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KKR has had NAPA on Sweet’s car for several years, but even though Daryn Pittman was a known commodity, they had trouble getting sponsorship for that car once Great Clips departed. TSR has had several different sponsors over the last three years on Donny Schatz’s car. The point here is that even the “name” owners can have trouble getting and keeping sponsors.
With regard to winged vs. non-winged sponsorships and costs, look at the facts. On the non-wing side, the Oval Nationals at Perris pays $25,000 on the last night. The CornBelt Nationals paid $20,000. Pretty much the rest of the non-winged features run pay $6,000 or less. On the winged side, the Kings Royal paid $175,000, Knoxville pays $150,000, Jackson paid $40,000, The Don Martin Memorial paid $25,000, the Williams Grove Open pays $25,000, and I think there are a couple more that pay close to $20,000. Yes, expenses are higher, but so is the opportunity to cover expenses.
Finally, let’s talk about exposure for the sponsor. A top tier WoO team races all over the country approx. 80 times/year. They will traverse the country twice. USAC schedule is 44 races, but the bulk of the races are in a 3-4 state region. As far as attendance, there are what, 25,000 people at Eldora for the Kings Royal? There will be approx. the same number Saturday night at Knoxville. It would probably take two years of ISW attendance to equal that attendance of these two major winged events. Again, my point being that a sponsor gets a LOT more exposure with a sponsorship of a WoO car than a USAC car
Now before I get accused of being a WoO hack, I’ll tell you I have followed USAC Sprint cars for over 50 years. I love non-winged racing!! I also enjoy winged Sprint cars and truly enjoy the Knoxville Nationals. There just aren’t a lot of sponsors lining up to sponsor a race car, and the ones that are want a quantifiable return for their investment. Racing has always been both a sport and a business, but now it is much more a business and less of a sport.
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