Nadeau in a Waltrip car at Chicago? an Image: ESPN2 RPM 2 Night’s Ray Dunlap reports that Jerry Nadeau will drive a Michael Waltrip owned car at Chicagoland and possibly some additional races.(6-12-2002) UPDATE: hearing Nadeau will be driving the Michael Waltrip Racing Inc. #00 Chevy, sponsored by Aaron’s Sales & Lease Ownership, at Chicagoland Speedway.(6-18-2002) UPDATE 2: hearing Waltrip has purchased a Cup car from DEI (a former #15 NAPA car) and will lease DEI engines. Suppoesdly a one-race deal right now, but may end up at the Brickyard 400 also.(6-19-2002) UPDATE 3 Nadeau/Waltrip official: Jerry Nadeau will pilot the #00 Aaron’s Dream Machine at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday, July 14th. The car will be Michael Waltrip Racing’s second venture as a Winston Cup team owner. Waltrip fielded the #98 Aaron’s Dream Machine driven by Kenny Wallace in the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway this past April. Aaron’s Sales and Lease Ownership will sponsor the #00 Winston Cup entry. Nadeau, a native of Danbury, CT, logged his first Winston Cup start June 15, 1997 and his first win in the 2000 NAPA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Recently, he was behind the wheel of the #10 Valvoline Pontiac while Johnny Benson recovered from injuries sustained at Richmond International Speedway earlier this year. Last weekend at Sears Point, rear-end gear failure with three laps to go cost him the victory in the #44 Petty Enterprises car. Waltrip, whom owns and drives the #99 Aaron’s Dream Machine in the BGN, bought the Winston Cup car from Dale Earnhardt, Inc. “Aaron’s comes to me about everything they do in NASCAR”, said Waltrip. “I wanted to field another Winston Cup car and they were willing to back me.” “I don’t know about other companies,” said Ken Butler, President of Aaron’s, “but NASCAR works for us. You have to advertise where demographics show your customers are and NASCAR fans are our customers. We’re using it to drive our customer base. So we’re more than happy to join this endeavor with Michael, Waltrip Racing and Jerry Nadeau.” “I’m excited that Michael and Aaron’s are giving me this chance,” said Nadeau. “Especially at a track like Chicago. I almost won there last year. Mile and a half tracks have in general been good to me. And the guys at the shop have been working their butts off to give me a great car to test with. It’s going to be a fun weekend and hopefully if things go well I’ll have more opportunities like this in the future.” For more information on Aaron’s, please visit www.shopaarons.com or call 1-800-950-7368.(Aaron’s PR)(6-25-2002) AND See my Paint Scheme Gallery for a image of the scheme.(6-26-2002) (6-25-2002)
