Fastenal To Sponsor JR Motorsports’ No. 5

JR Motorsports announced that Fastenal has signed on to sponsor its No. 5 Chevy for 14 Nationwide races in 2009, starting with the O’Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway with Dale Earnhardt Jr. behind the wheel.

He will also start the Winn Dixie 250 at Daytona International Speedway in July.

The other 12 races and drivers will be decided at a later date.

Gilliland Out At Yates?

With Hall Of Fame Racing forming an alliance with Yates Racing and signing Bobby Labonte to drive the No. 96 Ask.com Ford Fusion, David Gilliland figures he is the odd man out at Yates.

The team intends to field three cars this season, and, for those of you counting, the addition of Labonte and Paul Menard, who will drive the no. 98 Menards Ford, that leaves Gilliland and Travis Kvapil vying for that last ride.

Most expect Kvapil to be back next season, leaving Gilliland without a ride.

Gilliland said:

I haven’t actually had a sit-down with them, but I’m still under contract with them through 2009. So we’re just going to have to work through it, and hopefully, we can get something else going. It’s just kind of a bummer that it’s this late in the [offseason], you know? We’ll just have to see what we can come up with and see what we can try and do.

It’s Official: Labonte To HOF Racing

As previously reported, Bobby Labonte will drive Hall Of Fame Racing’s No. 96 Ford Fusion next season.

The team will be sponsored by Ask.com.

Following his release from Petty Enterprises, Labonte was rumored to be going to Earnhardt Ganassi Racing in the No. 41 sponsored by Target, or, more recently, the No. 8 Chevy. No word on who will drive that car, now that Labonte is out of the picture.

Labonte said of joining HOF Racing:

I’m excited to be part of what Ask.com is bringing to our sport. In a time like this, it’s great to see a sponsor come in with technology and ideas that will help all of the competitors in NASCAR and enhance the experience for all of our fans, no matter which driver or team they cheer for.

HOF Racing co-owner Tom Garfinkle said:

Jeff Moorad and I are excited to add Ask.com as a primary sponsor on the No. 96 car. We’ve been working closely with Ask.com for several weeks now, and their talented management team has come up with more creative ideas to serve NASCAR fans than I’ve seen in a long time. With our new Yates [Racing] partnership and having a true champion and class person in Bobby Labonte behind the wheel, we’re expecting great things on the race track as well.

Separately, Ask.com also entered an agreement to become the official search engine of NASCAR, meaning Ask.com has category exclusivity and a broad set of promotional rights.

Under the agreement, Ask.com will exclusively power the search experience on NASCAR.com.
 
Ask.com CEO Jim Safka said:

Through these partnerships, we will break new ground by applying our semantic search technology capabilities to NASCAR-related content while also tapping one of the largest marketing channels in America. Our goal is to win over the millions of loyal fans by providing them with the best NASCAR search experience on the Web, and introduce them to all of Ask’s capabilities when they come.

It’s Official: Yates, HOF Racing “Aligning”

Yates Racing and Hall of Fame Racing officially announced that the two would be aligning in 2009. Yates will operate the No. 96 Sprint Cup entry for the full season. HOF Racing will move the No. 96 team to Yates Racing’s shop in Concord, North Carolina. 

The agreement keeps both sets of co-owners in tact.

Max Jones, co-owner and GM of Yates, said:

This partnership with Hall of Fame is a great stepping stone for the Yates organization. Through this partnership, we are able to continue the expansion of our shop and field another Sprint Cup entry.  We, along with Ford Racing, welcome Hall of Fame Racing and look forward to a very successful season.

Tom Garfinkel, co-owner of HOF Racing, said:

Jeff Moorad and I knew it would take time to construct the right model to improve our competitive position in the sport and we think we’ve come a long way to achieving that through our association with Yates Racing. We’re proud to be associated with Doug [Yates] and Max and Ford Racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

The alliance between the two teams means that HOF will change from Toyota to Ford. Thus far, no driver has been named.

Labonte, EGR A Perfect Match?

Ever since his somewhat suprising release from Petty Enterprises’ No. 43 car, 2000 Sprint Cup champion Bobby Labonte’s name has been linked to the newly formed Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, a marriage between Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing. And, this could be a perfect match.

Even before Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s highly publicized departure from DEI before last season, the team was struggling to remain competitive. While Martin Truex Jr. made the Chase in 2007, Jr. lost six engines and crashed out of races twice.

As if losing Jr. wasn’t enough, the team had a mediocre, at best, 2008 season with Truex Jr. receiving a 150-point penalty and conflicting reports as to whether Truex had re-signed with the team.

At the end of the season, Mark Martin left the team for Hendrick Motorsports, like Jr. Paul Menard left, taking his sponsor with him to Yates Racing. The US Army left the team for Stewart Haas Racing. Everyone was abandoning ship.

At Chip Ganassi Racing, things weren’t much better. The team shut the doors to its No. 40 team and driver Dario Franchitti due to a lack of sponsorship money.

The team also fired Jimmy Elledge, which seemed to upset Juan Pablo Montoya. And, Montoya, at one point, was rumored to be leaving the team, while Reed Sorenson left the team for Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

When DEI and CGR merged to form EGR, they had Montoya, Truex Jr. and Aric Almirola under contract. They were missing a driver with a lot of NASCAR experience. They were missing a multiple race-winner. They were missing a veteran leader. In Labonte, they may have found all of that.

Labonte needs good equipment to be competitive, and EGR should be able to provide that. I know that the team has struggled, but some of that you have to put on its absentee owner, Teresa, who some say is not committed to winning.

Ganassi will be a presence at the track, and is committed to winning. He should be able to help keep the focus on on-track performance.

That, combined with Labonte’s leadership, should make any partnership a perfect match.