from a USA Today Q&A. Q:) How does NASCAR’s new deal with Nextel affect Jeff Burton’s team? A:) Roush Racing’s #99 team is losing CITGO as its primary sponsor at the end of the year and had worked out a deal with associate sponsor AT&T to become Burton’s primary sponsor next season. Although the Nextel deal has grandfathered in Nextel competitors Cingular [#31] and Alltel [#12], allowing them to remain as primary team sponsors, NASCAR now will not allow AT&T to move up from an associate to a primary sponsor for Roush. That means Roush will have to shop Burton and the team around to other potential sponsors. Smith wonders why NASCAR officials weren’t able to negotiate with Nextel to allow competing cell phone companies to keep coming into the sport as team sponsors. Winston, of course, is the only cigarette manufacturer allowed to advertise in NASCAR, but Smith says that deal is outdated.( USA Today ) AND The issue is exclusivity [with Nextel], and NASCAR’s definition isn’t setting well in parts of the garage. NASCAR’s definition may cost Jeff Burton an AT& –T sponsorship that his team has been negotiating. “I understand the series sponsor wanting exclusivity”, Burton said. “But it is confusing when Cingular is in here and Alltel is in here. What’s the problem with one more, or two more or three more? That’s difficult to understand. Something is either exclusive or it’s not. This is almost exclusive, or exclusive to some people. It doesn’t seem fair that Cingular and Alltel can be here but Sprint and AT& –T can’t.” Essentially, the immediate question is exclusivity. NASCAR has promised Nextel a modified version of exclusivity, because it was unable to offer complete exclusivity as R. J. Reynolds has had. But AT& –T officials are apparently not quite buying into the concept that NASCAR can allow three of the nation’s six cell-phone companies – Nextel, Alltel and Cingular – access to the stock-car racing field and yet not allow the other three. AT& –T has been in negotiations to put its wireless division on the quarterpanel as sponsor either for Jack Roush or Dale Earnhardt Inc. NASCAR has vetoed those plans. However, yesterday AT& –T officials decided to ‘make a stand’ about their company’s determination to stay involved in Winston Cup racing by expanding its sponsorship of Ken Schrader’s #49 car [see PR below] for this race. AT& –T has been a part-sponsor of that team, and AT& –T, through its Comcast division, has been a part-sponsor of both the Matt Kenseth and Burton teams. Geoff Smith, president of Roush Racing, has been negotiating with AT& –T to become full sponsor of Burton’s team, and Ty Norris, general manager at DEI, has been negotiating with AT& –T to become full sponsor of the #1 DEI team that features Jeff Green [looks like Pennzoil is out]. ‘We were in the final stages of negotiations with AT& –T Wireless,’ Norris said. ‘But we were quickly informed that if Nextel happens, that only the people who were already in the sport would be grandfathered in.”( Winston Salem Journal )(6-21-2002) UPDATE 2: hearing that Scott Riggs may be the new driver for the #1 DEI Chevy in 2004 if a sponsor is signed.(6-21-2003)
