsor Franchitti for 5 races? hearing that #40-Dario Franchitti will be sponsored by Energizer batteries for the first five races of the 2008 season while the team looks for other sponsors and a full primary sponsor. Also hearing that Fastenal, who will sponsor Ganassi teams in the Nationwide Series, could sponsor the #40 Sprint Cup a few races. See images of the #40 Fastenal Nationwide scheme on the Nationwide Paint Schemes page.(1-22-2008) Comment here

Source: www.jayski.com

So probably different sponsors on the car

[Down F0rce]

TheSundayHauler.com are taking pre-orders for a Tum's Special liveried car for both Franchitti and Sorenson. I guess they will be alternating between the two drivers for this season.

[Knowlesy]

That is going to be thin allocation of funds then, if that sponsorship is for both in Cup.

Do Ganassi allocate budgets strictly to each team, or if they fail to secure a major sponsor for Dario will they spread the funds from each team around? If this impacts the 42 team I will explode.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

That is going to be thin allocation of funds then, if that sponsorship is for both in Cup.

Do Ganassi allocate budgets strictly to each team, or if they fail to secure a major sponsor for Dario will they spread the funds from each team around? If this impacts the 42 team I will explode.

It all goes in one pot. It's actually the irl team that drags funds from the nascar operation more than anything. Friends there tell me the nascar team would be much farther ahead without that drain on resources.

[Knowlesy]

I do wonder why Ganassi bothers with any form off OWR team. Yes, I know his roots are there, but you'd think he'd concentrate on the big priority and try to be successful on something that is a bit more rewarding (Indy 500 notwithstanding of course).

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

I do wonder why Ganassi bothers with any form off OWR team. Yes, I know his roots are there, but you'd think he'd concentrate on the big priority and try to be successful on something that is a bit more rewarding (Indy 500 notwithstanding of course).

My friends say he lights up when talking about open wheel racing and it's quite obvious were his passions lie, whereas nascar is just business and it doesn't excite him at all. He said late last year in motorsport magazine though that "there was no business model for american open wheel racing anymore".

The opinion within the nascar team is that if they focused fully on that, the results would be much better.

[Down F0rce]

Dodge will sponsor Dario for Daytona.

http://www.jayski.com/cupnews.htm#news40